Big Sport and Small Minds

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A good friend of The Kick Project, Jared Genser, founder of the human rights activist group Freedom Now, alerted us to this piece he co-wrote with well-known Chinese dissident Yang Jianli, in the Wall Street Journal, on the sometimes fraught relationship between big sporting events and human rights. It's an issue that's dear to our hearts here, especially given the plight of migrant workers employed to help construct the facilities for the Qatar World Cup in 2022 (the same year as the Beijing Winter Olympics)

It's Important reading. Let's hope it focusses more attention on the negative impacts of big sport in relation to human rights and social justice so as to better harness the many positive outcomes sport can generate.

BEIJING OLYMPIC SCANDAL REDUX

August 7, 2015

Beijing has been selected to host the 2022 Winter Olympics, making it the first city tapped to host both the Summer and Winter Games. In deciding this, the International Olympic Committee has chosen to trust Chinese government assurances concerning human rights, even though Beijing’s record in preparing for the 2008 Olympics was deplorable. The IOC seems not to care.

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