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Former Olympian, Activist Debate Beijing Boycott

With China's recent crackdown on Tibet and neighboring provinces following protests in the Tibetan capital, Beijing's record on human rights is once again in the spotlight. As host nation for this year's Summer Olympics, China is facing international condemnation and a potential boycott of the opening ceremonies.

Debating such a boycott are an International Olympic Committee member and a human rights activist.

International Olympic Committee member Anita DeFrantz — a U.S. rower who missed the 1980 Moscow games because of the U.S. boycott in protest of the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan — is opposed to a boycott. She says the games have forced China to be more open and drawn attention to its human rights record.

David Kilgour, a Canadian human rights lawyer and former member of parliament, says the games never should have been given to China. He supports a boycott of the opening ceremonies.

Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Robert Siegel
Prior to his retirement, Robert Siegel was the senior host of NPR's award-winning evening newsmagazine All Things Considered. With 40 years of experience working in radio news, Siegel hosted the country's most-listened-to, afternoon-drive-time news radio program and reported on stories and happenings all over the globe, and reported from a variety of locations across Europe, the Middle East, North Africa, and Asia. He signed off in his final broadcast of All Things Considered on January 5, 2018.