The following is from an article by Professor Bema Gyalpo of Takushoku University that appeared in yesterday's Sankei Shimbun titled "Diplomatic boycott: Japan also clarifies" about the pros and cons of the Beijing Olympics, which still makes no mention of human rights.
It is a must-read for the Japanese people and people around the world.
The emphasis in the text is mine.
At first, only Tibetan and Uyghur support organizations opposed to the Beijing Winter Olympics, but now, 180 human rights groups and organizations worldwide are appealing to their governments and the international community to show their opposition somehow.
Such a movement has further accelerated by the emergence of the issue of the safety of tennis player Peng Shuang, who confessed that she was forced to have sexual relations with a former member of China's supreme leadership.
It is really not good for Japan's image that only Japan does not have an apparent attitude.
Former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe often referred to freedom, democracy, and human rights as universal values. If they are universal values, we must speak out no matter what kind of country we are dealing with.
On the 9th and 10th of this month, it will hold a summit on democracy under the auspices of the U.S. government.
Prime Minister Kishida needs to show an apparent attitude to attend with confidence.
Although he has even appointed an assistant to the prime minister for international human rights affairs, it does not appear that the prime minister has made any clear statements at this point.
Rather than blaming only the government, I would like to ask the same question of those who call themselves human rights groups and liberals, as well as the media.
Strangely, celebrities, the sports world, and female Diet members of the opposition parties are silent on the issue of Ms. Peng, who made a fuss as if she were the head of an ogre by broadly interpreting the comments about women made by former Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori, who was the chairman of the Tokyo Organizing Committee for the Olympics and Paralympics.
Japan "reflects" on things like the "Nanjing Massacre," which may or may not have actually happened, but can it take a bystander's attitude toward the current genocide in Xinjiang and the cultural genocide which is equivalent to stealing the soul of a people by banning languages in Tibet, Southern Mongolia, and Uyghur?
Government policies reflect public opinion, especially in a democratic society.
I would also like to appeal to the common sense of the Japanese people.
