The Sport and Rights Alliance urged the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games Organising Committee to address the country's human rights issues ©Getty Images

The Sport and Rights Alliance has urged the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games Organising Committee to address the country's human rights issues in its sustainability plan.

Beijing 2022 released its sustainability plan in May, aligning the Games with the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

The Sport and Rights Alliance, a collection of global non-governmental organisations, said the document was "silent on human rights, labour standards, freedom of expression and association, LGBTI rights, media and internet freedom, rights to peaceful assembly and of association, transparency and anti-corruption."

It claimed a truly comprehensive sustainability plan would encompass specific commitments for the protection and promotion of freedom of association and other workers’ rights, as well as commitments to respect journalists’ and human rights defenders’ freedom of expression.

Beijing 2022's sustainability plan instead refers to national laws and standards, even though there are some areas in China where laws do not meet international human rights standards. 

"Beijing’s sustainability plan stands in stark contrast to the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) March commitment to respect and embed human rights in its operations," said Brendan Schwab, executive director of the World Players Association. 

"To fulfill its purpose, the sustainability plan needs to be integrated in a broader human rights due diligence process. 

"Any human rights strategy should include assessing actual and potential rights impacts, acting on the findings and being transparent about how to address serious human rights concerns right to protest."

The Sport and Rights Alliance also criticised the IOC for praising the sustainability plan. 

World Players Association executive director Brendan Schwab was among those to ask Beijing 2022 to include human rights issues in its sustainability plan ©Getty Images
World Players Association executive director Brendan Schwab was among those to ask Beijing 2022 to include human rights issues in its sustainability plan ©Getty Images

"The Beijing 2022 sustainability plan as it stands is a missed chance for the IOC to walk the talk, and to build back better by putting in practice the policies and public declaration it has widely portrayed in the media," said Sylvia Schenk, working group sport chair at Transparency International Germany.

"This is demonstrated by not even mentioning the IOC's responsibility to respect human rights."

Alongside the World Players Association and Transparency International Germany, the Sport and Rights Alliance also includes Amnesty International, the Committee to Protect Journalists, Football Supporters Europe, Human Rights Watch, the International Trade Union Confederation and UNI Global Union.

It is not the first time that Beijing 2022 has been criticised for failing to acknowledge human rights violations, with Florida Senator Rick Scott repeating a call for China to improve its record on human rights or face losing the Winter Olympics in April.

Last October, Scott sent a letter to the IOC detailing the human-rights abuses of Uighur Muslims in the province of Xinjiang, as well as the people of Hong Kong.

IOC President Thomas Bach replied saying that the IOC has to remain "politically neutral".

Scott then introduced a bipartisan resolution to the United States senate in March calling on the IOC to "rebid the 2022 Winter Olympics to be hosted by a country that recognises and respects human rights," if China did not demonstrate "significant progress in securing fundamental human rights" by January 2021. 

The Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics are set to take place from February 4 to 20.

When Beijing hosted the Summer Olympic Games in 2008, the global Torch Relay encountered protests over human rights abuses.