Spectre of 1936 and 1980 haunts Beijing 2022 as fear and repression breed silence

China has been repressing minorities and targeting dissenters but anyone who chooses to speak out faces the threat of reprisal from a hostile regime

Zumretay Arkin is remembering the day she thought she might change the International Olympic Committee's mind. It was October 2020, and human rights groups, representing Uyghur Muslims, Tibetans, and the democracy movement in Hong Kong, were granted a meeting with senior IOC figures to discuss their concerns about the Winter Olympics in Beijing.

I explained how millions of Uyghurs are being arbitrarily detained in concentration camps," she says. The IOC was told survivors' stories of rapes and torture, forced sterilisation and repression. And about families who have not heard from relatives for years.