Appeal of the International Athlete Rights Association to the International Olympic Committee and International Sports Federations.
12.11.2022Appeal of the International Athlete Rights Association to the International Olympic Committee and International Sports Federations.
The Executive Committee of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in February 2022 recommended that international sports federations and organizers of sporting events not invite or allow the participation of Russian and Belarusian athletes in international competitions in connection with the military events in Ukraine. According to the IOC, citizens of Russia or Belarus can also compete in international competitions only as neutral athletes and only if they condemn the actions of the Russian army in Ukraine.
These recommendations were supported by the majority of international sports federations. Almost all international sports competitions have been canceled in Russia, including the World Cup in cross-country skiing, the World Chess Olympiad, the Ice Hockey World Championship in St. Petersburg and the International Student Games in Yekaterinburg. Russian and Belarusian athletes will not take part in the FIFA and UEFA World Football Championships, in all international ice hockey competitions. As a result of these recommendations of the IOC, significant material and moral damage was caused to Russian and Belarusian sports, and the sports careers of many outstanding national athletes were destroyed.
The International Olympic Committee announced a boycott of Russian and Belarusian sports de facto. We remember the political boycott of the Olympic Games in Moscow in 1980 and Los Angeles in 1984, we remember the anti-racist boycott of South African athletes. However, we do not remember that sanctions in sports were applied on such a scale against a significant number of athletes on purely political and ethnic grounds.
Russian and Belarusian athletes are actually offered to give up their belonging to the Motherland, where they were born, grew up, where their parents and children live, relatives and close people are buried. They are also deprived of the right to express an alternative opinion on the events related to the war in Ukraine. This opinion can be different, both in support of the war and against it. However, no one has the right to force athletes to abandon this opinion or change this opinion in accordance with international law.
We are forced to state that, contrary to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (adopted by the UN General Assembly on December 10, 1948), the IOC and international sports federations violate the rights of Russian and Belarusian athletes, because trying to change their status due to their belonging to specific countries (Article 2 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights). Russian and Belarusian athletes are also illegally deprived of their right to be citizens of their countries and to have the right to freedom of their beliefs (Articles 15 and 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights).
It is not clear to us, for example, why Russian athletes, if they are allowed to participate in international competitions, must walk in neutral clothes under neutral flags, listen to neutral anthems and, due to this circumstance, belong to the category of inferior or “second-class” athletes. Who authorized the IOC to make such political and unfounded legal decisions? In our opinion, the IOC violated political neutrality and the requirements of the Olympic Charter, according to which every athlete has the right to access sport without being subjected to any political and ethnic discrimination, as well as due to the presence of his own opinion (Olympic Charter, Fundamental Principles of Olympism, 2022).
We do not understand why athletes should be responsible for the actions of politicians? What is their fault? Why are athletes divided into "bad" and "good" depending on their belonging to specific countries? Athletes from what "bad" countries will be subject to the next political and ethnic segregation? Maybe it will be Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba or China? And will such boycotts not lead to the final destruction of the Olympic Movement and international sports? We do not find answers to these questions in the current activities of the Executive Committee of the International Olympic Committee.
In our opinion, there is no reasonable and legal explanation for these actions from the point of view of international and sports law. We view these sanctions by the International Olympic Committee and international sports federations against Russian and Belarusian athletes as deliberate ethnic segregation and political discrimination. In our opinion, the International Olympic Committee is acting contrary to the fundamental principles of the Olympic movement, which aim to preserve peace on earth and unite athletes in our planet on the basis of political neutrality and autonomy of the international sports movement. The decisions of the IOC not only discriminate against Russian and Belarusian athletes, but also split the unity of international sport.
The recommendations of the IOC contradict the peaceful essence of the Olympic movement and the sacred Olympic truce established by the will of the Gods. (Greek ékécheiria). We all know that in Ancient Greece, during the period of the Olympic Games, hostilities ceased, the warriors took off their weapons and began to peacefully compete with each other. No one asked these warriors whether they like or dislike their rulers, whether they are for or against wars, they were simply offered to start sports competitions in the spirit of peace and friendship. Together they received award wreaths and together participated in the final feast dedicated to God Zeus. At the Olympic stadiums, residents of the warring states peacefully communicated with each other. As a result, often fratricidal wars after such Olympic Games in Greece quickly ended.
We call on the International Olympic Committee and international sports federations to stop the politicization of international sports, revive the spirit of the Olympic Truce and return international sports to the mainstream of peace and friendship of peoples, to allow all warring parties to enter sports arenas with their flag and anthem and without any preconditions, to promote the unification of athletes, preserving the unity of world sport and ending fratricidal and civil wars.
We call on Ukrainian and Russian athletes to follow the example of the ancient Hellenes, forget hatred, resentment and enmity, take off their weapons and show the whole world and all the politicians of the world that peaceful competitions and negotiations are always possible and that ordinary athletes and ordinary people can negotiate peace better than politicians, coexist peacefully together and live without wars and violence.
We call on politicians around the world to stop their insane actions to unleash a third world war, political discrimination and ethnic segregation and isolation of peoples, not to turn sport into a tool for political struggle and humiliation of the national dignity of athletes and into a platform for manifesting their selfish and ambitious geopolitical desires.
We call on all politicians of the world to resume a peaceful dialogue in the name of saving humanity and maintaining peace on our beautiful and fragile planet, given to us by God and the Universe.
Back to the list