US Jewish group seeks to ban Iran from Tokyo Olympics

The American Jewish Committee launches an online campaign to ban Iran from the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, citing its rights abuses.

“To allow Iran to participate in the Tokyo Games would be to signal approval of the country’s gross and systematic violations of human rights,” says the AJC letter to IOC President Thomas Bach. “Barring Iran would send a powerful message: that athletes are to be protected, that sport is to be practiced freely, and that discrimination and abuse by any country that is part of the Olympic family will not be tolerated. Only thus will the Olympic spirit, a spirit of peace, freedom, and coexistence, truly be upheld.”

The petition says: “Iran’s record of abuse in sports is just one area of an elaborate tapestry of wholesale violations of basic human rights carried out by the Islamic Republic against its own citizens.”