Jews mount China protests over Uighurs as Beijing Olympics start

Jewish groups target companies supporting the winter Olympics; Natan Sharansky and Bernard-Henri Levy sign NYT ad urging protest of Olympics

FULL STORY ‘Never again,’ for Uighurs: Jews ramping up China protests as Beijing Olympics start (Times of Israel)
ON A RECENT Friday afternoon, with the Beijing Olympic Games only three weeks away, Mischa Ushakov and Padma Wangyal chained themselves to the entrance of the Allianz insurance giant’s headquarters in Germany’s capital.

They had two demands: that Allianz “drop their sponsorship of the games in China and comment on the human rights abuses of the Chinese government,” Ushakov said.

“We gave them a one-week deadline,” he added.

Ushakov, 23, is a co-founder with Bini Guttmann of Never Again Right Now, a two-year-old Jewish group dedicated to raising awareness about China’s persecution of its Uyghur Muslim minority. Wangyal is a 73-year-old Tibetan exile; Never Again Right Now had joined forces with the Tibet Initiative Deutschland for the Allianz protest.

Natan Sharansky and Bernard-Henri Levy sign NYT ad urging protest of Beijing Olympics over Chinese persecution of Uighurs (Jewish Journal)

Photo: Members of Never Again Right Now protest at Allianz headquarters in Berlin, January 21 (Tibet Initiative Germany via JTA)