VANK launches campaign against IOC

A poster made by the Voluntary Agency Network of Korea (VANK) to criticize the International Olympic Committee (IOC) for contradictory decisions on the use of politically controversial images in Olympic promotions / Courtesy of VANK

By Park Han-sol

The Voluntary Agency Network of Korea (VANK), a civic organization working to promote understanding of Korean culture and history online, has criticized the International Olympic Committee (IOC) for its inconsistent and contradictory decisions on the use of the Dokdo islets in Olympic promotions by Korea and Japan.

According to the group, Tuesday, it launched a global campaign recently to challenge the IOC's inconsistent interpretation of the Olympic Charter Rule 50(2), which states “No kind of demonstration or political, religious or racial propaganda is permitted in any Olympic sites, venues or other areas.”

The organization took issue with the committee's conflicting decision on the Dokdo islets, over which Korea has sovereignty but Japan has made repeated territorial claims. The IOC banned the marking of Dokdo in the Korean Unification flag during the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics, while allowing the islets to appear as Japanese territory on the 2020 Tokyo Olympic torch relay map, according to VANK.

It also claimed the IOC allowed discriminatory expressions against the Olympic spirit by permitting the Rising Sun Flag, a symbol of Japan's imperial past, to appear in the 2020 Olympics.

“The IOC is arbitrarily interpreting and executing the charter rules to suit the tastes of the sponsors of the Games in order to better sell the 'product' named Olympics,” VANK said in its petition, calling for more clearly defined and restrictive rules.

The group also started a global online petition over the charter rule issue on change.org.

“Last year, we sent an email to the IOC along with our petition requesting it ban the use of the Rising Sun flag at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, which drew more than 67,000 signatures. We only received an answer saying that the flag does not constitute a political act prohibited by Rule 50(2) but were not given any specific reason. We realized that the committee does not have a clearly set standard and makes political decisions based on Olympic sponsors and conglomerates,” Kim Hyeon-jong of the group's global petition team told The Korea Times.

“When the 2020 Olympics was postponed for one year due to COVID-19, that became an opportunity for us to bring change through a global petition to raise the awareness of the international community.”