Was watching a report that Olympic athletes are being advised by their various countries to not talk about or discuss or protest against things like the ongoing genocide that’s been happening in China (or any of the other ills going on there). I was just curious…can Olympic athletes be arrested or imprisoned or denied access to the games for doing things that are illegal in the host country? I assume they are, but that the bar would have to be pretty high for a host country to arrest or imprison them, though perhaps lower if the host country can just eject them from the games or send them home or something along those lines.
Ryan Lochte was nearly arrested for an incident at the 2016 Olympics, except he got out of the country before they could nab him. Two other athletes were removed from their flights & forced to testify. Lochte was later charged in absentia, though all charges were later dropped.
They don’t have diplomatic immunity and are fully subject to local law (strictly speaking, so are diplomats, by the way - their immunity shields them from enforcement measures of local authorities but they remain bound by local law in substance). The only thing that protects them is the higher risk of international outcry, and the bad PR that comes with them, if they are arrested or ejected for no good reason. That might make local authorities reluctant to go against them. But legally they don’t enjoy immunity.
Indeed - athletes getting arrested is considered bad PR not just for the athlete and their home country but for the host country of the games, who want to convey the image of a trouble-free event. They will avoid any sort of censure if they can avoid it and may look the other way on misdemeanors to keep them under the radar.
Ironically, in Lochte’s case he and his colleagues got into trouble for claiming that trouble had happened when it apparently hadn’t, or at least hadn’t happened as claimed.
Perhaps worth adding that ancient Greece had the tradition of the “Olympic truce”, which required both a suspension of hostilities for the duration of the Games and free passage for athletes to and from Olympia. There is IOC and UN support for the idea, but it has no legal status and is not universally observed.
It’s hard to say how China (well, the CCP) would or will react to any sort of criticism that some of the athletes might show during the games. Just the Where is Peng Shuai? tee shirts might be enough to get some of them into hot water, let alone anything about the Uighur genocide or other topics. On the one side, it’s pretty obvious that the CCP wants these games to go well. It’s a great propaganda coup for them, after all. On the other side, they do tend to be heavy-handed at times and do really really stupid stuff. Hopefully, the athletes from the various western countries are getting good advice from their national team admins and countries to go easy and save the criticism until they get home. Sucks that they have to do that, but realistically it’s their best bet.
At any rate, appreciate the answering of the question. It’s what I thought, but good to get confirmation.