Activists say the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympic Games pose a serious threat to the environment, and urge the IOC to pay more attention to human rights and environmental issues in the Olympics host countries. Full Story: Human Rights Watch, Greenpeace, and Russian environmental groups are calling on the International Olympic Committee to pay more attention to environmental and human rights issues in the Games host countries. Representative of Greenpeace Russia, Mikhail Kreindlin, says the Olympic construction poses an enormous threat to the nature of the Caucasus, calling the infrastructure projects "commercial". Environmentalists say that under the pretext of Olympic construction, Russian authorities amended the legislation which now allows construction inside protected natural areas. Putin is expected to spend more than 50-billion dollars to show off Russia's modern face at the Games in Sochi, a Black Sea resort on the edge of the Caucasus Mountains. Moscow promised to set "new environmental standards" in Olympic construction. Complaints about construction, along with international concerns about gay rights and security, threaten Putin's efforts to improve Russia's image through the games. The Sochi 2014 organizing committee says construction has minimized harmful carbon emissions. Companies carrying out construction say they are sticking to their promises to meet international standards in protecting the environment. But some ecologists say the damage is only the beginning and that construction may have put the region under threat of potential ecological disasters, including poisoned drinking water and flooding. New York-based Human Rights Watch says local environmental activists have been harassed over their work. Human Rights Watch Deputy Director of the Europe and Central Asia Division, Rachel Denber, says what we now see in Sochi is the persecution of activists, in the context of Olympics security. In 2008, months after Putin won the right to hold the Games in Sochi, a U.N. environmental group paid a visit to the area. After meeting government ministers, Olympic contractor Olympstroy and local non-governmental groups, the delegation concluded the Olympic project was aimed at economic development "in which environmental aspects play only a minor role". Environmental experts say that Olympic construction which has consisted of pouring soil into lowland swamps helped cause the flooding that created a state of emergency in September. Russian environmentalist, Yevgenia Chirikova, says after the Beijing Olympics and the Russian Olympics, many European countries will conclude whether it is worth cooperating with the IOC. She says the Games is increasingly becoming less of a sports celebration, and more a celebration for officials and a show of the authorities' ambitions. Russian President Vladimir Putin has staked his personal and political prestige on February's Winter Olympics in the city of Sochi. If all goes according to plan, the costliest Games in history will be a showcase for Russia's achievements under Putin, the vindication of a six-year vanity project on a truly Soviet scale. For more news and videos visit ☛ http://ntdtv.org Follow us on Twitter ☛ http://twitter.com/NTDTelevision Add us on Facebook ☛ http://on.fb.me/s5KV2C

• published: 23 Jan 2014
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