Lausanne, Switzerland ¨C Two Tibetan students chained themselves to the Olympic rings outside the headquarters of the International Olympic Committee on Saturday to call for an international boycott of next year¡¯s Winter Games.

The pair were part of the latest protest against the Games over Beijing¡¯s abuse of human rights and its treatment of minorities.

The United States will not send government officials to the 2022 Winter Olympics due to China¡¯s human rights ¡°atrocities,¡± it said earlier this month.

Members of the Tibetan Youth Association in Europe (TYAE) and Students for a Free Tibet held a sit-in at the IOC building in Lausanne as officials gathered for a meeting.

The activists demanded countries withdraw from the event they have called the ¡°Genocide Games,¡± which they say are being used to burnish China¡¯s reputation.

China seized control of Tibet after its troops entered the region in 1950 in what it calls a ¡°peaceful liberation.¡± Tibet has since become one of the most restricted areas in the country. Critics led by the Dalai Lama, the exiled spiritual leader, say Beijing¡¯s rule amounts to ¡°cultural genocide.¡±

Two activists unfurled a banner reading, ¡°No Beijing 2022,¡± over the building¡¯s entrance, while five students got inside and held a sit-in protest.

¡°Despite mounting international criticism of the IOC and China, the Chinese regime¡¯s human rights abuses in Tibet, East Turkestan, and Hong Kong continue unabated,¡± said protester Tenzing Dhokhar, campaigns director of TYAE.

¡°By collaborating with China, the IOC is making itself an accomplice of the Chinese Communist Party¡¯s crimes, which will be sports-washed by the Beijing Olympics.¡±

Police started removing the protesters after three hours. Organizers and a Reuters eyewitness described the protest as peaceful, but the IOC said one of its security guards was injured.

¡°The IOC always listens to all concerns that are directly related to the Olympic Games,¡± the IOC said in a statement. ¡°We have engaged multiple times with peaceful protesters and explained our position, but we will not engage with violent protesters who used force to enter the IOC building and injured a security guard by doing so.¡±

The organization has previously said it is a force for good and cannot have any influence over sovereign states.

Chinese authorities have been accused of facilitating forced labor by detaining around a million Uyghurs and other primarily Muslim minorities in camps since 2016.

China denies wrongdoing, saying it has set up vocational training center to combat extremism.