Campaigners have hailed Meredith Alexander's decision to quit the London Olympics' ethics watchdog over Dow Chemicals' sponsorship of the Games as “bold” and “principled.”
“By speaking the truth so boldly Meredith has nailed Dow Chemical's lies that the London Olympic Committee and its Chairman Lord Coe believed and propagated till recently. We hope this will make the organisers dump Dow Chemical as a sponsor of the London Games,” said Rashida Bee, president of the Bhopal Gas Women's Workers group.
Amnesty International called it a “brave” stand.
“Meredith Alexander has made a brave and principled stand…It is a shame that her concerns, like ours, have fallen on deaf ears,” its U.K. director Kate Allen said.
Barry Gardiner, a senior Labour MP and chairman of the Labour Friends of India, said: “Meredith has had the courage to stand up and say what everybody should have known all along; that Dow Chemicals were not a suitable partner for a Games that has prided itself on being the most sustainable ever.”
London Mayor Boris Johnson, who had appointed Ms. Alexander to the Commission in 2010, called her decision “sad” and said he hoped “very much that she could be made to think again”.
