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CPJ Safety Advisory: Covering the 2022 World Cup
The 2022 FIFA World Cup takes place in Qatar from November 20 to December 18, the first World Cup to be held in the Arab world, and said to be the biggest sporting event held in the Middle East. Journalists working in the small nation bordering Saudi Arabia have faced digital security threats, legal issues, and […]
Qatar: Security Forces Arrest, Abuse LGBT People
Discrimination, Ill-Treatment in Detention, Privacy Violations, Conversion Practices (Beirut) – Qatar Preventive Security Department forces have arbitrarily arrested lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people and subjected them to ill-treatment in detention, Human Rights Watch said today. LGBT people interviewed said that their mistreatment took place as recently as September 2022, as Qatar prepared to host the 2022 […]
Qatar: Global survey shows overwhelming demand for FIFA to compensate World Cup migrant workers
Almost three-quarters (73%) polled across 15 countries support proposal that FIFA use World Cup revenues to compensate workers who suffered in the preparation of the tournament More than two-thirds (67%) want their national Football Associations to speak out publicly about the human rights issues associated with the 2022 Qatar World Cup FIFA should establish […]
Momentum Grows for FIFA to Remedy Migrant Worker Abuses in Qatar
At 100 Days to World Cup, Athletes and Federation Leaders Back Action With the 2022 World Cup 100 days away, professional footballers, football association (FA) leaders, and fan groups are joining the #PayUpFIFA campaign by human rights groups and unions to demand FIFA and Qatari authorities remedy serious migrant worker abuses, including through financial compensation, ahead of the tournament. […]
Olympics: IOC Heeds Calls to Embed Rights
Now Must Engage Stakeholders and Add Human Rights to Olympic Charter (Nyon, Switzerland, June 7, 2022) — The International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) progress update released on May 20, 2022 is an important step towards adopting a desperately needed human rights strategic framework, the Sport & Rights Alliance said today. The move follows decades of calls […]
Cameroon sports journalist Eyong Macdella Bessong assaulted over accreditation card dispute
Dakar, May 26, 2022–Cameroonian authorities must identify and hold to account the policeman who assaulted journalist Eyong Macdella Bessong while she was covering a May 18 football match in Buea, the capital of the Southwest Region, and should hold accountable the stadium official who manhandled her and asked police to remove her from the property, […]
On Your Marks, Set…STOP! Understanding and Ending Sextortion in Sport
Sextortion – defined broadly as the abuse of power to obtain a sexual benefit – is pervasive and widespread. It occurs across the globe and in many sectors, including education, the police, the courts, the civil service, refugee camps, passport control and many others. Survivors/victims can suffer serious, sometimes life-changing, consequences. These include loss of […]
Qatar: Joint letter to Gianni Infantino regarding remedy for labour abuses
Joint letter urging Mr Gianni Infantino, FIFA President, to work with the Qatar government, trade unions, the International Labour Organization (ILO) and other actors to establish a comprehensive programme to ensure all labour abuses to which FIFA contributed are remedied, and to set aside appropriate financial resources. View Report in English
FIFA: Time to Compensate Migrant Workers in Qatar
Qatar hit the headlines in December 2010 when football’s world governing body FIFA awarded it the right to host the 2022 men’s football World Cup, the first to be held in the Middle East. It was clear that a global event of this magnitude would mean Qatar would need to deploy immense resources and rely […]
Child Labour in Sport: Protecting the Rights of Child Athletes
This White Paper is focused specifically on the work of children in, or on the pathway to, elite (high- performance and professional) sport, and the experiences of children and the situations they may encounter that are analogous to child labour. Although children in high-performance and professional sport are not included in the current understanding and […]
FIFA: Pay for Harm to Qatar’s Migrant Workers
Global Coalition Calls for Financial Remedy for Deaths, Wage Theft (London) – Hundreds of thousands of migrant workers in Qatar have not received financial compensation or any other adequate remedy for serious labor abuses suffered while building and servicing infrastructure for the FIFA World Cup, which begins in November 2022, Human Rights Watch said today. On May […]
Germany: At the Tipping Point for Human Rights & Sport
German Bundestag’s Public Hearing Represents Opportunity to Walk the Talk (Nyon, Switzerland, 11 May, 2022) — As the German Bundestag’s Committee on Human Rights and Humanitarian Aid holds its first-ever public hearing on human rights and sport, civil society organizations and athlete representative groups such as the Sport & Rights Alliance, World Players Association, Transparency […]