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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. […]
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 […]
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 […]
No ‘Dignity and Pride’ in World Cup Labor Abuses
FIFA Should Uphold Rights Responsibilities to Migrant Workers At a May 2 conference entitled “Managing the Beautiful Game,” FIFA President Gianni Infantino shockingly downplayed deaths and hardships of migrant workers in Qatar who have literally built the 2022 FIFA World Cup. In doing so, he reminded the world that preventable deaths and abuses of migrant workers in […]
As World Cup nears, Qatar and FIFA face fresh scrutiny on press freedom commitments
Exactly one year before the scheduled start of the 2022 football World Cup in Qatar, plainclothes officers from the Gulf state’s Criminal Investigations Department arrested Halvor Ekeland and Lokman Ghorbani, a sports reporter and cameraman respectively for Norwegian state broadcaster NRK, as they were leaving their hotel in the capital of Doha. The NRK journalists […]
Qatar: Security guards subjected to forced labour
Security guards in Qatar are working in conditions which amount to forced labour, including on projects linked to the 2022 FIFA World Cup, Amnesty International has found. In a new report, They think that we’re machines, the organization documented the experiences of 34 current or former employees of eight private security companies in Qatar. The security guards, all migrant […]
Iranian Society Pushes for End to Stadium Ban
Women Have a Right to Attend Sporting Events Iranian authorities once again prevented women and girls from entering a sports stadium. Iran’s football team played Lebanon in a FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 qualifying match in the city of Mashhad last week. But authorities prevented dozens of women who had reportedly purchased tickets for from entering the stadium. Additionally, […]
Iran: Women Blocked From Entering Stadium
Possible Use of Excessive Force; FIFA Should Enforce Call to End Discriminatory Ban (Beirut) – Iranian authorities prevented dozens of Iranian women from entering Imam Reza football stadium in the city of Mashhad on March 29, 2022, possibly using excessive force, Human Rights Watch said today. FIFA should use its leverage with Iranian authorities to demand that […]
New Year’s Revolution: Why 2022 will be a Wake-up Call for the World of Sport
The year 2022 will bring not one, not two, but three mega-sporting events in countries with problematic human rights records: the 2022 Winter Olympics in China, the 2021 FIFA Club World Cup in the United Arab Emirates, and the 2022 FIFA Men’s World Cup in Qatar. The idea that sport can and should remain politically […]