Qatar has been hit by an “unprecedented campaign” of criticism over its hosting of the football World Cup, its ruler Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani said Tuesday, calling the attacks “defamation”
Qatar has been hit by an” unknown crusade” of review over the football World Cup, its sovereign said Tuesday, lashing out at” double norms” in a fierce disproof just weeks before the event starts. The energy-rich and conservative Islamic Gulf state has spent knockouts of billions of bones
on hosting the first FIFA World Cup on Arab soil, but has faced mounting attacks over its mortal rights record. In a rare public airing of frustration, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al- Thani said Qatar was the victim of” fabrications”, intimating at retired motives behind the review.
” Since we won the honour of hosting the World Cup, Qatar has been subordinated to an unknown crusade that no host country has faced,” he said in a speech to the country’s legislative council, 26 days from the November 20 kick- off.
FIFA awarded the World Cup to an Arab country for the first time after a contentious bidding process in 2010. Qatar has since faced constant scrutiny over its treatment of foreign workers as well as LGBTQ and women’s rights.
This week, the government angrily rejected a report by the Human Rights Watch group which said police have arbitrarily detained and abused members of the LGBTQ community ahead of the World Cup.
The emir said Qatar had originally accepted negative commentary” in good faith” and” indeed considered that some review was positive and useful, helping us to develop aspects that need to be developed.
” But it soon came clear to us that the crusade continues, expands and includes fabrications and double norms, until it reached an quantum of ferocity that made numerous wonder, unfortunately, about the real reasons and motives behind this crusade,” he said.
Great test for Qatar’
The 29- day World Cup is anticipated to bring further than one million foreign suckers to Qatar, a small, gas-rich promontory of lower than three million people.
The emir said the event was a chance for Qatar to show” who we are, not only in terms of the strength of our frugality and institutions, but also in terms of our civilisational identity.
” This is a great test for a country the size of Qatar that impresses the whole world with what it has formerly achieved.”
Homosexuality is illegal in Qatar and critics point out that women’s rights are confined by manly custodianship laws.
But the Gulf state has faced particular attention over the foreign workers who have erected the structure for Qatar’s profitable phenomenon.
Nonnatives make up more than2.5 million of the2.9 million population.
Conditions on construction spots were long condemned by transnational unions– ranging from safety norms to hours worked in the searing summer temperatures.
Rights groups including HRW and Amnesty International have claimed that Qatar and FIFA should do further to compensate workers who failed or suffered injury on Qatar’s mega systems.
They’ve demanded that FIFA set up a$ 440 million compensation fund– equalling the World Cup prize plutocrat.
But reforms have been praised by the union leaders who preliminarily fought the government.
After a visit this week, Luca Visentini, clerk general of the European Trade Union Confederation, told AFP that further work needs to be done on perpetration of reforms but that Qatar should be seen as” a success story”.
” The World Cup was really an occasion to accelerate change and these reforms can constitute a good illustration to be extended to other countries that host major sports events,” he said.
FIFA leader Gianni Infantino has defended Qatar and said the World Cup will be the” stylish ever, on and off the field”. Know More FIFA News…
