Rainbow flags could be taken from fans at the World Cup in Qatar to protect them from being attacked for promoting gay rights, a senior leader overseeing security for the tournament told The Associated Press.
Major General Abdulaziz Abdullah Al Ansari insisted that LGBTQ couples would be welcomed and accepted in Qatar for the Nov. 21-Dec. 18 FIFA showpiece despite same-sex relations remaining criminalized in the conservative Gulf nation.
But Al Ansari is against the overt promotion of LGBTQ freedoms as symbolized by the rainbow flag that FIFA and World Cup organizers had previously said would be welcome across Qatar’s eight stadiums.
“If he (a fan) raised the rainbow flag and I took it from him, it’s not because I really want to, really, take it, to really insult him, but to protect him,” Al Ansari told the AP. “Because if it’s not me, somebody else around him might attack (him) … I cannot guarantee the behavior of the whole people. And I will tell him: ‘Please, no need to really raise that flag at this point.’”
Al Ansari is director of the Department of International Cooperation and Chairman of the National Counterterrorism Committee at the Ministry of Interior where he discussed World Cup planning for an hour with the AP.
“You want to demonstrate your view about the (LGBTQ) situation, demonstrate it in a society where it will be accepted,” he said. “We realize that this man got the ticket, comes here to watch the game, not to demonstrate, a political (act) or something which is in his mind.
“Watch the game. That’s good. But don’t really come in and insult the whole society because of this.”
FIFA President Gianni Infantino said this week in Doha that “everyone will see that everyone is welcome here in Qatar, even if we speak about LGBTQ.”
Al Ansari said he is not telling LGBTQ fans to stay away from Qatar or warning them of facing prosecution.
“Reserve the room together, sleep together — this is something that’s not in our concern,” he said. “We are here to manage the tournament. Let’s not go beyond, the individual personal things which might be happening between these people … this is actually the concept.
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“Here we cannot change the laws. You cannot change the religion for 28 days of World Cup.”
When it was pointed out that visiting fans and teams could take offense to the comments, Al Ansari said he did not view himself as being discriminatory.
“I am risking … a minority view against a majority,” he said. “We have to be close to the problem before it erupts and gets out of control. … If somebody attacks you, then I have to get involved and it will be too late.”
FIFA chief social responsibility and education officer Joyce Cook told the AP in 2020 that “rainbow flags, T-shirts will all be welcome in the stadium — that’s a given. They understand very well that is our stance.” World Cup chief executive Nasser Al-Khater also said “we will respect” FIFA guidelines on allowing rainbow flags.
But Al Ansari’s comments about the confiscation of fans’ rainbow flags have created confusion for activists, including Chris Paouros, a member of the English Football Association’s inclusion advisory board and trustee with the anti-discrimination group, Kick It Out, which want a safe and inclusive tournament.
“This inconsistency and the continued lack of detail in terms of how that will be provided beyond the rhetoric of ‘everyone is welcome’ is concerning to say the least,” Paouros said.
The FARE network, which monitors games for discrimination, called for the freedoms of fans to be respected at the World Cup.
“The idea that the flag, which is now a recognized universal symbol of diversity and equality, will be removed from people to protect them will not be considered acceptable, and will be seen as a pretext,” FARE executive director Piara Powar said. “I have been to Qatar on numerous occasions and do not expect the local Qatari population or fans visiting for the World Cup to be attacked for wearing the rainbow flag. The bigger danger comes from state actions.”
Proponents of restrictions on how U.S. public schools address sexual orientation and gender identity say their ultimate goal is to allow parents more involvement in their children’s education and ensure classroom materials are age-appropriate.
But in heated debates at school board meetings and in statehouses across the country, the argument they repeatedly put forth is that they are trying to prevent children from being “groomed” — the same term commonly used to describe how sex offenders initiate contact with their victims.
“They support injecting woke gender ideology into 2nd grade classrooms,” he added. “They support enabling schools to ‘transition students’ to a ‘different gender’ without the knowledge of the parent … without the parent’s consent.”
DeSantis never uttered the word “groom,” but his press secretary, Christina Pushaw, remarked on Twitter that the legislation dubbed by opponents as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill would be more accurately described as an “Anti-Grooming Bill.”
The use of the term is an attempt to distort the goal of teachers “who are being intentional about expressing their acceptance of LGBTQ people, or perhaps sharing their own stories … so that all students can know that they have representation within the school,” said Casey Pick, a senior fellow for advocacy and government affairs at the Trevor Project, a nonprofit that provides support services for LGBTQ youth.
Asked why she used it, Pushaw replied in an email to The Associated Press, “I have never stated that all groomers are LGBT, all LGBT people are groomers, or anything of that nature.” She did not elaborate.
In Tennessee, country music singer John Rich testified in front of lawmakers that school librarians who defend controversial books about gender identity and featuring LGBTQ characters “groom” children to become desensitized to sexual abuse and pornography.
“What’s the difference between a teacher, a librarian putting one of these books on the desk of a student, or a guy in a white van pulling up when school lets out, saying, ‘Come around kids, let me read you this book?’” Rich asked last month. “What’s the difference between those two scenarios? There is a difference. They can run away from the van.”
An Oklahoma school choice advocacy blog, Choice Remarks, shared an article on its Facebook page alleging that public schools are sexualizing children. “Groomers are gonna groom,” the group declared in comments accompanying the article. “The solution is educational choice.”
When the New York State Education Department tweeted a book recommendation of Maia Kobabe’s graphic novel “Gender Queer: A Memoir,” the agency was attacked online as providing “pornographic” material to children, as well as “grooming” and “preying” on them. The agency later deleted the tweet.
DeSantis and other conservative politicians and parents who have criticized schools’ use of books with sexually explicit material argue that parents, not teachers, should be broaching such subjects with their children.
The main point of the Florida law is that it “empowers parents to be engaged in their children’s lives,” said Republican Rep. Joe Harding, who sponsored the legislation. At Monday’s signing ceremony, a placard affixed to the speakers’ podium and signs held up by young children featured the slogan “Protect Children/Support Parents.”
But Catherine Oakley, state legislative director and senior counsel at Human Rights Campaign, an LGBTQ advocacy group based in Washington, D.C., said conservative groups are capitalizing on the fear of unknown materials, books and discussion taking place inside classrooms to propel measures that would place more “surveillance” on teachers, librarians and other educators.
These groups “are really coming from this idea that sexual orientation (and) gender identity is something that’s being imposed upon kids,” Oakley said. “It comes from just a really fundamentally wrong position about where a person’s LGBTQ identity comes from.”
The current trend to limit the teaching of sexual orientation and gender identity echoes similar campaigns of the 1970s in which far-right religious groups characterized people who identified as LGBTQ as trying to “convert children,” said Sophie Bjork-James, an assistant professor at Vanderbilt University who researches the U.S.-based religious right and the white nationalist movement. The accusation helped stall the expansion of civil rights for sexual minorities, Bjork-James said.
Brittany McBride, associate director of sexuality education at Advocates for Youth, a nonprofit that promotes adolescent sexual health and rights, sees a coordinated effort to create discomfort in school districts across the country, the result of which is to limit the education that students can receive.
“Adult discomfort has always seemed to take the priority over the rights and responsibility as a society to provide our young people with the information that they deserve,” McBride said.
Waking up in a car parked on a muddy alleyway 30 minutes from the front lines of the Battle for Kharkiv was an inconceivable notion to me 3 days ago. Yet in the front seat of a beaten down Jeep Cherokee, I slept. Artillery blasts and other sounds of war created a cacophony of destruction throughout the night. However, in a world where a former US President is refusing to outright condemn the barbaric and terroristic actions unleashed by the tyrannical head of Russia against a steadfast ally, and an out transgender journalist is at the front lines of the major European land war in 2022, is anything truly inconceivable?
No.
More than six years ago, pre-transition, I embarked on an attempt to cover the “Syrian Refugee Crisis.” Beginning in Turkey, and then heading into the Balkans, I crossed Europe, ending my voyage on the shores of the English Channel by spending several days in Calais, France inside the sprawling migrant encampment known as “The Jungle.”
In total, I went overland across 11 countries following the stories of these displaced peoples from Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan, as well as several African nations, while also examining a European Union which was both unprepared and unwilling to fully integrate them into their societies. Ultimately, the book that came from it, Along the Tracks of Tears, was a woefully incomplete look into the lives of those whom I set out to report on, and this failure by me to dive fully into the deepest crevices of their torment is something that had haunted me ever since.
In 2015, I eagerly accepted the opportunity to go into Syria and speak directly with some of those fleeing from their home soil during the civil war there. Going so far as to cross the Bosphorus Strait and travel deep into the eastern part of Turkey, fear eventually swept over me. I caved to concerns of being kidnapped or killed and abruptly canceled my plans. Pangs of regret began to fill me from almost the moment of turning around, weighing heavily on my work.
Another aspect of that sojourn that gnawed at me was living as a male during my travels. At the time, pretending to be a guy wasn’t anything new. I’d lived as one for almost 40 years at that point, but guilt over the lie had begun to impede all of my undertakings, an impediment magnified by being given space among the majority Muslim male refugees who I presume would otherwise have shunned the true me. And so my publication, weighed down by those two burdens, fell far short of what it could have been.
Years passed.
An apartment building bombed in Kharkiv, Ukraine early overnight on March 16. Sarah Ashton-Cirillo
In the time since, much has happened to me personally and professionally. I published a novel, finally transitioned, and eventually became heavily involved in Nevada politics, the last area leading to the launch of a politics and news portal focused on the state.
Then in 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine and with that arose an opportunity to create a follow-up to my 2015-2016 coverage of the previous European refugee crisis – and this time attempt to do it right.
Beginning in Poland and then crossing into Ukraine, before eventually traversing the Ukrainian countryside, I arrived at the front, intent on learning about every aspect of what the victims of the invasion are enduring through photography, interviews, and personal observation. Along the way, I also realized the stories I uncovered, and the intertwined narratives which wove them together, were both much deeper and broader than I’d initially comprehended.
That first night we took cover in the darkness, camouflaged against a sky offering a canopy of infinite blackness because it was simply too dangerous to traverse the city streets after curfew. As soon as the light of morning peaked, we headed into the ravaged city, checkpoint after checkpoint lining the streets. While in many areas of Ukraine the blockaded streets are manned by volunteers from the Territorial Defense Forces, those asking for documents in Kharkiv are members of the professional, full-time, Ukrainian Armed Forces. Though we were stopped at an innumerable number of checkpoints on the more than 1,000 km drive through the nation’s heartland, the last search, the last flash of my credentials upon entering the city’s center, was truly the most poignant. It separated me from reading about war, and having listened to it, to witnessing it.
After being waved through into the downtown corridor, destruction enveloped me. Burnt out vehicles, blown out windows, decimated apartment buildings, and deep craters all pocked the landscape. Death too was present.
And yet residents of Kharkiv moved deftly around these reminders of war crimes and terrorism, lining up to get medicine, buy food, and withdraw money from banks, as life continued through 24 hours a day of enemy bombardment and Ukrainian counter-offensives.
The apartment I procured while at the frontlines promised to offer an expansive visage of the city. It didn’t disappoint, but as I quickly learned life at war changes hourly, and so I’ve spent a total of three hours in the accommodations since I arrived here.
Around 6 pm on my second evening, the group I’m embedded with decided to take cover for the evening in a restaurant, and the same on our third. Chairs, some blankets, a pillow, and contagious amounts of patriotic courage from my hosts have helped me find sleep during the explosive nights.
Operating as a hub of activity for various security services, the restaurant is now the location where I work, eat, sleep, and digest the toll that the Russian invasion has taken on the population of Ukraine and the global community as a whole.
Two weeks have gone by since I’ve arrived in Europe and 10 days since I entered a nation during the throes of war. In that short span, a realization settled in.
I’m not the same writer. I’m not the same photographer. I’m not the same person.
I came to Ukraine to cover a refugee crisis, I’m now reporting on a war.
When FIFA convenes its 72nd Congress in Doha, Qatar, on March 31, 2022, in preparation for the World Cup, journalists, football associations, fans, and others should press both FIFA officials and Qatari authorities about human rights in the Gulf state, particularly the rights of migrant workers, women, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people.
Since 2010, human rights organizations, trade unions, and media have consistently documented the rampant human rights abuses in the country, especially against migrant workers, including widespread wage theft, high recruitment fees, unexplained deaths, and passport confiscation, among others. While Qatar has introduced several reforms with much fanfare, they came too late, have proven to be woefully inadequate, and are poorly enforced. Similarly, the authorities have made no serious reforms to the severe discrimination in law and practice against women and LGBT people.
Despite repeated warnings and concrete evidence of rights violations, FIFA has not used its leverage or authority to pressure Qatar to follow through on its reform promises. Instead, FIFA has covered up for Qatar’s slow progress and championed the authorities’ reform narrative built around worker welfare that clearly does not reflect the reality for migrant workers.
FIFA has also failed to effectively push back on other repressive laws on press freedom, LGBT rights, and women’s rights. Not only has FIFA been a dismal steward for protecting and promoting human rights in Qatar, failing to use its leverage to truly push for football as a “force for good,” but it has also failed to fulfill its own human rights obligations under the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (the Guiding Principles) that were adopted in 2016. As per the Guiding Principles, FIFA should step up and make reparations to the thousands of migrant workers or their families who experienced abuses, including unexplained deaths, to make the World Cup 2022 possible.
The FIFA decision to award Qatar with hosting the 2022 World Cup has been itself mired in controversy, starting with US Department of Justice allegations that FIFA officials were bribed to award Qatar the 2022 World Cup. FIFA made the decision despite the country’s poor human rights record and its massive infrastructure deficit, knowing it would rest on vulnerable migrant workers to build.
In March 2022, Human Rights Watch reported that workers at Bin Omran Trading and Contracting (BOTC), a prominent Qatari trading and construction firm, had not received their salaries for up to five months. BOTC’s projects include landscaping and underground utility works for Al Bayt Stadium, where the opening match will be held.
Indeed, Human Rights Watch research reveals that wage theft remains a systemic failure in Qatar with many employers getting away with it. Workers are still forced to pay exorbitant recruitment fees to secure jobs in Qatar, between US$700 and $2,600. This means they are already in debt before they arrive in Qatar, making them vulnerable to abuse and debt bondage.
Companies often withhold contractually guaranteed overtime payments and end-of-service benefits, and they regularly violate their contracts with migrant workers with impunity. In the worst cases, workers said, employers have simply stopped paying their wages, and the workers have often struggled to buy food.
Such abuses persist despite several reforms that Qatar has introduced since 2015 to improve wage protection for migrant workers. The government’s Wage Protection System (WPS), designed to ensure that workers receive their salaries through direct bank transfer by the seventh day of every month, allows the government to monitor wage payments and to impose sanctions on employers for noncompliance.
The Worker’s Support and Insurance Fund, which became fully operational in 2020, was established specifically to ensure that workers are paid wages they are owed when companies fail to pay or go out of business.
However, Human Rights Watch found that the Wage Protection System does little to protect wages and can be better described as a wage monitoring system with significant gaps in its oversight capacity. The authorities have yet to fully dismantle the causes for wage theft, which lie with the kafala (sponsorship) system; deceptive recruitment practices including high recruitment fees; and business practices including the so-called “pay when paid” clause, which allows the subcontractor to delay payments to workers until the subcontractor is paid and leaves migrant workers vulnerable to payment delays in supply chain hierarchies.
Had Qatar addressed the real causes of wage theft and had its announced reforms been well enforced, the WPS would have flagged companies like BOTC, which would have faced sanction, while workers would have been paid in a timely manner using the Workers Support and Insurance Fund. Instead, unpaid workers have been protesting collectively despite the risks, given that Qatar prohibits worker strikes.
One of the most prominent rights issues since Qatar was awarded the World Cup hosting rights in 2010 is the unexplained deaths of thousands of migrant workers.
Despite the global attention and consistent pressure on Qatari authorities for transparency, they have failed to publicize sufficient data on worker deaths. The numbers in the public discourse therefore vary widely. Qatari authorities say that the number of non-Qatari deaths between 2010 and 2019 is 15,021 for all ages, occupations, and causes. But because the data is neither disaggregated nor comprehensive, it is difficult to do any meaningful analysis on migrant worker deaths.
A Guardian investigation shows that between 2010 to 2020, there were over 6,751 deaths in Qatar of people from just five South Asian countries, which were neither categorized by occupation nor place of work. According to a recently commissioned report by the International Labour Organization (ILO), there were 50 work-related deaths in Qatar in 2020, and these have been disaggregated by key characteristics such as places of injury and death and the underlying cause where available.
Despite the widespread criticism, the authorities have dragged their feet in making comprehensive data on deaths of migrant workers publicly available. FIFA, too, has not used its leverage to push for more transparency around migrant deaths, but instead made erroneous remarks about them. According to media reports, FIFA President Gianni Infantino has even suggested that there have been just three work-related deaths in FIFA stadiums in Qatar, an incredible claim that is lower than even what Qatari authorities have announced.
According to the Guardian investigation, 69 percent of the deaths of migrant workers from India, Nepal, and Bangladesh between 2010 and 2020 were attributed to “natural causes.” A fifth of the 50 work-related deaths from 2020 were attributed to “unknown causes,” the ILO reported. According to Qatar’s Supreme Committee’s Workers’ Welfare progress reports, 18 of the 33 fatalities recorded between October 2015 and October 2019 attribute the cause of death to “natural causes,” “cardiac arrest,” or “acute respiratory failure,” terms that obscure the underlying cause of deaths, such as heat stress, and make it impossible to determine whether they may be related to working conditions.
When deaths are attributed to “natural causes” and categorized as non-work-related, Qatar’s labor law denies families compensation, leaving many of them destitute in the absence of their often-sole income provider. For a country with a highly advanced healthcare system, it is unfathomable that transparent data on worker deaths is not available and meaningful investigations of deaths have not been conducted but are simply attributed to “unknown” or “natural causes.” This does not prevent future deaths nor provide any consolation to the grieving families who are left in the dark.
Under the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, FIFA too has the responsibility to provide reparations for abuses it caused or contributed to. As an entity that has immense resources, it has no excuse not to fulfill its obligations. In 2014, for example, the qualifying rounds and final tournament brought FIFA US$4.6 billion, with profits amounting to over $2 billion.
National football associations, which can be tarnished by association with rights abuses, also have leverage over FIFA that they can and should use. No player would want to be a complacent participant in a tournament that has caused such immense loss of migrant workers’ lives and livelihoods. It is encouraging that many national associations have started speaking up on the issue and should continue to push for tangible commitments including reparations to those who were subject to wage theft and to families who lost loved ones. This would ensure that thousands of families of migrants who lost their lives in Qatar while making the games possible are not left with nothing.
Human Rights Watch has obtained a circular from Qatar’s Public Works Authorities requesting companies to reduce their migrant labor workforce from September 21, 2022 to January 18, 2023. As per the circular, “All Contractors shall prepare a strategic plan for workers’ leave which maximizes the reduction in the number of workers in the country during the period. It should not adversely impact the migrant worker’s well-being and established RPD [Roads Project Department] projects’ targets and objectives.” According to Migrant Rights, construction companies – primarily subcontractors – also shared that the directive has been communicated to them informally.
Migrant workers hired for jobs in Qatar do not have the luxury to take unpaid leave for extended periods. A large majority of workers, especially the recently hired ones, have outstanding loans associated with their illegally imposed recruitment fees that will continue to pile up during the months they are back home if they are not paid. The wages in Qatar are also how workers and their families make ends meet on a paycheck-to-paycheck basis without any savings or support system to draw from. Workers who face early dismissal or whose contracts will not be renewed should be allowed time to find another employer in the country. All such workers should be paid all their outstanding payments due, including for any untaken vacation time, wages, overtime pay, end-of-service payments, and any severance pay.
It is important for Qatari authorities and companies to clearly communicate to workers the details of the arrangement, with strong systems in place to ensure that companies do not take undue advantage of the situation to cheat workers.
Just as the construction phase of the World Cup has rested almost entirely on the backs of migrant workers, who comprise over 95 percent of the Qatari workforce, the delivery of the World Cup will also be almost entirely dependent on migrant workers. They will serve players, fans, and other visitors as waiters, hotel workers, shop staff, housekeepers, stadium workers, security guards, and drivers. Recent evidence has shown that hotel workers and security guards have continued to pay high recruitment fees. Every worker that a fan or a player comes across could, therefore, potentially be a victim of some form of abuse, such as paying exorbitantly for the jobs.
The Worker Welfare Standards from the Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy, Qatar’s 2022 FIFA World Cup organizer, were originally developed for the construction sector, but have been extended to the hospitality sector. Stakeholders have come together to develop a guidance tool for fair recruitment and employment for the hospitality sector in Qatar that hotels are expected to follow.
Proper due diligence by national football associations is key to ensuring that they do not contribute to or are associated with the abuses. However, it is also important for news media to be aware that they should not have a narrow focus when covering how migrant workers are treated. Just as some coverage has focused on stadium workers who comprised only 1.5 percent of the migrant workforce, media focus should not be limited to service workers in companies serving elite visitors like players and coaches. Conditions for workers serving elite visitors will undoubtedly be under disproportionately higher scrutiny and standards, but they will be a tiny proportion of the total service sector workforce that will directly or indirectly cater to the 1.2 millionvisitors expected to visit Qatar for the tournament.
Migrant workers in Qatar are part of the estimated 3 billion viewers of the World Cup who, in addition, also were indispensable in making the World Cup in Qatar possible. A good illustration of the popularity of the game among migrant workers in Qatar is captured in the documentary The Worker’s Cup.
Now that fans are flocking in from all over the world, migrant workers’ freedom of movement should be respected. They should not be restricted to parts of the country or in cramped labor camps or worse, sent back to their home countries, out of the sight of visitors who would otherwise be appalled if they got a glimpse of their living conditions.
Football is often called “the beautiful game,” which means there should be no discrimination among fans, whether they are low-paid workers who built and serviced the stadiums and infrastructure for the World Cup or visitors who bought the most expensive tickets and flew in from afar. Migrant workers and visitors should be allowed to mingle with each other. Visitors, including journalists wanting to report on the migrant worker situation, fans, and stakeholders like national football associations, sponsors, and rights organizations should not be restricted from visiting labor camps.
Qatari authorities require women to obtain permission from their male guardians to marry, study abroad on government scholarships, work in many government jobs, travel abroad until certain ages, and receive some forms of reproductive health care. Some hotels require women to have a male guardian or be married to book and stay in a hotel room. Some events, such as concerts where alcohol is served, even ban Qatari women from attending. Such policies are discriminatory and facilitate violence against women.
Qatar moreover, has no domestic violence law and women who attempt to flee abuse can be returned to abusive families, arrested, or sent to psychiatric hospitals. A lack of transparency over discriminatory rules makes it difficult for women to challenge them. Women in Qatar have appealed to the authorities to repeal such laws. However, repressive laws limiting freedom of expression and association, government intimidation, and online harassment prevent women from challenging such rules or punish them when they do. There are no independent women’s rights organizations.
The authorities have made no serious reforms to the severe discrimination in law and practice they impose against women, affecting Qatari women and the many foreign women who live in the country. The authorities should eliminate all discriminatory male guardianship rules and practices, pass anti-discrimination law to end discrimination in practice, and repeal laws and practices that limit women’s civic participation to demand their own rights.
Qatari authorities criminalize extramarital sex, which disproportionately affects women, who can be prosecuted if they report rape and because pregnancy serves as evidence of the so-called crime. The penalties for these offenses are some of the harshest in the region, with up to seven years in prison, and floggings if they are Muslim. Police often do not believe women who report violence. Women are also required to show a marriage certificate to access certain forms of sexual and reproductive healthcare.
At major sporting events like the World Cup, the risk of sexual violence increases greatly, not just for fans, but particularly for migrant women in low-paid sectors. A Mexican woman who was a Supreme Committee official reported a physical assault by a man to the police in Qatar in June 2021. Instead of getting protection and justice, she found herself accused of the so-called crime of extramarital sex because the man claimed to be in a relationship with her, which she denied. Even though she managed to leave the country, the authorities proceeded to prosecute her on this charge and she remains on trial. Qatar should repeal legal provisions criminalizing extramarital sex, including article 281 of the Penal Code. The authorities should ensure support for survivors of sexual violence including medical, legal, and psychosocial – mental health assistance, and including emergency contraception, sexual health checks, and post-exposure prophylaxis for HIV. The authorities should allow all women access to sexual and reproductive health care without requiring a marriage certificate and should ensure that police and prosecutors have gender-responsive training.
Qatar has assured prospective visitors that it will welcome lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) visitors and that fans will be free to fly the rainbow flag at the games. However, prospective visitors including LGBT fans have been deterred from attending the games, as shared by the English Football Association Manager, Gareth Southgate based on his discussion with English fans.
People who have experienced government repression have told Human Rights Watch that the Qatari government surveils and arrests LGBT people based on their online activity. The authorities also censor traditional media related to sexual orientation and gender identity, including people who show support for LGBT individuals. They have effectively excluded LGBT content from the public sphere.
Suggestions that Qatar should temporarily suspend domestic laws and state practices during the games would reinforce the idea that same-sex desire and gender variance are a peculiar preoccupation of outsiders. That leaves LGBT residents of Qatar struggling to navigate their sexuality and gender identity in a repressive environment that risks resuming in full after the World Cup.
As Qatar advances its surveillance capabilities, including inside football stadiums, the possibility of LGBT Qataris being persecuted for publicly supporting LGBT rights will remain long after the international fans leave. Physical and virtual spaces free from surveillance are vanishing in Qatar as its data protection law allows broad exemptions that undermine the right to privacy. Digital targeting is combined with laws that target people based on consensual sexual conduct outside of marriage.
Long-term legal reform should prioritize the realities of LGBT residents of Qatar, including by introducing legislation that protects against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, online and offline. The Qatari government should repeal article 285 and all other laws that criminalize consensual sexual relations outside of marriage.
Press freedom is curtailed in Qatar, which ranked 128 on the World Press Freedom list for 2021. Qatar also introduced an amendment to its penal code that imposes up to five years of prison for spreading rumors or false news with ill intent. It is not clear who determines what is a “rumor” or “fake news,” and what standards they will use in making such a determination.
In November 2021, two Norwegian journalists investigating migrant worker issues in Qatar were arrested and detained for 36 hours. Film showing evidence of the migrant worker situation in Qatar was destroyed. Separately, the same month, another Norwegian journalist was also held in solitary confinement for 24 hours. Such cases are common in Qatar, posing a credible threat to the narrative that the country is trying to build through its heavy public relations machinery.
Similarly, migrant workers who speak up about their realities and become important sources of information are also at great risk of immediate and arbitrary detention or deportation. Over the last year alone, Qatari authorities forcibly disappeared the Kenyan labor activist Malcolm Bidali before releasing him, and put Abdullah Ibhais, a Jordanian former employee of the Supreme Committee, on trial for bribery and misuse of funds, which some evidence suggests was in retaliation for his criticism of the poor conditions for migrant workers.
Qatar should have had every expectation of massive global media interest and coverage over the decade leading up to the World Cup and in the year of the tournament. It should not come as a surprise to Qatari authorities or FIFA that journalists who come to Qatar during the tournament will be interested in stories beyond the matches and who scores goals. They should be ensured that they will be safe and allowed to do their work with little interference. They should face no undue restrictions to report on social or economic issues should they wish to do so. Similarly, fans and other supporters should also not face any safety concerns for posting openly on social media platforms.
If Qatar and FIFA do indeed believe their own reform narrative, they should see the arrival of thousands of journalists and commentators from all over the world to the country as an important opportunity to bear witness to the positive transformation, not restrict their access or suppress their voices.
President Biden is a president who makes us proud. He clearly stepped up to the plate in difficult times. COVID, inflation, Ukraine are just a few of the volatile issues he is managing.
When it comes to international issues like Ukraine, the president represents the United States, not Democrats or Republicans. Yet today we are so divided there are Republicans willing to attack him trying to undermine our standing in the world. It was reported last week, “More than two dozen Senate Republicans demand Biden do more for Ukraine after voting against $13.6 billion for Ukraine.” One total jackass, Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.), has managed to infuriate even some of the most evil members of his own party when he “called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky a ‘thug’ and the Ukrainian government ‘incredibly evil’.”
It is one thing to attack the president on domestic issues. But today we have a Republican Party hoping to see Biden fail without regard to the fact it would hurt the American people they have been elected to serve. Some individual Republicans have stepped up to the plate on one issue or another. Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) did so on the Jan. 6 committee. Yet most act like they are the dregs of society. Some so outrageous they manage to embarrass the party that has shown they are immune to being embarrassed, having stood by Trump. A new meme surfaced last week about Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) suggesting she represents what happens when ‘the ventriloquist dies and the dummy keeps talking.’
President Biden is showing how his years of experience in government, from the Senate to the VP’s office, are enabling him to effectively lead when working with NATO and our other allies. He has surrounded himself with some of the brightest, including National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, and Secretary of State Antony Blinken. He is wisely choosing to get advice from experts like Fiona Hill, among others, an expert on Russia and Putin. In 2013, Hill wrote a well-respected book, “Mr. Putin: Operative in the Kremlin.” This week, Biden is in Brussels to meet with other NATO leaders for the first time since Russia invaded Ukraine. He will solidify the work that has been done and reinforce the close working relationships he has reestablished with our allies after four years of Trump working to tear them apart.
One of the things I most respect about our president is his willingness to speak truthfully to the American people. To talk about some of what we will face at home including rising gas prices and continued inflation, as we support the people of Ukraine in their fight for their country and democracy. Biden has been attacked by those who think he is doing too much and those who think he is doing too little. That is the divide in our country we can lay at the feet of Donald Trump. Thankfully our allies, and the overwhelming member nations of the United Nations, are supporting what we are doing.
All this will play out as Americans go to the polls in November 2022. Whatever the situation is at home, and around the world, at that time we will see if a majority of the country is willing to support the president and elect Democrats up and down the ballot. We will see if they give the president a Democratic Congress so he can move forward more of his agenda for America. I believe when it comes down to it, they will. They will understand America has reclaimed its position as a leader in the world and we can move a domestic agenda forward that will benefit all. An agenda to bring children out of poverty and provide all with good jobs, quality healthcare, and a good education. Most Americans understand we must do something to fight climate change and ensure equal justice and opportunity for all.
I am an optimist and believe that optimism in the American people is not misplaced. Since I first stood on a street corner in New York City at the age of nine handing out flyers for Adlai Stevenson for president; to running a local storefront after school in 1960 supporting JFK for president; after being in winning and losing campaigns, that optimism remains. Somehow the American people find it in them to do the right thing even if it takes much longer than I want it to.
Proponents of the law continue to pretend that its limitations are narrow and only prohibit “teaching” young kids about sexuality. In reality, however, the bill is so broad and vague that it will likely be used to bully teachers and students from being out or acknowledging the existence of LGBTQ people. Contrary to claims that the law “only” impacts the lower elementary grades, as Mark Joseph Stern at Slate points out, it’s worded in such a way as to allow parents to sue high school teachers for, say, allowing students to form a Gay-Straight Alliance. Indeed, the impetus of the law was a case where parents wanted to sue the school for accepting a teenager’s gender identity.
Meanwhile, the mainstream press is still hamstrung by this fantasy that the courts will swoop in and stop this.
In an opinion piece for NBC News, NYU law professor Daniel Putnam responded to the law’s passage with a piece confidently asserting that the law is unconstitutional because “courts have consistently recognized that LGBTQ students and teachers have a basic First Amendment right to express who they are.”
There’s currently a sitting justice whose wife was involved in a fascist coup attempt — and that’s just the tip of the corruption iceberg. The Republican-appointed majority routinely ignores the plain letter of the law when imposing their right-wing ideology, such as in recent cases throwing out vaccine mandates and tearing up basic voting rights protections. The court recently signed off on a Texas law that bans abortion in direct violation of Roe v. Wade by pretending that they had no authority to block the “bounty hunter” provision that is being used to enforce the ban. Guess what? The Florida law uses the same provision to enforce the “don’t say gay” bill by empowering parents to sue schools that allow LGBTQ staff and students to be out.
The right-wing court’s total power and utter impunity is, in fact, empowering Republicans to expand their war on LGBTQ rights. And the “don’t say gay” bill is likely just the beginning.
Recent events show that, in addition to the ongoing war on trans people, Republicans are deeply interested in rolling back hard-won gay rights victories from recent years, including same-sex marriage.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia tipped her hand to this at a recent Donald Trump rally in Georgia, in which she bellowed that Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg “and his husband can stay out of our girls’ bathrooms.” This statement led observers to wonder if she was confused about which unhinged right-wing conspiracy theory is which. The “predators in women’s rooms” accusation is typically used these days to demonize trans women. But of course, Greene doesn’t actually believe gay men are scheming for ways to rape women. As Aaron Rupar of Public Notice wrote, by mixing up her conspiracy theories, Greene was signaling that “all the GOP talk about bathrooms was really just euphemized bigotry” that doesn’t need to make sense, even in their own lurid fantasies. Bathroom talk is just a new way of calling someone the F-word.
It also, importantly, functions as a signal that it’s not just trans rights that they’re coming for, but gay rights as well.
Greene has previously expressed a belief that violence is an appropriate response to feeling threatened by the existence of LGBTQ people. In light of that, her recent speech should be understood as a winking endorsement of gay-bashing. Nor is she an outlier.
Obergefell was a 5-4 decision in favor of gay rights. Since then, two of the justices who supported it have been replaced by Federalist Society-linked justices, who were picked in no small part to issue anti-LGBTQ decisions. For those who are counting, that means that if Republicans can find some way to relitigate the question, they likely have a 5-4 majority to overturn the legalization of same-sex marriage, or at least gut it significantly.
Needless to say, none of the events in question constitute sex education, especially of the how-to instruction that Paxton is implying is going on. (And let’s face it, teenagers already know the how-to part.) Events are based around themes like “Differences are Awesome” and “Creative Expression.” Paxton’s letter is riffing on the Republican fallacy that behaviors most people see as banal with regards to straight people — such as having a prom date or attending a wedding — become “sexual” when it involves LGBTQ people. By sending this letter, Paxton is attempting to achieve the same ends as the “don’t say gay” law in Florida: bullying schools from allowing LGBTQ students to be out. He just isn’t even bothering to go through the legislature first.
So while there has been, rightfully, a great deal of attention paid in recent years to how Republicans have “turned to” attacks on trans people, having lost the gay rights battle, these moves by Republicans show that they don’t, in fact, feel that their loss on gay rights is permanent. On the contrary, there’s a new escalation of attacks against gay rights that most Americans assume are inviolable The right to be out, the right to get married, the right to live your life safe from violence and discrimination are now all at risk. Florida’s bill is just the beginning.
During a special session called specifically to consider a veto override, both Republican-controlled chambers of the state Legislature met the two-thirds threshold to revive the bill.
The measure passed 21-8 in the Senate and 56-18 in the House. Ten Republicans in Utah’s state House and five in the state Senate who had previously voted against the bill changed their votes to support the bill during the override session. Both chambers voted on Friday without additional debate.
The legislation is slated to go into effect July 1.
Under the forthcoming law, transgender girls will be prohibited from playing on school sports teams aligning with their gender identity. The bill’s language bars “a student of the male sex from competing against another school on a team designated for female students.” It defines “sex” as the “biological, physical condition of being male or female, determined by an individual’s genetics and anatomy at birth.”
Lawmakers passed the bill earlier this month in the final hours of their legislative session.
The veto override vote came just days after Republican Gov. Spencer Cox penned a heartfelt letter to legislators in which he said he’d been moved by data showing that including transgender youth in sports could reduce suicide rates within the group.
“I don’t understand what they are going through or why they feel the way they do. But I want them to live. And all the research shows that even a little acceptance and connection can reduce suicidality significantly,” Cox wrote.
US basketball icon Brittney Griner’s detention has been extended for another two months, according to a state news agency.
The Olympic gold medallist and Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) star has been held in Moscow since February when customs officials allegedly found vape cartridges containing hashish oil in her luggage.
Major Russian state-owned news agency TASS reported that the Khimkinsky court in the Moscow region had “granted the request of the investigation” and extended Griner’s custody for an additional two months.
The WNBA star faces up to 10 years in prison if found guilty by the Russian court.
Brittney Griner #42 of the Phoenix Mercury is seen during the game against the Indiana Fever on 6 September 2021. (Getty/Michael Hickey)
Ekaterina Kalugina – a member of the Public Monitoring Commission, which is a semi-official body that can access Russian prisons – told TASS that the basketball star was sharing a single cell with two other women, who had no previous convictions.
According to Kalugina, Griner’s main issue with her imprisonment was that the prison beds are too small for her tall frame.
Griner is among a dozen WNBA stars who played in Russia or Ukraine this past season, with Griner playing professional basketball in Russia for the last seven years.
Former secretary of state Hillary Clinton has joined the growing number of people calling for Griner’s release, tweeting “Free Brittney” on Wednesday (16 March).
WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert said that the league is working with other agencies to bring the Phoenix Mercury star centre home, according to theAssociated Press.
“Everyone’s getting the strategy of say less and push more privately behind the scenes,” Engelbert said.
“It’s the strategy you get from the State Department and administration. It’s our number one priority in talking with her agent and strategists.”
US State Department spokesperson Ned Price said the government agency is “doing everything we can to support Brittney Griner” and her loved ones as well as to “work with them to do everything we can, to see that she is treated appropriately and to seek her release”.
This month, lawmakers in Indiana voted to advance a bill that would prohibit transgender girls from playing sports with other girls. This discriminatory and harmful bill quickly gained traction even though there doesn’t seem to be any issue in Indiana with transgender girls participating in athletics.
Efforts to bar transgender girls from participating in school sports are profoundly misguided. Proponents of these bills narrowly fixate on the possibility that some transgender girl might potentially outperform her cisgender peers. To avoid that scenario, they cruelly prevent transgender kids from participating at all.
This marks transgender children as different from a young age and deprives them of the physical and social benefits that athletics in schools are meant to provide. The result can be devastating, particularly for children who might already struggle with exclusion and isolation in school.
Yet bullying and harassment of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) young people in Indiana is a real problem – and Indiana hasn’t taken meaningful steps to address it. Lawmakers haven’t even scheduled a hearing for a pending bill that would prohibit discrimination in education based on sexual orientation and gender identity, and protect children from being punished for who they are.
This winter, I’ve spoken to LGBT students in Indiana who described how difficult school environments can be. One young woman told me that she regularly heard anti-LGBT slurs at her high school, and never heard positive messaging about LGBT issues in the classroom. Even though her school had a gay-straight alliance, she didn’t join because she feared the repercussions of coming out at school.
Now in college, she said that being able to come out to others had “a huge impact on my mental health, just being able to be fully myself to everyone around me.”
But lawmakers in Indiana and elsewhere are stifling, not encouraging, that sense of safety and self-worth. Dozens of states are advancing restrictions on transgender children in schools – limiting which bathrooms they can use, what sports they can play, and whether they can learn about themselves in class.
These attacks take an enormous toll on the mental health of LGBT youth, even when they don’t become law. Young transgender people take notice when lawmakers attack and demonize them in public, and understandably lose faith in the adults who are supposed to protect them when those adults fail to stand up for their rights.
Other states have adopted laws to address the mistreatment that LGBT students face. In 17 states, legislation expressly prohibits discrimination against LGBT students in schools, and 21 states expressly prohibit bullying on those grounds. Other states have adopted regulations or teacher codes addressing discrimination and bullying. Indiana has done neither.
Supporting young people shouldn’t be controversial. If lawmakers in Indiana genuinely care about student well-being, they should take meaningful steps to address bullying, discrimination, and mental health challenges for LGBT students – and should abandon legislation that would make those things worse.
Brittney Griner remains in custody in Russia, with the country’s state-owned media releasing new images of the WNBA star.
News broke over the weekend that Griner, a seven-time WNBA All-Star and two-time Olympic gold medallist, was arrested in February after customs officials allegedly detected hashish oil in her luggage at an airport near Moscow.
Amid growing concern for her wellbeing and continued calls for her release, Russian state TV broadcast a photograph of the out athlete in custody holding up a piece of paper.
The image, which was released on Tuesday (8 March), was too blurred to be able to make out what was written on the paper.
The Russian Federal Customs Services released a statement claiming that officials detained Brittney Griner in February for possession of vape cartridges that contained hashish oil.
It also released a video that showed airport security workers searching the luggage of a passenger, who was later identified as Griner.
The customs service said a criminal case has been opened, and Griner could face up to 10 years in a Russian prison if convicted.
Brittney Griner had been playing for the Moscow team UMMC Ekaterinburg and was reportedly earning $1.5 million (£1.1 million) for the off-season – six times her WNBA salary with the Phoenix Mercury.
The exact date of her arrest remains unclear and it is still unknown where the star is now.
“If we want her out of jail, Russia is going to have some terms,” said Evelyn Farkas, who served as the US deputy assistant secretary of defence for Russia and Ukraine from 2012 to 2015. “It could be a prisoner swap. They also could use it as an implicit threat or blackmail to get us to do something or not do something. Either way, they find it useful.”
Texas congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee is among those calling for Griner’s swift release.
“We know that there were some issues dealing with vape cartridges and other items but let me be very clear,” said Lee, who represents Griner’s hometown of Houston, Texas, in the House of Representatives. “Brittney Griner is a United States citizen, she was a guest in Russia … and I will be demanding her release.”
Lee added that Russia’s actions in Ukraine undermined its authority, saying: “I don’t want to disregard a sovereign nation but Putin has disregarded sovereign nations his entire service in this world.
“Anyone that is killing and attacking and destroying Ukraine, a neighbouring country that is not bothering them, has no right to hold Ms Griner. Period.”
According to the Associated Press, Griner has played professional basketball in Russia for the last seven years.
She played for her Russian team the UMMC Ekaterinburg on 29 January before the league had a two-week break in early February.
Over a dozen WNBA players have played in Russia and Ukraine this winter, and the WNBA confirmed that all players besides Griner had left both countries.
News of Brittney Griner’s detainment comes as the US placed sanctions on Russia after Putin ordered his forces to invade Ukraine last month.
