Applaud countries that support human-rights claims against Qatar. And shame those that haven’t | Opinion

The soccer federations of United States and several European countries — as well as some multinational companies — deserve credit: They support a petition by human-rights groups asking organizers of the World Cup in Qatar to pay $440 million in compensation to migrant workers who were abused while building the sites for the world’s biggest sports event.

It’s time to name and shame the countries and companies that, so far, haven’t supported that petition or separate demands that Qatar stop persecuting its LGBTQ+ community.

As of Nov. 21, a day after the start of the World Cup, not one single Latin American soccer federation participating in the tournament, nor 10 of the 14 multinational firms that sponsored it, had supported the petition for reparations to migrant workers, a spokesman for Human Rights Watch told me.

Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and several other advocacy groups launched a campaign six months ago, demanding Qatar and the FIFA world soccer federation compensate migrant workers. Hundreds, if not thousands, of foreigners have died in Qatar while working in extreme hot weather; others have been denied the wages promised, human-rights groups say.

By turning a blind eye to human-rights abuses, “FIFA indisputably contributed to the widespread abuse of migrant workers involved in World Cup-related projects in Qatar,” Agnés Callamard, Amnesty International’s secretary general, said in a statement.

Tamara Taraciuk, a senior official with Human Rights Watch, told me that $440 million for reparations “is a very small amount, if we compare it to what FIFA expects to win in this World Cup, which is about $6 billion.”

The U.S., Dutch, English, French and Belgian soccer federations have supported the human-rights groups’ petition. But only four multinational firms — Adidas, Coca-Cola, McDonald’s and Budweiser — responded positively to Human Rights Watch’s letters to all World Cup sponsors asking for their support.

Another 10 sponsors — Visa, Hyundai/Kia, Wanda Group, Qatar Energy, Qatar Airways, Vivo, Hisense, Mengniu, Crypto and Byju’s — did not respond to the letter, Taraciuk told me.

To their credit, the soccer federations of England, Wales, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland joined together to support their team captains’ use rainbow-colored armbands as a show of support for gay rights in Qatar, where homosexuality is a crime, punishable with up to three years in jail.

Shamefully, FIFA threatened to penalize players with yellow cards if they wore the armbands, forcing them to abandon the plan. Their teams would have been at a serious disadvantage, since players who receive two yellow cards during a match are ejected.

FIFA President Gianni Infantino has accused human-rights groups of “hypocrisy,” arguing that many European countries have a long history of mistreating migrants, and that they banned homosexuality until only a few decades ago.

“What we Europeans have been doing for the past 3,000 years we should be apologizing for the next 3,000 years before we start giving moral lessons to people,” Infantino said.

But this argument is a false equivalency. It’s not fair to compare the human-rights situation in Qatar today with one that existed in Europe in the past. By that token, you could potentially justify slavery, or human sacrifice.

The fact is that Qatar is an hereditary dictatorship with no free elections or political parties. There is little freedom of the press. In addition to criminalizing homosexuality, Qatar, despite recent labor law reforms, still tolerates abuses against migrant workers.

The 2022 Freedom House report on freedoms around the world classifies Qatar as a “not free” country. The emir “holds all executive and legislative authority, and ultimately controls the judiciary as well,” the report says.

Granted, this is not the first time a World Cup is taking place in an authoritarian country. In 1978, the games were held in Argentina during that country’s military dictatorship; in 2018, they were held in Russia.

But if we normalize FIFA’s decisions to hold World Cup tournaments in repressive countries and give countries such as Qatar a free pass to whitewash their image by sponsoring these tournaments — a practice known as “sportswashing” — it will be a huge setback for human rights and democracy in the world.

Let’s not allow FIFA to do that again.

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