LGTBI collectives ask FIFA to ‘withdraw the organization of the World Cup to Qatar’, for not respecting their human rights

LGTBI groups have asked the International Football Federation (FIFA) this Friday that Qatar not organize the next 2022 World Cup after the words about homosexuals by the general director of this sporting event, Nasser al Khater.

In an interview on CNN, the director general of the Qatar 2022 World Cup affirmed that LGTBI people who attend this sporting event they should not feel insecure or threatened, but hoped that “Do not show affection in public and respect the local culture”, as indicated by the groups in a statement.

The Iberian LGTB + Sports Group, the State Federation of Lesbians, Gay, Trans, Bisexual Intersex and more (Felgtbi +), as well as the Triángulo Foundation, condemn Al Khater’s words and they call for “not to sell major sporting events to countries that do not respect human rights.”

These organizations point out that in Qatar “intercourse between people of the same sex” is a crime, with sentences ranging from life imprisonment to the death penalty and its penal code states that only the act of provoking or seducing a male to commit acts of “sodomy and immorality” is punishable by three years in prison.

So they have asked FIFA again – they already did when Qatar was designated as the venue for the World Cup – to change the host country of this sporting event so that it is not held there.

“FIFA must withdraw the organization of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar and publicly commit itself to the defense of the Human Rights of LGTBI + people in the field of football,” argue the groups, who ensure that the holding of international competitions has not caused any progress in the rights of LGTBI people or women.

In this sense, they also consider that the “whitewashing of human rights violations using the focus and values ​​of sport” is “intolerable”. (D)