As the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 nears kick-off, Qatar has been subjected to a systematic negative campaign from some quarters, who are not happy with the biggest sporting event being held in Qatar or the region. This vilification campaign reached a tipping point in recent times adopting racist rhetoric and painting the country and the national team in a bad light to achieve their hidden political agenda. None of the accusations are based on any facts and they forgot the basic duty of fact-checking before shooting off absurd theories and myths.
Many officials, Qatari and international, have condemned this rhetoric, asking them to check real facts first and focus on what has been achieved by Qatar in every sector including labour sector.
While taking part in the European Parliament hearing in Brussels, on labour reforms in Qatar, Minister of Labour H E Dr. Ali bin Samikh Al Marri made it clear that the campaign run by some against Qatar has escalated in pace over the past weeks without real justifications, pointing out that this amounts to intellectual and media terrorism and gaslighting on racist pretexts.
The Minister attended the meeting on an invitation by Human Rights Subcommittee and the European Parliament Delegation for Relations with Arabian Peninsula. At the hearing, he affirmed that “we will not accept hate speech and racism against the Qatari people and their national team.”
He also rightly pointed out that Qatar has adopted a series of labour reforms and implemented them at a fast pace over the last few years, which was acknowledged by several labour organizations and labour unions, but some parties are trying to ignore all these facts in their systematic campaign against Qatar and prefer to re-publish and adopt unfounded statistics and allegations.
Those who make these allegations against Qatar are ignoring the landmark reforms Qatar introduced including the Workers’ Support Fund, which is one of the only seven such funds in the world, as it will not suit their negative narrative.
The Minister pointed out that some politicians and some media outlets in Western countries have lost the moral and professional motive in their attack against Qatar and have been drawn into their hateful racist ideas at the expense of the interests of their countries.
This World Cup will help clear many misconceptions about the region and will surely be an eye-opener for the doubters. This tournament is a dream come true for every Arab football fan. A young man at a fan event said to all the critics, “please come and visit, it is much better than you expect, meanwhile let’s enjoy football.”
