Picture Credit: Twitter
Paris has joined other French cities to boycott the broadcast of much-awaited FIFA World Cup 2022 expressing their dissent over the allegations of human right violations. Earlier, local authorities in Marseille, Lille, Bordeaux, Reims, Nancy, Rodez and the capital have announced they will not install giant television screens as in the past to relay matches.
Pierre Rabadan, deputy mayor of Paris who is also in charge of sports, informed that the decision against public broadcasting of matches is due to the conditions of the organisation of this World Cup, both on environmental and social level. Rabadan stressed that Paris is not boycotting the football tournament but explained that Qatar's 'model of staging big events goes against what it (Paris) wants to organise.
"We have very constructive relations with the club and its entourage, yet it doesn't prevent us to say when we disagree. It's impossible for us to ignore the many warnings of abuse and exploitation of migrant workers by non-governmental organisations," Jeanne Barseghian said in a statement. "We cannot condone these abuses, we cannot turn a blind eye when human rights are violated," Rabadan was quoted in several media reports.
Jeanne Barseghian, Mayor of Strasbourg, the northeast seat of the European Parliament and the European Court of Human Right, cited allegations of human rights abuses and exploitation of migrant workers in Qatar as the primary reason for cancelling public broadcasts of the World Cup.
Barseghian further said that it’s impossible to ignore warnings of abuse and exploitations of migrant workers by non-government organisations. "We cannot condone these abuses; we cannot turn a blind eye when human rights are violated. While climate change is a palpable reality, with fires and droughts and other disaster, organising a soccer tournament in the desert defies common sense and amounts to an ecological disaster," she said.
