Stamp discrimination out of sport. International competitions must not be held in countries with racist policies of discrimination against people because of the country of their birth or citizenship.
Across European Football there is a long running campaign to say “No to Racism” and to discrimination on many grounds. Many sports have similar campaigns.
From UK law, here is the definition of discrimination that generally applies in the UK and every EU state has something similar:
Article 14 No discrimination: All of the rights and freedoms contained in the Human Rights Act must be protected and applied without discrimination.
Article 14 requires there be no discrimination in the application of human rights on any ground, and this includes (but is not exhaustive of) grounds such as:
sex; race; colour; language; religion; political or other opinion; national or social origin; association with a national minority; property; birth; or any other status (including, for example, sexual orientation or marital status).
So why is it that a plethora of international sport governing bodies still organise competitions in countries that won’t honour these most basic standards?
Today’s seedy example is an international windsurfing competition in Malaysia:
Israel Sailing Association head Gili Amir said: “Because to this day they have not received visas, 24 hours before their planned departure, and the limitations and difficulties imposed on us by the Malaysian organizing committee, we decided not to participate in the competition.”
“The organizers of the competition in Malaysia stipulated that in order to participate in the competition the Israeli athletes would have to compete without an Israeli flag and without any symbols associated with the state of Israel on their clothing and surfboards as well as not playing the Israeli national anthem if any medals were won,” Amir added.
And all this from “moderate” Muslim Malaysia.
And there have been so many more. Israeli judo glory in Abu Dhabi and there’s no flag, Can You Spot What Is Wrong With This Photo?, More Israeli Flag Shenanigans From Qatar and on and on.
Isn’t it time this kind of stuff was named, shamed and the organisers of international competitions compelled to move their tournaments to countries that honour basic standards of Human Rights?
