Qatar’s leader said on Tuesday that critique of his country’s World Cup hosting was “defamation.”
“Since we received the honor of organizing the World Cup, Qatar has been the focus of an unimaginable contest that no other host country has sustained,” said Qatar’s leader, Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani.
FIFA contentiously awarded Qatar the 2022 World Cup in 2010, with Qatar’s rulers having to spend tens of billions of euros on the event, that will be held from November 20 to December 18, 2022.
The energy-rich Middle Eastern nation has been repetitively chastised for its treatment of migrant workers, women, as well as the LGBT+ community in the run-up to the €6.84 billion World Cup.
Human Rights Watch asserted on Monday that Qatar’s security personnel arbitrarily apprehended lesbian, gay, bisexual, as well as transgender people and subjected them to abuse and ill-treatment in confinement.
On Tuesday, veteran UK-based activist Peter Tatchell was detained by police after orchestrating a protest in front of the Qatar’s National Museum against the nation’s treatment of the LGBT community.
Qatar denied that he was arrested, calling the claims “completely false.”
Human rights organizations and the media are also focusing on the deaths, alleged exploitation, and abuses of migrants working in construction, most of whom are from South East Asia and East Africa.
In response to these criticisms, Qatar implemented labor protections as well as abolished the kafala system, which prevented immigrant laborers from switching jobs.
“At first, we handled this subject in fairness, and we even considered that certain complaints were positive and useful, assisting us in developing aspects that ought to be developed,” Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani said on Tuesday in Doha.
“However, it quickly became apparent to us that the campaign persists, expands, and there is defamation as well as double standards, reaching a level of viciousness that has left many, sadly, wondering about the true reasons and motives of this campaign,” he added.
FIFA President Gianni Infantino stated recently that the World Cup in Qatar, the first one to be held in an Arab country, will be the “best ever.”
