Local authorities in Lille distanced themselves from the World Cup host country.
On Saturday, Mayor Martine Aubry announced that Lille would not be showing its upcoming World Cup soccer game on big screens.
On Twitter he wrote that the city council had unanimously voted for a declaration condemning the World Cup being held in Qatar.
– [Det] unreasonable in terms of human rights, the environment and sport, wrote Aubrey.
Reuters was the first to write about the case.
“Shameful World Championship”
Qatar was awarded the world championship in 2010, and then started a series of large-scale construction projects. A new football stadium, a new airport, a new metro and around 100 new hotels have been built to accommodate the hordes of national teams and football fans, according to the BBC.
Some 30,000 foreign workers are said to have been hired just to build the stadium. The majority come from Bangladesh, India, Nepal and the Philippines.
The World Cup award then received strong criticism from several quarters. Last year’s report The Guardian newspaper that more than 6,500 foreign workers have died in Qatar between 2010 and 2020. Government authorities in Qatar considered the speech misleading.
In 2016, Amnesty International called the Qatar World Cup a “disgraceful world championship”, and indicating conditions for foreign workers. The organization pointed to, among other things, poor living conditions, months without pay, threats and forced labor.
In the following years, Qatar took steps to improve the condition, however in November 2021 Amnesty points out that foreign workers are still being exploited.
Update, October 4 at 9:52 a.m.: Paris won’t be able to watch World Cup matches on the big screen either, reports France24.
Updated: Tuesday 4 October 2022 09.52
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