DOHA —
Qatar’s tightly-controlled media on Monday stepped
up an offensive against European criticism of the Gulf state’s human rights
record ahead of the World Cup, on which it has spent billions of dollars.
اضافة اعلان
Editorials and cartoons in recent days have
lambasted “smear campaigns” about Qatar’s treatment of migrant workers, women,
and the LGBTQ community.
European newspapers and rights groups have put a
spotlight on Qatar’s record in the runup to the tournament that starts November
20 and is expected to attract more than one million fans.
Some French cities have said they will not allow
public screens to be put up to show matches in a rights protest.
Al Sharq newspaper prominently showed a cartoon with
the World Cup surrounded by arrows symbolizing the criticism that Qatar has
faced.
An editorial in Al Raya newspaper said European
newspapers “have been raging in their attack on the
World Cup in Qatar from the
time it was announced in December 2010”.
“Do not repeat the mistakes of the past,” it warned,
highlighting a 2015 Washington Post blog on the number of migrant workers
killed on World Cup projects that was corrected after a Qatar government
protest.
“Let’s stop smear campaigns and cooperate for a
World Cup that unites peoples,” it added.
Al Sharq ran an interview with Lakhdar Belloumi, a
former Algerian international considered to be one of the best Arab football
players of all time, who said “malicious campaigns will not discourage Qatar”.
An editorial in the paper on Sunday hit out at the
“lies, rumors, and slander” written in Europe about Qatar’s World Cup
preparations.
It said there was a “systematic conspiracy” by media
in many European countries over coverage of workers’ rights in Qatar, “while
this media has forgotten the miserable conditions experienced by workers in
Europe.”
“We find that this miserable media creates a story
every time a country from outside the old continent hosts the tournament,” said
Al Sharq.
In a commentary for the English-language website
Doha News, artist Ghada Al Khater wrote: “Forgive me for doubting such
intentions of European countries, who have for the past decade stood and
watched as migrants fleeing conflict, devastation and poverty ... drown to the
bottom of the Mediterranean.”
Qatar’s emir Sheikh
Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani complained this
year about attacks on Arab nations but told the UN General Assembly last month
that all fans would be welcomed to the World Cup “without discrimination”.
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