Bahrain’s Sportswashing of the Tour de France
This weekend, on August 29, 2020, the Tour de France will set off from Nice in a 22 day cycling race broadcasted across 190 countries and garnering an expected 1 billion viewers. Joining the race is Bahrain-McLaren, a team owned by Prince Nasser bin Ahmed al-Khalifa of the ruling family of Bahrain and that stands as an example of Bahrain’s efforts to hide their human rights abuses behind influential sports teams.
A recent trend has emerged of private investors from the Gulf, often wealthy members of ruling families, purchasing shares of influential sport teams abroad. Those investments are an example of “sportswashing,” a technique whereby heads of state or business executives attempt to cover their negative international reputations by associating themselves with sports that are viewed extremely positively. By running a team in the Tour de France, Bahrain is joining a long line of countries with diminished human rights records as they attempt to distract from continued abuses with flashy events such as the Olympics, the World Cup, or Formula 1, or as they rebrand themselves by associating their names with those of beloved teams.
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The Next US Ambassador and the Formulation of Human Rights in Bahrain
The recent departure of the US Ambassador to the Kingdom of Bahrain, Justin Hicks Siberell, has prompted questions in Congress about America’s moral and strategic role in the Middle East. A career diplomat and counterterrorism expert, Ambassador Siberell worked closely with the Bahraini government to ensure regional security from the lens of counterterrorism. However, despite these counterterrorism efforts, Ambassador Siberell did nothing to stop the Bahraini government from arbitrarily incarcerating large numbers of its citizens and violating countless other domestic and international human rights laws; instead he was constantly celebrating new arms deals and national security advancements.
There is no dispute about the fact that the current US policy toward Bahrain lacks any regards to human rights or serious political reforms. In confirming the next ambassador to Bahrain, the US Senate needs assurances that they will prioritize stopping further de-liberalization, protecting civil liberties, and creating real accountability to ensure basic human rights, and as importantly genuine political stability.
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