Friday, 18 November 2022

FIFA World Cup: Terrible results

Photo: Fauzan Saari, Unsplash

We've gone football mad over here at Index but not in the way you'd think (ie no office sweepstakes, though the money would be on Brazil, or maybe Argentina). Instead, after spending the summer researching football ahead of the World Cup and presenting our findings in our Autumn mag, we've cherry-picked a selection of articles for the Index website. First off is Julian Baggini's piece about why we shouldn't expect footballers to speak out on human rights. A controversial position perhaps (although one that FIFA might like)? Have a read and decide.

Next up is China. On one level we're quite pleased they haven't qualified. Xi Jinping is football mad - his three wishes before becoming China's top dog were that the country would qualify for a World Cup, win a World Cup and host a World Cup. Anything that knocks at that man's ambitions is fine by us. That said, given the ethical calibre of countries that FIFA likes to appoint as hosts, we wouldn't be surprised if Xi's hosting dreams are realised. Anyway, we deviate. Read Jonathan Sullivan's piece on whether football has been a leveller.

Another football-crazy dictator is Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who was infuriated by the sport when it proved to be fertile ground for the Gezi Park protests. He has since tried to buy up clubs by way of control. Kaya Genç has more on this here.

Don't forget we have plenty more articles on football in the mag and we're running an offer on it right now. Head to Exact Editions where the code QATAR22 will get you 30% off. While we are talking about Qatar – whose hosting of the tournament is little short of an abomination - we were pretty alarmed by news of Danish journalist Rasmus Tantholdt having his broadcast interrupted in Doha a few days back with threats to break his camera if he continued. While an apology has since been issued, it doesn't bode well.

A birthday wish for Alaa

Last week we drew your attention to imprisoned Alaa abd El-Fattah, who had embarked on a full hunger strike to coincide with COP27. To recap: El-Fattah is a British-Egyptian writer and activist and his fight for democracy and refusal to be silenced has landed him in prison repeatedly since 2006. Widespread international appeals for his release during the climate conference in the country fell on deaf ears.

His family were surprised to receive a letter earlier this week saying he had ended his hunger strike and asking his mother to visit and bring a cake to celebrate his birthday today, Friday. After the visit, the situation became clear: Alaa had collapsed and been given an intravenous drip of glucose while unconscious. Alaa had fully intended to return to hunger strike but has stopped in order to "give his cellmates and body a break". Alaa's sister Sanaa Seif has since said that she feels ashamed at the British government for having "done nothing to save his life".

On a day that Alaa should be celebrating that life, he remains behind bars. All because he spoke out over what is right. We want him to know that he is not forgotten and that he matters. So we are inviting people to send messages to him via our Twitter feed @IndexCensorship. Use the hashtags #wish4alaa and #FreeAlaa and we will do the rest. Also read our interview with El-Fattah’s sisters, Sanaa and Mona, here.

Slapped in Italy

Roberto Saviano at the International Journalism Festival in Perguia, 2011. Photo: Giancarlo Belfiore, CC BY-SA 2.0

Italy, once the cradle of democracy, isn't looking so right on right now. This week one of their most interesting writers - Roberto Saviano - headed to court. It's a crazy case (he simply called two politicians out on their obvious anti-immigration stance) and one that illustrates a terrible quirk of Italian law - that of criminal libel (the UK abolished this in 2010).

As John Sweeney writes here, "The trial has been widely seen as an attack on free speech and, yet again, raises questions about the ability of the far right to use Italy’s bizarre legal code to gag their critics." We agree with Sweeney and have signed this statement.

Prior to this case, Index was already worried about Saviano. He has been living under police protection for years and has already received threats that this could be taken away. We reported on this back in 2019. Then Paolo Borrometi, a Sicilian journalist who has been attacked by the Mafia and who now lives under round-the-clock protection, told Index: “Something dramatic is happening in Italy: we are not outraged anymore when a journalist is threatened." Well we've been outraged and continue to be.

Where are all the voices?

"There is one thing that freedom of expression doesn’t grant and that is the right to be heard and listened to," writes our CEO Ruth Smeeth in her weekly blog post.

"It only protects the right to speak. In some instances that isn’t necessarily a bad thing – some fringe views should stay on the fringe. However in too many instances a lack of voices fails us all."

From the archive

What ever happened to Luther Blissett?
September 2016

A quirky story of how Italian activists took the name of an unsuspecting English footballer, and still use it today

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