Fifa World Cup risks being ‘stage for repression’, Amnesty International says
Human rights organisation urges football governing body and host nations US, Canada and Mexico to players, fans and communities
Amnesty International has warned that this summer’s football World Cup, spread across three North American countries, risks becoming a “stage for repression” in a report published on Monday.
The London-based human rights organisation’s report “Humanity Must Win” details what the organisation calls “significant risks” to and which will impact on fans, players, journalists, workers and local communities in all three host countries.
Fifa has promised a tournament where everyone “feels safe, included and free to exercise their rights”.
But Amnesty said that pledge sits in “stark contrast” to conditions on the ground in all three host nations, especially the US, which hosts three-quarters of the 104 matches.
Amnesty described the US as facing a “human rights emergency” under the Trump administration, marked by mass deportations, arbitrary arrests and what it called “paramilitary-style” Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations.
The acting director of ICE said last month the agency would be “a key part of the overall security apparatus for the World Cup”.