2022 World Cup marred by racist comments, hate speech
ISTANBUL (AA) – Despite the zero-tolerance principle against all forms of discrimination at the 2022 FIFA World Cup held in Qatar, a lot of hate speech was used both on and off the field and on social media.
According to a report by the US-based Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) published on Nov. 21, posts began appearing on social media targeting Black players before the 2022 World Cup started, and social media platforms did nothing to curtail or prevent the abuse.
The report said that no action was taken over 99 of the 100 racist tweets targeting 43 football players including Raheem Sterling and Bukayo Saka of the England national football team. Only one post was deleted because it was repeated 16 times.
The expression “Negro” (Black) was used to describe the football players in 11 of the posts and a monkey or banana emoji was used for the players in 25 of them, the report said, while 13 of the players were asked to be deported, 25 of them were told to “go to other countries” and in 13 tweets the players were targeted based on their language skills.
Imran Ahmed, the founder and CEO of CCDH, said in a statement on Dec. 11 that Black players participating in the organization were also targeted by racist abuse on Instagram and that these posts were not deleted by the platform.
Qatar also faced racist abuse after it won the right to host the FIFA World Cup.
Western media, which said that Qatar should not host the World Cup due to alleged human rights violations, targeted the country with hate language.
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