Pay Up FIFA! - Daily Brief

After 12 years of abuses against migrant workers in Qatar, it is time for world football federation FIFA and the local authorities to finally come up with a remedy, to the tune of at least $440 million - equivalent to the prize money provided to 2022 World Cup teams. That is one of the key asks in a global campaign that started today, with backing from Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and other key organizations that try to improve the human rights situation in Qatar before the tournament kicks off in November. FIFA needs to work with Qatari authorities to establish a comprehensive program to address abuses suffered by migrant workers and to invest in funds to compensate workers and improve worker protections. The remediation program should be governed in a participatory way following consultation with stakeholders, including migrant workers, surviving family members, and trade unions. It needs to be easily accessible to workers and their families, many of whom will no longer be in Qatar. Players, fans, FIFA sponsors, national football associations, and others can play an important role in securing a positive legacy for this World Cup by joining our #PayUpFIFA campaign.

Tensions have been rising in an autonomous region of Tajikistan with several incidents of violence after protests over harassment of local people by Tajik authorities. On Monday, a local man, Zamir Nazrishoev, 29, was killed during protests in Khorog, the capital of the Gorno-Badakhshan autonomous region. The next day police reported that he and several other young men had organized an armed attack on police forces, wounding three officers, and was fatally shot during this attack. However, media reported witnesses claiming that Nazrishoev was killed with live ammunition in unclear circumstances...

Last August, after the Taliban took control of Afghanistan again, the harrowing image of two boys hanging and falling from a US plane evacuating Afghans circulated widely on social media. That plane embodied the difference between lives that mattered and those that didn’t. The latter fell to their graves, while the former rose, reaching the United States.   That horror has been etched in the mind of HRW's Sahar Fetrat. Read her op-ed, published by Inkstick Media, here: "I cannot unsee or erase it. Six months later, I wonder if the distress and desperation in that image will ever stop haunting me.  As the world is occupied with the Ukraine war, Afghans are experiencing some of their darkest days and nights. Famine seems imminent. Recently, a family friend said: “My pocket is so empty, I have nothing left to sell anymore. I should start feeding grass to my children or sell my kidney soon.”

Mahamat Idriss Déby Itno, the President of Chad, has dashed hopes for further reforms with the arrest of six members and supporters of Wakit Tamma, a coalition of Chadian opposition parties and civil society organizations, for participating in a May 14 demonstration in the capital N’Djamena.

United States President Joseph Biden and newly elected South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol should pledge to include human rights benchmarks in future negotiations with North Korea. Biden is visiting South Korea on Friday and Saturday, and he will meet with Yoon to discuss economic and security issues, including North Korea’s growing nuclear weapon capacities. “The United States and South Korea have for too long viewed the situation in North Korea primarily through the lens of North Korea’s nuclear weapons development,” says Lina Yoon, HRW's senior Koreas researcher. “It’s crucial for negotiations with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to address the country’s human rights and humanitarian crisis.”

And we conclude the Daily Brief with some very welcome sports and human rights news, as the United States men's and women's teams will be paid equally under a new deal, eliminating a contentious pay gap that saw female players earning less.