One of the slightly frustrating things about working in communications for human rights causes is seeing a repressive government spend kajillions on international public relations (PR) firms to try to clean up its image.

All the human rights organizations in the world put together couldn’t ever hope to have the kind of money that even one abusive government can throw at global communications.

What gives me solace, however, is knowing that it hardly ever works.

You can always tell a big PR push is happening because, all of a sudden, the same, specific pro-government line appears in news articles, in commentary pieces, and across Twitter, usually in replies from spammy accounts only saying one thing over and over.

Case in point today is Qatar and its hired PR guns trying to spin a line that no one ever cared about human rights issues in hosts of major sporting events before World Cup 2022. You’re supposed to feel sorry for poor, picked-on Qatar…

It’s nonsense, of course.

HRW exposed China’s abuses in and around the 2008 Olympics in Beijing and their 2022 Olympics, too.

We did the same with Russia’s abuses for the 2014 Olympics and Russia’s World Cup in 2018.

The list goes on… Brazil’s 2014 World Cup, Brazil’s 2016 Olympics, Azerbaijan’s Formula 1 Grand Prix…

And we already have the 2026 US, Mexico, Canada World Cup in our sights.

So, no, Qatar is not “picked on” – but we are targeting Qatar for good reason.

In building Qatar’s World Cup, thousands of migrant workers lost their lives to unexplained causes or suffered injuries, and many more have been victims of wage theft by employers. The government of Qatar and FIFA should compensate them and their families properly.

Thankfully, Qatar’s PR spend isn’t working, and decision-makers around the world know the truth. Just yesterday, for example, the European Parliament urged FIFA and Qatar to compensate migrant workers for widespread abuses they suffered.

Rather than wasting money on international PR firms, Qatar and FIFA should spend it on that compensation.

(co-authored with Lisa Maier)

Someday, we’re finally going to be able to write a headline like, “Repression in Russia Eases”…

But today is not that day.

As at most every other point over the past 15 or 20 years, the authoritarian stranglehold over the country has tightened.

Yesterday, Russia’s State Duma (lower chamber of parliament) adopted new draft legislation to further restrict freedom of expression.

The proposals prohibit sharing all but negative information about lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people and publicly displaying non-heterosexual orientations, with hefty fines for non-compliance.

The legislation is now awaiting approval by the parliament’s upper chamber and the president.

You probably know Russia already has a “gay propaganda” law, introduced in 2013, but this new one would be even more repressive. The “propaganda” ban to children is becoming a “propaganda” ban to everyone. It includes not just sexual relations but also sexual orientation.

And the fines for disseminating banned information will increase dramatically: the equivalent of US$6,500 for individuals and US$81,000 for legal entities, such as charities.

Just as the original law resulted in significant stigma and harm toward LGBT people in Russia, this updated version will have an even more stifling effect on freedom of expression, wellbeing and security.

In Wednesday’s Daily Brief, we looked at what the world could do to help Iran and joined with others in calling for the UN Human Rights Council to establish a fact-finding mission to investigate abuses around the recent wave of protests.

I’m happy to report that, yesterday, the Council did just that.

The new mission is a welcome step towards accountability for the Iranian authorities’ deadly crackdown on protesters.

By establishing the facts and collecting evidence of the violence against protestors and detainees, it can help end years of impunity for abuses by the government against its own people.

The next step, as my colleague in Geneva, Lucy McKernan, tells us, is for States to “make sure the mission is well resourced to do technical research and sufficient outreach to hundreds of victims’ families across Iran.”

(compiled by Alice Autin)

• Hong Kong court finds Cardinal and five others guilty over helping 2019 anti-government protesters (DW) 
• One year after 27 deaths in the Channel, France-UK deal further closes the border (Le Monde, English)  
• Kyrgyzstan: Deported journalist should be allowed to return from Russia (HRW) 
• In Australia, a landmark court decision puts human rights and climate before coal mine profits (ABC) 

An editor at Thomson Reuters Foundation read my newsletter entry on the chaos at Twitter last week and asked for some longer thoughts.

My commentary article has now been published there for readers who would like to go a bit deeper.

Audio conversations from this week…

• Fair Play, Fair Work: Birgit Schwarz’s weekly HRW Twitter Space examines how to ensure ethical labor conditions. From November 23. Listen here.
• COP27: Pyotr Kurzin’s Twitter Space looks at fossil fuels, climate commitments & renewables. From November 22. Listen here. 

My colleague and arms expert Mary Wareham has captured the Jet d'Eau, Geneva’s mighty fountain, lit up for the final day of the annual meeting of the Mine Ban Treaty.

The five colors are those of the treaty, which “has made a huge global impact over the past 25 years by stigmatizing antipersonnel mines and providing a framework for their eradication.”

The video is even nicer.