Open letter I published today to IFSC and newsdesks:
From: ...
Sent: 14 April 2019 20:53
To: anne.fuynel@ifsc-climbing.org
Cc: ...
Subject: IFSC 2019 Climbing World Cup in Moscow - Human Rights Abuses in Russian Federation
Open Letter
Dear Anne,
I'd like to thank you and IFSC for the contribution you've made to developing climbing as a sport.
Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and other highly respected international organisations have highlighted extremely serious ongoing human rights abuses in the Russian Federation and in particular the persecution of political opponents and religious minorities and the torture and killing of people in same-gender relationships:
https://www.amnesty.org/en/countries/europe-and-central-asia/russian-federa...
"Migrants and refugees were denied protection of their rights. Some forms of domestic violence were decriminalized. LGBTI people continued to face discrimination and violence; gay men in Chechnya were targeted through a co-ordinated campaign of abduction, torture and killings by the Chechen authorities."
https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2019/country-chapters/russia
https://memohrc.org/en
I'm confident that when the IFSC made the decision to hold the 2019 Climbing World Cup in Moscow the IFSC did not intend to imply support for governments in the Russian Federation however the situation does raise parallels with the decision by the IOC to hold the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin and the way in which this was used to legitimise policies of the Nazi movement both in Germany and worldwide.
As a climber and mountaineer I'd like to ask if IFSC would use your prominence to make a public statement distancing IFSC and climbers from human rights abuses in the Russian Federation and asserting the strong support of IFSC and the global climbing community for freedom of political and religious expression, for same-gender relationships and for human rights. I hope that a statement like this would be widely reported and highlight our support as climbers for these vital principles.
Thank you very much for your help!
Will Robertson