There have been great celebrations in and around Newcastle, since Newcastle United won the Carabao Cup Final on 16 March. There have even been suggestions form some quarters that this cup victory justifies the Saudi ownership and means that perhaps we should no longer be concerned about any issues around sportswashing and Saudi Arabia’s human rights record. But has anything really changed? Let’s unpack this a little…
Long prison sentences
One of the issues which most concerns those who are not sure about the ethics of the Saudi PIF owning Newcastle United is that of people being given long prison sentences by the Saudi regime, which a Human Rights Watch report last November suggests is directly linked to the PIF. One example of this is Manhel al-Otaibi. It was reported in May last year that Manahel al-Otaibi, 29, had been convicted of charges related to her clothing choices and expression of her views online, including calls for an end to the guardianship system and videos of her shopping without an abaya, which is a full-length outer garment worn by some Muslim women.
Has Newcastle United’s Carabao Cup victory brought Manahel her freedom? No, she remains in prison for doing what women in this country do every day. Like those women who cheered Newcastle to victory last Sunday. Nothing has changed.
Kafala System
Another issue is that concerning the Kafala System, which concerns the way that migrant workers are treated. It has been noted by the Council on Foreign Relations that, “the kafala system regulates the lives of tens of millions of migrant labourers in the Middle East, but growing outrage over human rights abuses, racism, and gender discrimination has fuelled calls for reform.” Often migrant workers are left unpaid for long periods, they can be exposed to violence and have on many occasions being killed. It is both a racist system and one which often treats migrant workers as little more than forced or slave labour.
Indeed, the day after the Carabao Cup Final at Wembley, Middle East Eye reported that at least 274 Kenyan workers, most of whom were women, had died in Saudi Arabia over the past five years. According to a New York Times report published on the day of the final at Wembley, this was despite the Kenyans constituting a young workforce in non-dangerous jobs. It was also noted that, “large numbers of Ugandan workers also died in the Gulf kingdom, but Uganda’s government does not release official figures. Thousands of Ugandan and Kenyan women travel to Saudi Arabia each year to take up domestic jobs such as housekeepers and nannies. But many are returning with stories of unpaid wages, detention, beatings, starvation and sexual assault. Others have returned in coffins.”
Has the Kafala system in Saudi Arabia been abolished since the match on 16 March? No. Nothing has changed.
Women’s rights
Then there is the issue of women’s rights In Saudi Arabia. There can be no doubt that women in Saudi Arabia are treated as second class citizens. The Personal Status Law (PSL) was passed in Saudi Arabia, on International Women’s Day, 8 March 2022. Before this law was passed, the male-dominated judiciary system in Saudi Arabia had been free to interpret Sharia Law in relation to family matters as they saw fit.
So, was this a step forward for women’s rights in Saudi Arabia?
Well, Amnesty International argued at the time that “in reality … the law codifies many of the informal yet widespread problematic practices inherent in the male guardianship system and entrenches a system of gender-based discrimination in most aspects of family life, including in marriage, divorce, and child custody.”
Indeed, under the PSL, a woman’s life is dominated by the influence of the male guardian. It is only men who can be legal guardians, while women unlike men, must have the consent of a male legal guardian to get married and for the marriage contract to be validated. Women do have some safeguards within the law, which seek to protect a woman from being forced into marriage, such as the prohibition of a legal guardian’s agreement to a woman’s marriage without her consent and the requirement of proof of consent of both the man and woman and. However, it does not provide any clarity on how ‘consent’ should be obtained, or even what it means.
In effect it means that every woman in Saudi Arabia is controlled by their male guardian who takes all the important decisions in her life for her.
How many of those female fans who celebrated at Wembley on 16 March, would be happy with living under those kinds of restrictions? And has result of the Carabao Cup Final seen a scrapping of the Personal Status Law?
No. Nothing has changed.
Turning a blind eye or speaking up?
These are just three of the serious human rights issues which are causing people in Saudi Arabia to lead diminished lives. Now that a trophy has finally been won, is it time for Newcastle United fans to speak up more about the plight of so many in Saudi Arabia?
Is it OK to just turn a blind eye to the links between Newcastle United and the Saudi PIF and the abuses that take place in Saudi Arabia, that were so clearly demonstrated by the Human Rights Watch report last November?
Newcastle has a wonderful heritage of solidarity, fairness and tolerance, from opposition to the slave trade in the 18th century, to the great support given to asylum seekers today. That record of human decency is an important part of our history. Like many, many others, I am very proud of that record.
Football means an awful lot to me. I have loved football since I was a small boy and I went to watch Newcastle United for 50 years.
But I just wonder if there are other important things as well as football. And other ways we can be proud of our city and region…
