Update: On Monday, January 18, the International Ice Hockey Federation IIHF announced that it was withdrawing Belarus from hosting the World Championship. This is a direct result of the great pressure that was put on the IIHF from all sides!
The International Ice Hockey Federation is holding on to its decision to hold the World Cup in Latvia and Belarus in May and June. The campaigning organisation Campax and the human rights organisation Libereco have launched a campaign and criticize the International Ice Hockey Federation for its decision and are calling the Swiss Ice Hockey Federation (SIHF) to do everything in its power to prevent the World Cup from being held in Belarus. In particular, the SIHF must clearly communicate that it would boycott the Ice Hockey World Cup if it were to take place in Belarus. Denmark has already made the same decision.
Nora Scheel, campaign manager at Campax, states: “The Swiss federation should urge the International Ice Hockey Federation to move the World Cup to another country or otherwise boycott a World Cup in Belarus, as Denmark has already announced. We must not allow a dictator to instrumentalise sport for his political goals of staying in power. Swiss ice hockey players must not allow themselves to be abused by a criminal regime for propaganda purposes.”
While René Fasel, the president of the International Ice Hockey Federation, warmly embraced ruler Lukashenka at a meeting this week, the Belarusian blogger Ihar Losik is in mortal danger. He was arrested in June 2020 and has been on hunger strike since 15 December to protest the illegality of his detention.
“We are very concerned about Ihar’s life,” said Lars Bünger, President of Libereco. “He and all other political prisoners in Belarus must be released immediately. Holding a World Cup in Belarus under these circumstances is unthinkable. We have been witnessing inconceivable crimes in the middle of Europe for months. In 2020 alone, more than 1,000 cases of state torture of prisoners have been documented. As long as Lukashenka is in power, no Swiss ice hockey player should travel to Belarus,” adds Bünger.
For months, thousands of people in Belarus have been demonstrating peacefully against dictator Lukashenka and for free elections. More than 33,000 people have been arrested so far. There are currently 183 political prisoners who have been detained for months. Among them is the Swiss Natallia Hersche, who was sentenced to two and a half years in prison at the beginning of December.
Human rights violations already occurred during the 2014 Ice Hockey World Cup, which also took place in Belarus, as Libereco documented 2019 in a report. Civil society activists were arrested and detained for several weeks prior to the World Cup 2014. In addition, homeless people were abducted by state security forces and abandoned in the countryside to “clean up” the streets of the capital Minsk.
The campaign can be signed here.
