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View all search resultsVirtue or signaling? World Cup protests get mixed reaction
Supports for LGBTQ community, migrant workers prompt suspicion.
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H
uman rights protests at the World Cup have drawn everything from sympathy to indifference and outright hostility, with Qatar's critics often finding themselves in the firing line.
Germany's hands-over-mouths protest, a reaction to being barred from wearing a "OneLove" armband, was swiftly followed by accusations of anti-Arab racism and taunts over the country's Nazi past.
Other acts of support for Qatar's lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) community and migrant workers, often by European teams or fans, have prompted more suspicion than solidarity from many around the world.
"Put your hands over your mouths and we will pinch our noses so we don't smell your racism," Tunisian national Fathi Jouini said in a post on Facebook, referring to the German team.
Similar attitudes were seen elsewhere, with many lashing out angrily. In conservative Saudi Arabia, an Arabic hashtag that translates as "the gay team" trended on Twitter after the German protest.
The highly charged, often offensive exchanges on social media follow a bad-tempered build-up to the World Cup, when European officials and media led criticism of Qatar's rights record.
According to Dana El Kurd, assistant professor of political science at the University of Richmond in Virginia, critics of the tournament are sometimes guilty of "double standards".
