The NBA has been slammed over its deal with the United Arab Emirates’ Department of Culture and Tourism.
The league announced a deal with the tourism board that will pave the way for pre-season games to be played in the Middle-East over the coming years. Meanwhile, UAE’s flagship airline Emirates is currently the sponsor of the NBA’s in-season tournament.
On the back of the deal, the NBA has been slammed for its deal with the UAE, specifically due to the human rights violations in the Middle-Eastern country.
Human Rights Watch said in an article on its website: “The UAE maintains a zero-tolerance policy toward online and offline dissent domestically while fueling rights abuses abroad in Yemen and Sudan.
“The UAE’s support to the RSF, a force responsible for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and other atrocities, including ethnic cleansing in the Darfur region, comes amid reports of an airbridge between the UAE and Chad to a military-style airfield that the UAE alleges is purely for humanitarian purposes.”
The UAE and other Middle-Eastern countries have long been accused of sportswashing, which is using sports sponsorship to clean the image of the country amid those alleged human rights violations.
Further UAE accusations
The Human Rights Watch group has also accused the UAE of targeting 44 ‘human rights defenders and dissidents’ with prison sentences between 15 years to life after an ‘unfair trial marred by process violations.’
As for the NBA, this criticism is nothing new, with the league having an increasing relationship to China, something that has been highly criticized due to human rights issues in the Asian country.
