Human rights groups and soccer players yesterday called on FIFA and the Australian government to intervene to stop a Melbourne-based refugee and semi-professional soccer player being extradited from Thailand to Bahrain.
Hakeem al-Araibi, a 25-year-old former player on Bahrain’s national team, was granted refugee status in Australia last year after fleeing his homeland, where he said he was persecuted and tortured.
He was arrested last month while on holiday in Thailand on an Interpol notice in which Bahrain sought his custody after he had been sentenced in absentia in 2014 to 10 years in prison for allegedly vandalizing a police station, a charge he denies.
At a news conference in Melbourne, former Australia soccer captain Craig Foster and Amnesty International Australia lawyer Diana Sayed called on Australian Minister of Foreign Affairs Marise Payne, FIFA and the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) to stop Thailand extraditing al-Araibi.
Speaking on behalf of Professional Footballers Australia, Foster said that the global soccer community has a duty to ensure it does everything in its power to ensure the safe return to Australia of al-Araibi, who plays in Melbourne.
“Australia’s footballers implore FIFA and the AFC to comply with their own rules of governance to demand the return of Hakeem to Australia,” Foster said. “FIFA and the AFC have a constitutional obligation to not only observe the human rights of their participants, but proactively promote such rights.”
Sayed said that Payne and the Australian government “must continue to pressure the Thai authorities to return Hakeem back to his home in Australia.”
Thai officials say that they are following the law in holding al-Araibi, but rights groups say that he should not have been detained because of his refugee status and that international law to which Thailand is a party forbids sending him to Bahrain if he has a legitimate fear of persecution and torture.
In a statement earlier this month, FIFA urged that al-Araibi should be returned to Australia “at the earliest possible moment.”
“We know the history of human rights violations in Bahrain and so it makes Hakeem’s case and current detention in Thailand even more important for the international community, and for [the] Australian football federation and others to stand behind him at his time because there is a very real risk that he could be extradited back to Bahrain,” Sayed said.
While Payne has previously called for al-Araibi to be released, Foster said she should visit Thailand to “lend her personal and direct support” and meet Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha to discuss the matter.
A Thai court last week ruled that al-Araibi could be held for 60 days pending the completion of an extradition request by Bahrain.
Al-Araibi has been publicly critical of the Bahrain royal family’s alleged involvement in sports scandals.
He also has said that he was blindfolded and had his legs beaten while he was held in Bahrain in 2012.
He said he believed he was targeted for arrest because of his Shiite faith and because his brother was politically active in Bahrain.
Bahrain has a Shiite majority, but is ruled by a Sunni monarchy and has a reputation for harsh repression since a failed “Arab Spring” uprising in 2011.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of