Pressure grows on Neom-bound Dakar Rally
Human rights activists are calling for a boycott of the Dakar Rally in support of jailed women’s rights activist Loujain al-Hathloul. The rally, which goes in part through Neom, is currently underway in Saudi Arabia, and is set to pass within several hundred metres of Riyadh’s Al-Ha’ir prison, where Hathloul is being held.
The Dakar Rally is one of the world’s leading motoring events, attracting millions of TV viewers around the world. Saudi Arabia’s hosting of the event has led to accusations of “sportswashing” its human rights record, including women’s rights and the rights of the Huwaitat tribespeople being displaced to make way for the megacity of Neom.
Hathloul was arrested and imprisoned without charge in 2018 after campaigning for women to have the right to drive. She was recently sentenced to five years and eight months imprisonment for criticising the Saudi regime – although is set to be released, under conditions, in several months, having served much of her sentence pre-sentencing and with several years suspended.
“Women’s rights activists have endured years in prison, psychological and physical torture, and sexual abuse for campaigning for the right to drive. Many remain in prison to this day,” Lucy Rae, from human rights groups Grant Liberty, which campaigns for Saudi prisoners of conscience, told the Guardian newspaper. “It is utterly grotesque that at the same time Saudi authorities will host a motor sport event – including women drivers – while the heroes that won their right to drive languish in jail.”
The rally is also set to pass through Huwaitat land earmarked for development by the Neom project, for which 20,000 members of the tribe are facing eviction.
Saudi Arabia started hosting the rally last year, and is widely seen as part of its campaign to “open up” the country to foreign investment and tourism. Little progress has been made, not least due to the coronavirus crisis, but the kingdom regularly pushes e-sports events, fashion shows and sports as a means of normalising itself with the rest of the world.
Quoted in the Guardian, Loujain al-Hathloul’s sister, Lina, said: “No-one should be fooled by the Saudi regime’s attempts at sportswashing … Racers might not know it, but their participation there is to hide and whitewash the host’s crimes.
“The PR machine claims that hosting global sporting events is a sign the country is opening up, but the reality is that just a few hundred metres from the course my sister languishes in prison because she campaigned for women’s right to drive. Saudi Arabia needs real reform, real human rights, not this charade.”
READ: The Dakar Rally is an attempt to disguise Saudi human rights abuses
