Because the world’s finest feminine tennis gamers take to the courtroom in Riyadh for the “crown jewel” occasion of the yr, a younger health teacher languishes in a Saudi jail.
Manahel al-Otaibi, 30, was sentenced to 11 years in jail in a secret trial in January for “terrorism offences” referring to social media posts in assist of ladies’s rights.
Her arrest shocked and frightened her older sister, Fawzia al-Otaibi.
“I really feel horrible to see my sister is in a jail, and the opposite girls from outdoors got here to play [tennis],” she mentioned.
Activist and health teacher Manahel al-Otaibi had beforehand praised the Saudi authorities for reforms, however she was jailed in 2022. (AFP: Fayez Nureldine)
The Girls’s Tennis Affiliation (WTA) finals are being performed within the nation this week — the primary skilled girls’s tennis occasion to be held within the Gulf nation as a part of a three-year deal.
The transfer has divided the tennis world.
Loading Instagram content material
Some say the WTA ought to boycott the nation till it improves its human rights report, notably for girls and LGBT teams.
Critics spotlight that ladies nonetheless stay below male guardianship legal guidelines in Saudi Arabia, the place homosexuality is prohibited and might be punishable by dying.
Others, nonetheless, level to the progress that has been made and counsel the game can have a constructive affect within the kingdom.
Do not be silent, Saudi girls plead
Ms al-Otaibi and different Saudi girls’s rights activists are calling on the athletes to make use of their platforms to name for change and demand the discharge of ladies like Manahel.
Lina al-Hathloul, a London-based activist, is the youthful sister of Loujain al-Hathloul, who campaigned towards a ban on girls’s driving and spent 1,001 days in jail.
Saudi girls’s rights activist Loujain al-Hathloul was launched in 2021 however confronted a journey ban. (Equipped: Lina al-Hathloul)
“I do not need Saudi Arabia to be a pariah,” Lina al-Hathloul informed the ABC.
“I do not wish to deprive my individuals of something. What I need is that these occasions don’t contribute to protecting up the truth on the bottom.
“I am comfortable for everybody to go, however please, be the voice of the individuals who have been silenced. Don’t repeat the dictator’s narrative round reform. Be a part of the change, really.”
She pointed to the case of one other girl, Salma al-Shehab, who was sentenced to 34 years in jail for following and retweeting activists — together with a tweet from Ms al-Hathloul.
“It simply tells you the way repressive every little thing has turn out to be,” she mentioned.
Lina al-Hathloul is the top of monitoring and advocacy at ALQST for Human Rights. (Equipped: Lina al-Hathloul)
Talking to the ABC from Scotland, with translation assist from her husband, Ms al-Otaibi mentioned the scenario was akin to “sportswashing”.
Sportswashing is the place a beloved sporting occasion is used to distract from unethical practices or launder a tarnished popularity.
“I see that tennis gamers and people selling Saudi Arabia will not be contributing to vary by their participation,” Ms al-Otaibi mentioned.
“As an alternative, they’re getting used as a canopy to stifle girls’s wrestle and to hide the continuing violations.”
She mentioned she would favor for the gamers to not attend and explicitly cite human rights abuses as the explanation, however she mentioned in the event that they did go, the least they may do was discuss these abuses and add stress to the federal government.
What do the gamers assume?
World primary Aryna Sabalenka mentioned she personally did not have a problem with enjoying in Riyadh, and it was necessary to encourage a youthful era by tennis.
“I noticed every little thing right here is sort of chill,” the Belarusian mentioned.
World primary Aryna Sabalenka mentioned she hoped to encourage a youthful era of Saudi gamers. (Reuters: Aleksandra Szmigiel)
“The trouble they put into girls’s sport right here is unimaginable. I am actually impressed. I am actually comfortable to be right here and to be a part of, I’d say, some kind of historical past right here.”
American Coco Gauff, who has been outspoken on social justice points together with Black Lives Matter, mentioned she was very conscious of the scenario in Saudi Arabia and had introduced up questions on LGBT rights on calls with the WTA.
“I’d be mendacity to you if I mentioned I had no reservations,” she mentioned.
Coco Gauff has been vocal on social justice points. (Reuters: Aleksandra Szmigiel)
“We won’t simply come right here and play our event and depart. We’ve got to have an actual program and an actual plan in place … I am additionally very conscious that we’re not going to come back right here and simply change every little thing.
“I do assume sport can have a method to open doorways to individuals.”
Billie Jean King, who based the WTA and is seen as a pioneer for gender equality in sport, in interviews final yr appeared open to Saudi funding, though she mentioned the way in which girls had been handled within the nation was a priority.
“I need change, if we go … I am huge on engagement and inclusion, so it is a powerful one,” she mentioned.
“All I do know is I’ve by no means seen change with out engagement.”
Tennis legend Billie Jean King has mentioned there isn’t any change until you interact. (Reuters: Vincent Carchietta/Imagn Photos)
However fellow former champions Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova had been towards the thought, arguing in an op-ed this yr that they didn’t “construct girls’s tennis for it to be exploited by Saudi Arabia”.
“Staging the WTA last there would symbolize not progress, however important regression,” they wrote within the Washington Put up.
That column was criticised by Saudi ambassador to the US, Princess Reema Bandar Al-Saud, who mentioned it was based mostly on “outdated stereotypes and western-centric views”.
She pointed to enhancements for girls within the nation, together with the lifting of a driving ban, better financial participation, and eradicating some restrictions below the male guardianship system.
However human rights teams say that failing to abolish the male guardianship system altogether, and as a substitute codifying it in legislation, dangers undermining modest good points for girls.
Saudi Arabia accused of ‘sportswashing’
The WTA Finals include a $23 million prize pool, nevertheless it’s not the one occasion the place Saudi Arabia has been splashing money.
Final month, a “Saudi Kings” exhibition match noticed six of the highest male tennis gamers competing, with the winner Jannik Sinner bagging $9 million. (In distinction, he received $3.15 million for profitable this yr’s Australian Open).
Jannik Sinner received $9 million in a latest Saudi event, however mentioned he did not play for the cash. (AFP: Fayez Nureldine)
Rafael Nadal too has come below fireplace for turning into an envoy for Saudi Arabian tennis.
However it’s not simply tennis — Saudi Arabia has invested eye-watering sums in soccer, golf, boxing and Components 1.
It is a part of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s Imaginative and prescient 2030, which seeks to diversify the nation’s financial system away from oil.
Tracey Holmes, a professorial fellow in sport on the College of Canberra, mentioned sportswashing wasn’t the total image, and there was some hypocrisy as the identical human rights lens wasn’t at all times utilized to the West.
“It is at all times quite common within the West to seek advice from it as sportswashing, however individuals do not bury down and take a look on the approach sport is getting used to try to change their very own societies to result in constructive change,” she mentioned.
“To see the distinction in the way in which girls had been concerned in that society at giant in 2017 in comparison with now in 2024, it is like two totally different nations.
“In fact elevate sportswashing and naturally elevate human rights, however you want to elevate them once we’re speaking concerning the West as nicely, and that hardly ever occurs.”
Minky Worden, the director of worldwide initiatives at Human Rights Watch, mentioned the WTA missed a chance to insist on improved rights for girls earlier than staging the finals there.
“They have not achieved their due diligence on what the human rights circumstances are within the nation, and it would not ship a sign of respect for girls’s rights,” she mentioned.
WTA chief government officer Portia Archer defended the choice this week.
“We regularly play in environments and in nations which have totally different customs, totally different cultures, and in some instances totally different worth programs than I may need personally or that the WTA could have as an organisation based mostly in the USA,” she mentioned.
