The World Cup in Qatar or Qatar depending on how you want to pronounce it,
has been plagued by all sorts of controversies for
months due to their views on alcohol in Qatar,
due to their views on LGBTQ individuals.
And to make matters worse, an American fan was recently arrested just
this week during the Iran US match for wearing a rainbow armband.
So here are the details to that.
The American fan is Brian Davis.
Davis was photographed triumphantly holding, there he is.
What a stud?
Love that guy.
He's triumphantly holding the rainbow armband up high
even as he was being confronted by the police in Qatar, okay?
So there he is, and here is his twitter account where he says,
today was a bit eventful, but I'm ready for the game.
He probably knew he risked arrest, but he wore the armband anyway and
that's why I'm calling him a stud.
I love that about him.
And being gay is in fact a crime in Qatar.
The country's government has previously reacted with
hostility to any mention of the rainbow armbands.
And FIFA stood with the government of Qatar by threatening sanctions on
several European teams who pledged to wear the rainbow armbands.
I hate that this is all happening in a country that
doesn't respect people [LAUGH].
And clearly doesn't respect people when you consider the hundreds of laborers,
the migrant workers who have died while building the infrastructure necessary to
host the World Cup and I'll get to that in just a moment.
Before I do, curious what you think, John.
>> Yeah, I hate every single part of it.
I know that I'm being intentionally stupid, but why is the armband illegal?
Okay, let's say you take it- >> Because you see the rainbow armband and
you immediately want to get intimate.
>> So let's say that you believe it's reasonable that two people who love
each other and experience physical intimacy that should be locked up.
Let's say that you're deranged and
pathetic enough that you believe that that should be how the law is set up.
And okay, so the rainbow is a symbol for that group, and
I mean, I guess you have to be super sensitive and
pathetic and weak for that to make any sense to you whatsoever.
>> Totally.
>> I will never be able to understand being that pathetic.
>> And I think it's partly ignorance too, right?
I mean, people who genuinely think that it's a choice.
People wake up one day and they decide, I saw positive commentary about gay people,
so I think I'm gonna be gay, and it doesn't work that way.
I saw an armband and I thought the armband was so beautiful-
>> We just saw the armband.
Are you gay now?
>> No, I'm definitely not gay.
>> Okay, well, it's not as effective as they feared, I guess.
It doesn't make any sense.
>> But also did you get tempted to sleep with someone of the same sex when you saw
the armband?
Is that what's going through your mind?
You know what I'm saying?
Anyway, but, yeah, that's what's transpiring in Qatar.
And let's also not forget the fact that they said that they would allow alcohol,
beer, and then immediately reneged on that.
Why suck the fun out of this big event by letting a country
that doesn't respect certain groups of people, and
has weird religious rules that they wanna force on everyone else.
Anyway, we know that there's corruption involved in all of that,
we've talked about on the show before.
But I do wanna pivot to one other angle to this story that has to do with
the migrants.
It's just so it's just so gross.
So last year, the Guardian estimated that 6,500 migrant workers
have died in Qatar since the country won the bid for the World Cup back in 2010.
Now, it's suspected but not confirmed that many of those workers died
building stadiums and infrastructure for the World Cup.
Now, Qatar's grim death toll is revealed in long spreadsheets of
official data listing the deaths, or the causes of death I should say.
Multiple blunt injuries due to a fall from height, asphyxia due to hanging,
undetermined cause of death due to decomposition.
But among the causes, the most common by far is so called natural deaths,
often attributed to acute heart or respiratory failure.
>> Yeah, that seems suspicious on its face, but
there are just some parts of the world where your natural systems just fail.
If you're in a sports place in Qatar, if you're in a prison in Iran,
people's natural ability to breathe just suddenly stops, I guess.
They arrested the person for having the armband.
Do you have a list of how many people have been arrested for these deaths?
>> I mean, I haven't seen a single report regarding a single person who's been
arrested for not doing what's necessary to protect these migrant workers from
work related injuries.
And obviously all of the natural causes that are listed in
their official data is trying to cover something up.
>> 100%, yeah.
But but continue to tell me about how it's deeply held religious values
that mean you have to lock people up for having a rainbow armband,
when you don't care that hundreds of people are being needlessly sacrificed so
that you can have a fancy stadium or whatever?
And we can't, I guess, expect,
we certainly can't require that they do anything legally about this.
But I think people can wonder why they finally admitting to hundreds now, and
the hundreds is a huge, massive undercount or whatever, but
they're at least admitting to that.
And FIFA isn't, wow, that's crazy.
That's a massive tragedy.
You guys are never having an event ever again.
It's weird that there's no consequences literally any form.
>> Well, I mean FIFA got paid, right?
That's all that matters.
That's all that matters, guys, I mean it's not just the United States,
this is a worldwide issue, okay?
Money before human lives again, and again, and again.
It never freaking ends, the fact that LA is gonna host the Olympics,
that LA which currently has at a minimum, I'm sure there's more,
at a minimum 60,000 people living on the streets, but
we're gonna spend resources on hosting the Olympics.
It's disgusting.
It is freaking disgusting.
More on the people who died by the way based on the data obtained by
the Guardian, 69% of deaths among Indian, Nepali, and
Bangladeshi workers are categorized as natural.
Among Indians alone the figure is 80%.
The Guardian has previously reported that such classifications which
are usually made without an autopsy obviously, often fail to provide
a legitimate medical explanation for the underlying cause of these deaths.
>> The underlying cause is not believing that they're human beings worthy of
respect and dignity and protections.
Believing that because they're working class, they are no more important than
the literal bricks being used to make the stadium and as disposable.
That's the underlying cause.
>> It's insane how many people worldwide have to risk their lives literally every
day just to survive, just to provide for their families.
It's so incredibly depressing.
So that's another huge source of controversy when it comes
to the World Cup.
Yesterday however, Qatar tried to put the world at ease by assuring us that only
hundreds, only hundreds of these migrant workers died, okay, don't worry about it.
Now, you should take what they say with a grain of salt for obvious reasons.
Here's Hassan Al-Thawadi, the secretary general of Qatar's Supreme Committee for
delivery and legacy, talking to Pierce Morgan.
>> What is the honest, realistic total do you think, of migrant workers who
died from as a result of what they're doing for the World Cup in totality?
>> The estimate is around 400, between 400 and 500.
I don't have the exact number.
That's something that's been discussed.
>> There will be people who say that's a lot of people say,
they would say 400 is a price too big to pay.
What do you say to that?
>> What I will say is one death is a death to many, plain and simple.
And I think every year, the health and
safety standards on the sites are improving, at least on our sites.
The World Cup sites that were responsible for it,
most definitely, to the extent that you've got trade unions,
representatives of the German trade union, representatives of the Swiss trade have
commended the work that's been done on the side of the World Cup site improvements.
>> Right, but do you accept then because of the improvements that have
been made that at the start they weren't good enough?
The standards?
>> I think overall the need for labor reform in itself dictates that, yes,
improvements had to happen.
>> One death is a death too many.
Also the number of deaths is somewhere between 400 and 500.
But I don't know the exact number because I don't actually give a crap.
>> Yeah, and the number is probably at least 10 times that amount.
>> Yeah. >> But honestly, who cares?
I'm just hoping to come out of this conversation seeming a bit more
compassionate than the previous times.
That representatives of our government have talked to reporters that have
literally stormed out of the interviews when they've asked about deaths.
Yeah, no, they just don't care.
Don't care. >> And
it's not like Qatar is some poor developing country that can't afford
the safety measures necessary to keep the workers safe.
They just don't care.
They don't care.
That's really the issue.