A BBC reporter pressed the captain of the ladies’s squad to ‘out’ her teammates
The BBC has apologized after one in all its reporters questioned the captain of the Moroccan girls’s soccer staff about homosexual rights in her nation and requested her whether or not she had “any homosexual gamers” in her squad.
“In Morocco it’s unlawful to have a homosexual relationship,” a BBC World Service reporter mentioned to Moroccan captain Ghizlane Chebbak throughout a press convention earlier than her staff’s Ladies’s World Cup conflict with Germany on Monday. “Do you might have any homosexual gamers in your squad, and what’s life like for them in Morocco?” he requested.
Chebbak didn’t reply, eradicating her earpiece and turning to her coach, Reynald Pedros, for steerage. A FIFA official interjected, calling the BBC’s query “very political” and asking that the dialog be stored to sport.
“No, it’s not political, it’s about individuals,” the journalist pressed. “Please let her reply the query.” Chebbak shook her head and refused to remark.
The BBC’s line of questioning was condemned by different journalists. “The reporter was fully out of line,” sports activities author Shireen Ahmed, who was on the press convention, tweeted on Monday. “This is not a difficulty of journalistic freedom. You’ll be able to inquire about social legal guidelines elsewhere with out endangering individuals.”
The British broadcaster issued an apology on Tuesday. “We recognise that the query was inappropriate,” mentioned a spokesperson for the community. “We had no intention to trigger any hurt or misery.”
“Lewd or unnatural acts with a person of the identical intercourse” are unlawful in Morocco, and will be punished with a effective of $122 or a jail sentence of as much as three years. Identical-sex relationships will not be acknowledged, and the federal government permits one homosexual rights group to function, albeit discreetly. Muslims make up 99% of the Moroccan inhabitants, and the nation’s legal guidelines on homosexuality are derived from conventional Islamic morality.
Monday’s press briefing was not the primary LGBTQ-related controversy to strike throughout this yr’s event in Australia and New Zealand. Saudi Arabia’s state tourism board was set to sponsor the competitors, however FIFA terminated the deal in March as a consequence of an outcry from LGBTQ campaigners over the Islamic kingdom’s restrictions on girls’s rights and prohibition of homosexuality.
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