Belarus to be deprived of Ice Hockey World Championship?

The Congress of the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) is to revise a question on the place of hosting the 2014 Ice Hockey World Championship.

The cause is a continuous stream of demands from human rights activists and world community to change the place of the championship.

Swedish Svenska Dagbladet has learned it from IIHF Communications Director Szymon Szemberg.

According to him, a decision to discus the issue at the IIHF Congress scheduled for May in Helsinki was taken at a meeting of the Council of the Federation. The reason is ongoing demands from human rights activists and world community to change the place of hosting the event. Protests have been lasting since 2009, when the IIHF announced the 2014 World Championship would be hosted in Minsk, Radio Svaboda reports.

As Lise Bergh, the Secretary General of Amnesty International Sweden, told journalists, such events cannot be held in a country with numerous human rights violations. According to Amnesty International representatives, the situation with democratic rights and freedoms in Belarus has only deteriorated. Nevertheless, the ice hockey authorities continue to insist the Federation remains neutral in political affairs, as well as in religious and ethnic issues.

“Sport and politics are interrelated in the sense that a sporting event gives the regime an opportunity to continue its policy,” Lise Bergh notes. “What is the most unpleasant is that the events of such kind lead to tougher crackdown on the critics of the regime. Let's see the example of the Beijing Olympics.”

As of the IIHF, the issue on the championship in Minsk is being discussed in the context of preparation for the event. According to Svenska Dagbladet, the latest debate was held in Zurich last Tuesday. Federation President René Fasel said the preparation process was going well and none of the IIHF member state had any claims. However, the delicacy of the Belarusian issue made the Federation the next day to take a decision on raising the question on championship hosting at the Congress in May, Svenska Dagbladet writes with a link to Szemberg's remark.

The newspaper notes the decision is to be taken by the same persons who voted for Minsk in 2009.