Why has BBC and UK suddenly become so pro-human rights?

Question

In international relations, it can be consistently observed that whenever an entity questions another entity's human rights and/or freedom of speech situation, there is a political motive behind it. Whether the accusations are true or false is a different question and debate.

Recently, BBC and the UK, out of the blue, got vocal about Qatar's human rights as if they have suddenly become a beacon for human rights, Qatari ads have been banned from London, and as a result, Qatar is reviewing its investment portfolio in the UK. Then, UK's PM is seeking Turkish help to calm Qatar down.

Can you explain what is the inside story?

Answer 1

It's due to the World Cup

Most of the British barely knew of Qatar until the start of the World Cup. Thousands of British football fans have been there and were communicating back home via the Internet. Lots of journalists were there and filing reports on things other than the football. Now, lots of the British know a bit about Qatar.

The treatment of migrant workers in Qatar, including a large number of deaths, the country's stance on LGBT issues, and the treatment of women have not impressed the British. The UK treats asylum seekers badly, but most people see that through rose-tinted lenses, and prefer to think of themselves as compassionate people.

The sudden reversal on alcohol sales within the football stadiums shortly before the start of the tournament did not help. It seemed utterly unreasonable to the average British football fan, who wants cold beer in hot weather and feels it was promised.

The ability of the FIFA leadership to shape the views of visiting football fans is negligible. They're seen as interested only in money and power, and likely bribed by the Qatar government to award the tournament to a country with limited football culture.

The Qatar World Cup CEO, Nasser Al Khater, in response to the death of a migrant worker during the tournament, said "Death is a natural part of life, whether it's at work, whether it's in your sleep. Of course, a worker died, our condolences go to his family." That was really insensitive and meant that journalists stopped being interested in the Qatari view.

There's also drama in the European Parliament about alleged Qatari bribery. That probably isn't having much effect in the UK, but it won't help.

Overall, the whole tournament has come over as a very clumsy and expensive attempt at sportswashing.

Answer 2

At the risk of appearing cynical, most of the time the West semi-cares about human rights.

• A portion of people passionately care all the time. Things like Qatar and Dubai working conditions are known and occasionally rotate through articles.

• The vast majority is paying attention to other things. Possibly to Kim K's derriere's impact on telecoms. Possibly to human rights elsewhere, in country Y. Possibly to a war. Inflation. Energy prices.

• The media is focussed on other stories.

Let's take the citizens of country A (the UK in this case) as an example. They're not paying attention to country X much.

Now, imagine that country X suddenly makes the news. This could be for a number of reasons:

• the UK is hosting country X's head of state.
• a big arm deal is getting signed to sell weapons to X.
• a big sporting event.

Suddenly the media is looking for coverage about X. People are paying attention! Now all the activists whose article are not much in demand normally get asked. Maybe A's opposition sees an opportunity to embarrass the current government?

Depending on how egregious X's human rights violations are, how "famous" country X is, country A's perceived ethics of, and necessity, the event between A and X, and how high profile the event gets the coverage can get nasty rather quickly.

• Canada sells arms to Saudi? Fairly noticeable news, lots of Canadian national coverage, not very supportive at all of the Canadian government. If Canada had a higher profile arms industry the story would have faded away more quickly.

• Biden fist bumps MBS? Well, buying oil is pretty much biz as usual, and current energy supply events make it important to hold one's nose, so coverage was critical but also fairly short.

• Country X is invading somewhere? If it's Saudi invading Yemen, no one really wants to give up Saudi oil, so coverage will be occasional, not sustained. And where is Yemen anyway and aren't they Iran's pals? If it's Russia invading Ukraine, Western national interests against Russia suddenly align with massive sympathy for Ukrainians.

• Certain stories play well to certain audiences. Not naming anyone, but in a certain demographic of a certain party of a certain country, a demographic not known to care overmuch about conditions in the Middle East, coverage of the plight of Egyptian Christian Copts usually sells well.

• World Cup? Huge viewer awareness of the event - even apolitical people can now find Qatar on a map, not very well perceived hosting and after previous doubts about having awarded the event to Qatar in the first place, extensive trove of existing stories and articles about human rights and worker conditions. There's even a CO2 emissions angle! Bribery!. Those stories sell!

Am I a bit cynical? Yes. But so are claims that the UK (or insert another Western country) really doesn't care about human rights at all and only dusts off the outrage pony when it suits them. But you can certainly accuse most of us of being selectively attentive, fickle and generally prone to benign neglect.

There's a mix of self-interest and news cycle going on, that's about it.

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Stepping away from media attention spans, and on a more principled note, it makes sense for democracies to care about human rights.

• our own people demand it for themselves

  • when there are abuses, like the George Floyd case, the overall result for a society is generally negative in terms of incarceration rates and criminality, unless you're part of the prison-industrial complex

• there is a correlation of wealth and human rights - China being a possible exception. Western countries are in a much more pleasant state interacting with countries with compatible values, like Japan or South Korea. Likewise, ditching Mossadegh in 1953 as a shortcut to buying cheaper oil from an autocrat has come back to bite us - backing dictators has a way to make enemies of their replacements. Having backed dictators in Central America in the 1980s, the US is now finding major illegal immigration coming from these now dysfunctional states (yes, Cuba and Venezuela's messes are for different reasons).

• there is less risk of future confrontation with regimes that are "nice". This is a lesson some European countries forgot when tying their fortunes to, and bankrolling the militaries of, Russia.

• Do Western countries always follow through on those principles? By no means. But we can always aim to improve, it is in our best long term interests.

Answer 3

It is not "suddenly" for sure. Complains about violation of the human rights has always been between central topics since the times they talked about these rights in the Soviet Union. Some of these complains maybe were more questionable but many also more than well grounded.

Call it tradition.