David Conn on Abu Dhabi and Human Rights

[Gaylord du Bois]

Conn and Shindler are two peas from the same pod - self-loathing Blues who crave us being crap but 'honest'. With friends like these, who needs enemies?

Those names sound awfully Jewish. Just sayin.

 

[Prestwich_Blue]

Conn and Shindler are two peas from the same pod - self-loathing Blues who crave us being crap but 'honest'. With friends like these, who needs enemies?

Those names sound awfully Jewish. Just sayin.

Neither Conn nor Shindler are practicing Jews. But I know many quite religious Jews who support City and for whom the ownership isn't remotely a problem.

 

[Anonymous]

If anyone's interested in what's going on behind the headlines. Conn's whole story is based around the arrest and subsequent torture of 94 people in the Emirates who were all either members of Al Islah or affiliated with the group.

<a class="postlink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Islah" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Islah</a>

They preach a form of fundamentalist Islam which is one step away from the west's definition of terrorism. Personally I think a progressive state by middle eastern standards like Abu Dhabi taking a hardline approach to dickheads preaching regressive Islam should be applauded.

I'm not saying there aren't things which could be improved, but Conn's done a sensationalist con job. A fundamentally flawed article because he completely glosses over just how dangerous Al Islah actually are in what they're preaching.

if this was about America it would be labelled a successful defence of national security.

There's some rich irony in a Western newspaper taking the moral high ground over the human rights of what are effectively fundamentalist Islamists. David Conn is smarter than that. I've no idea what the point in writing this piece was. If it's to make Abu Dhabi look like a human rights blackhole, then he's woefully short on evidence. If anything he's only managed to highlight that Abu Dhabi is a modern almost westernised state with a capitalist system which is cash rich. It's a liberal Sunni state. They just want to get on with their business and be left in peace. The last thing they want are divisive fundamentalist groups destabilising the state. The reason Britain and the west aren't getting involved is because they'd get laughed out of the fucking room with their own records in modern times.

 

[bluenova]

There's some rich irony in a Western newspaper taking the moral high ground over the human rights of what are effectively fundamentalist Islamists.

It's one article (albeit a very long one) on p42 of tomorrow's paper in the sport section. If you compare it to the critical coverage of the US' treatment of Bradley Manning, which has probably made more than a dozen front pages of the Guardian, then it's hardly excessive. The Guardian (and other UK newspapers) have written enough about the West's human rights issues to be able to occasionally look at other countries without it being hypocritical.

I'm not suggesting you think this Billy, but a lot of the more reactionary posters on this forum only seem to read articles about City and think that journalists never criticise or investigate anyone else. geoff clipp posted a list of David Conn's articles about the owners of the other big UK clubs and he has written extensively about the owners of dozens of clubs up and down the league. Some people need to realise that being a fan of City isn't about unthinking, uncritical loyalty. It's possible to be a fan of a team, a fan of football in general, and still have the ability to appreciates it's position in the wider world.

 

[Anonymous]

There's some rich irony in a Western newspaper taking the moral high ground over the human rights of what are effectively fundamentalist Islamists.

It's one article (albeit a very long one) on p42 of tomorrow's paper in the sport section. If you compare it to the critical coverage of the US' treatment of Bradley Manning, which has probably made more than a dozen front pages of the Guardian, then it's hardly excessive. The Guardian (and other UK newspapers) have written enough about the West's human rights issues to be able to occasionally look at other countries without it being hypocritical.

I'm not suggesting you think this Billy, but a lot of the more reactionary posters on this forum only seem to read articles about City and think that journalists never criticise or investigate anyone else. geoff clipp posted a list of David Conn's articles about the owners of the other big UK clubs and he has written extensively about the owners of dozens of clubs up and down the league. Some people need to realise that being a fan of City isn't about unthinking, uncritical loyalty. It's possible to be a fan of a team, a fan of football in general, and still have the ability to appreciates it's position in the wider world.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not questioning his right to write the piece. I just think it's poorly researched, completely lacking in context, sensationalist, and yeah, just a shoddy piece of journalism. I would expect if you're going to hang your own club out to dry, you'd at least make sure that what you were writing was unimpeachable. Or maybe I just figured him to be smarter than he actually is.

 

[Q8-Blue]

Garbage absolute garbage.......Sheikh Mansour probably doesn't even have a say in how his country is run nor does he have a say in politics. Not all Sheikhs are politicians some of the most successful ones can be fringe Royal Family members with good business acumen aka AlWaleed bin Talaal in Saudi.

Plus how about we ask if the people in the UAE hate their government last time I heard the Emiratis didn't exactly protest in the streets calling for regime change.

 

[mcmanus]

Jewish man writes negative story about Muslim country. Next.

 

[Pingu the Penguin]

Fit and proper person test?

Passed

Next question....

 

[bluenova]

Garbage absolute garbage.......Sheikh Mansour probably doesn't even have a say in how his country is run nor does he have a say in politics. Not all Sheikhs are politicians some of the most successful ones can be fringe Royal Family members with good business acumen aka AlWaleed bin Talaal in Saudi.

Plus how about we ask if the people in the UAE hate their government last time I heard the Emiratis didn't exactly protest in the streets calling for regime change.

He's deputy prime minister - which makes him one of the most senior cabinet members in the UAE.

I can't comment in much detail on the politics of UAE as I'm not an expert either, but it is a country where almost 90% of the population aren't Emiratis, and therefore have few political rights, where other political parties aren't tolerated, and where there are numerous laws restricting freedom of political expression.

 

[welsh_andy]

does anyone really care, half the world electronics come from china, who have terrible records, do we stop buying, erm no, same goes for clothes food etc, most places in the developing word have shocking human rights records, do we stop eating or clothing ourselves, erm no.
look at our human rights many decades ago, there was no difference.
if you had an iphone made in china for £500 or a iphone made in usa for a grand, which iphone would you buy, exactly and so would 90% of ppl buy from china.

what we consider bad human rights, was exactly how we used to be many moons ago.

in time all these places will evolve.