AMembers of the government group and the opposition take the open letter from the writer Sasha Filipenko from Belarus to the President of the World Ice Hockey Federation IIHF, René Fasel, as an opportunity to demand that the world championship planned for May and June in Minsk and Riga be postponed. Margarete Bause, human rights policy spokeswoman for Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen, says: “The statements made by the President of the World Ice Hockey Federation are a scandal.
If René Fasel persists after this rousing appeal to let the Ice Hockey World Championship take place in Belarus, he and the world association he leads would have lost all moral integrity. The state terror of the brutal dictator Lukashenka must not also be rewarded with hosting a major international event. If the top ice hockey official Fasel sticks to his stance, he has to be asked whether he is still the right person for this post. “
The MPs demanded from the federal government that they “finally set an example for human rights and democracy and that the German ice hockey federation and the international ice hockey federation should expressly support a postponement of the world championship”. “Not just since this letter, but by now at the very latest it must be clear to everyone that neither an ice hockey world championship nor any other international sporting event may take place in Lukashenka’s Belarus,” says Dagmar Freitag, a member of the SPD and chairman of the sports committee in the German Bundestag. Alluding to Fasel, she continues: “Anyone who thinks that it is enough to suddenly have to offer the opposition talks shows that they have not understood anything and may not want to understand either.”
Eberhard Gienger, sports policy spokesman for the Union parliamentary group in the Bundestag, recognizes in Filipenko’s text evidence of a civil war. “Celebrating an ice hockey World Cup in such a country is not an opportune time,” he says. As a world-class gymnast, the MP was affected by the boycott of the Moscow Olympics in 1980 and is therefore against politically motivated boycotts. The protest of many athletes against President Lukashenka, who also heads the country’s National Olympic Committee, prompts him to take this view of the demand for relocation: “This comes from within. I have the feeling that the autonomy of sport is not being undermined here. “
“Constructive support”
“Is it appropriate for an association that is committed to international understanding and fairness to host a World Cup in this country?” Asks Frank Heinrich, chairman of the CDU and CSU in the committee for human rights and humanitarian aid. “Principles are being undermined there in a way that would not be accepted in any of the participating countries.” Alluding to the discussion about moving the title fights to Prague and Bratislava, the MP from Chemnitz recommends: “This should be checked. If the governments of these countries and other participating countries decide to provide funding, I would consider it an appropriate contribution. Pressure on the organizers doesn’t help; I am for constructive support. “
The original co-host Latvia refuses to organize the World Cup with Belarus. Russia, which had offered to step in, is also banned from hosting due to systematic doping. If the German team, silver medalists at the Olympic Games in Pyeongchang 2018, should cancel their participation for political reasons, they would be relegated from the A to the B group. The world association left questions unanswered by the time this edition went to press.
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