MELBOURNE, MAR 19: The second quarter final of ICC world Cup 2015 was played here at Melbourne Cricket Ground between India and Bangladesh today. When the fans were cheering for their teams; Deepa Rai, NRN International Coordination comittee member and Deputy Co-chair for Migrant Worker, had something else going on in her mind. She was there not just to enjoy the interesting match but to utilize an opportunity to reach the millions of cricket fans around the world with a very important message. She was there with a banner that read “United against slavery of migrant workers in Qatar’ but unfortunately none of the twenties of television cameras took a shot of it. That is not the most unfortunate part, what happened later is. She was taken into custody by the police for showing that banner.
Read how the incident took place in Deepa’s own words. After the match was over and she was released, she took the help of social media to inform the people about the incident. Read the full statement below.
The text has not been edited in order to keep the originality.
“I was hoping that the sports broadcast covering the ICC World Cup 2015 qtr finals game between India and Bangladesh at MCG would show this banner at some stage. Managed to finally display the banner on the front row right next to the ground where the match was happening where some of my Indian friends (thanks to Amrita Shah and Atit) were sitting ( you can see that it was the Indian stand in the background). We asked the security guy there if we could display it and he had no clue but let us hang it for about 3 minutes and even took this picture of us. He was asking someone on his walkie-talkie and the next thing I know is hordes of policemen come at that stand and asked me what was in the banner to which I replied same as my T-shirt. I am taken away to a police section at MCG where a few rowdy fans (all men) have been pulled and my phone is confisticated as I am not allowed to talk to anyone coz apparently I am in police custody. I asked what for and according to the police I cannot make a “political” statement in ICC World Cup which also means you cannot carry flags of any nations that are not playing the matches or the colors which was news to me and I asked them to apply the rule to many fans who I see wearing the color of their country. That was the biggest bull crap I have heard from the police about the rules in MCG. Inside the room, I point out to them that nowhere in the conditions of entry, it is written I cannot make these statements or carry these banners and apparently that’s the ICC rule. Does the law change with cricket rules or football rules or rugby rules? A photo is taken of me just in case I lodge a false complaint against them and I am evicted out of the match minus my banner. The police had no clue about the issue and asked me to explain to them. All I said to them was, “We make a lot of noise when 2 Australians receive death sentence ( I am against death sentence and am not saying that the issue is right). But the fact that the death toll of migrant workers in Qatar will reach 4000 by 2022 means nothing to Australians at the rate the death cases are reported. And these workers are from India, Bangladesh and Nepal hence the right crowd and place to display the banner.”
I am not ashamed about what happened today. I am glad I got the picture below and my Indian friends were of big help ( Amrita Shah and Atit Shah). One thing I realised today is this issue about migrant labors in Qatar still needs more effort to raise awareness, even within Australia who actually has a good chance of hosting FIFA 2022 if QATAR does not get their act together and address the issue of building a graveyard of our people in the stadiums in Qatar. Keep the fight going on!”
We talked to Deepa about the incident and our very first question was, “Why did you do this?” and she told us, “The idea hit me the day before yesterday when I realized that India Vs Bangladesh match would be a good place to raise awareness about the issue of migrant workers of Qatar as most of them are from South Asian nations. So just on individual level I tried to raise the awareness and was supported by good people who want to stop the atrocities in Qatar. One voice becomes two and then three and hundreds and thousands. I truly believe in people’s power and that is what will change the way things are in Nepal and around the world.”
Just to remind you about the terrible conditions of migrant workers in Qatar, here’s a documentary. Do share your opinions on Deepa’s action in the comment section below.
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