BBC Sport ignores anti-Israel bigotry yet again

Another example of anti-Israel discrimination in sport gets no BBC coverage.

As regular readers will be aware, the BBC’s sports department has a record of under-reporting both anti-Israel discrimination in international sporting events and efforts to combat such bigotry.

The latest story ignored by BBC Sport involves Israel’s paralympic swimmers.

“The International Paralympic Committee expressed disappointment Saturday after Malaysia said it would not allow Israeli swimmers to attend a competition in the country that will serve as a qualifying event for the Tokyo 2020 Paralympics.

Malaysia is one of a number of Muslim-majority countries that has no formal diplomatic ties with Israel, with entry to the country on an Israeli passport prohibited.

The city of Kuching in the eastern Sarawak state will host hundreds of swimmers from 70 countries from July 29th to August 4th.

But on Thursday, Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said Kuala Lumpur would deny visas to Israeli para swimmers seeking to attend the meet. […]

Israeli athletes are regularly banned from competing at international sporting events in Arab or Muslim countries, or forced to compete without displaying their national symbols. A number of incidents have led to reprimands from international governing bodies and promises to reform.”

The BBC News website’s ‘Malaysia’ page carries no coverage of that story and neither does the BBC Sport website’s ‘swimming’ page. As has been noted here on previous occasions the BBC Sport website usually displays an interest in reporting bigotry and discrimination in sport and indeed one of the stories currently at the top of its home page concerns two Indian cricketers and inappropriate comments concerning women.

 

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