Amnesty International has published a 36-page report warning that the 2026 FIFA World Cup — hosted by the United States, Canada and Mexico — could pose serious human rights risks for fans, players, journalists, workers and local communities.
The report, titled “Humanity Must Win: Defending Rights, Tackling Repression at the 2026 FIFA World Cup,” singles out the United States for the strongest criticism, calling the situation there a “human rights emergency” and pointing to what it describes as a “recognizable pattern of authoritarian practices.” Amnesty highlights actions by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), saying armed agents have broken down doors, detained children and deported hundreds of thousands of people; it cites a New York Times estimate that more than 500,000 people were deported from the United States in 2025. The report also notes ICE deployments in states such as Minnesota, where a deadly shooting in January killed two US citizens amid enforcement operations.
Amnesty says LGBTQI+ fan groups feel unsafe being visibly present at World Cup events, and that supporters from four qualifying nations face entry bans or travel restrictions. According to Congress.gov, the report notes, citizens of Haiti and Iran face complete bans on entering the United States, while Ivory Coast and Senegal are subject to partial restrictions. The report also raises doubts about Iran’s participation amid wider geopolitical tensions.
Canada and Mexico, which will each host 13 matches, receive criticism as well. In Mexico, authorities have mobilized around 100,000 security personnel, including the military, to respond to high levels of violence. Amnesty flags plans for a peaceful protest by a women’s group outside the opening match at Azteca Stadium seeking answers about more than 133,000 people listed as disappeared. In Canada, the report warns the tournament could further marginalize homeless people in host cities such as Vancouver and Toronto and documents restrictions on the right to peaceful assembly, citing the dispersal of demonstrations supporting Palestinian human rights and student encampments calling for divestment.
“The 2026 World Cup threatens to deliver more repression than football. Anyone who protests or expresses criticism must expect repression at the World Cup,” said Julia Duchrow, Secretary General of Amnesty International in Germany. She urged FIFA and the host countries to present binding safeguarding mechanisms so all participants can enjoy the World Cup without fear or exclusion.
Many of the concerns raised echo calls from the Sport & Rights Alliance ahead of last December’s World Cup draw, which urged “concrete protections for workers, athletes, fans, journalists, and children.” FIFA has not issued a specific response to Amnesty’s report; its statutes commit the organization to respecting internationally recognized human rights, and in 2025 FIFA president Gianni Infantino said, “Everyone will be welcome in Canada, Mexico and the United States for the FIFA World Cup next year.” Edited by: Andreas Illmer
![{“title”:”November 1938 Pogroms Revealed Nazi Brutality”,”content”:”\”I can still clearly remember the morning of November 10,\” W. Michael Blumenthal recalled. \”My father was arrested early in the morning. Amid the commotion and despite the fact that my mother had forbidden me to do so, I went outside without being noticed. I saw the broken shop windows on Kurfürstendamm boulevard and smoke coming out of the synagogue on Fasanenstrasse.\” He was just 12 years old.\n\nThe Fasanenstrasse synagogue in Berlin was set alight on the night of November 9, 1938, and the image of burning synagogues and shattered storefronts quickly became the emblem of a coordinated, nationwide assault on Jews. That night and the days that followed saw roughly 1,300 synagogues and some 7,500 Jewish businesses destroyed; cemeteries, schools and homes were vandalized. Police largely stood aside as Jews were dragged into the streets, beaten and publicly humiliated. Fire brigades often refused to fight blazes in Jewish buildings, focusing instead on protecting \”Aryan\” properties.\n\nThe violence intensified on November 10, when about 30,000 Jewish men were arrested and sent to concentration camps including Dachau, Sachsenhausen and Buchenwald. Blumenthal\u2019s father was among those taken. Blumenthal remembered his mother\u2019s desperate questions as he was marched away: \”What’s going on? What are you doing with him? What has he done? Where is he being taken to?\” Even at 12, he felt the adults’ fear.\n\nBlumenthal’s family escaped to Shanghai in 1939, one of the few destinations then admitting Jewish refugees without visas. He later described his experience in his memoir From Exile to Washington: A Memoir of Leadership in the Twentieth Century.\n\nThe attack did not come from nowhere. Anti-Jewish persecution had been official policy since the Nazis took power in 1933. The Nuremberg Laws of 1935 legally defined Jews and imposed sweeping professional and social bans, and the program of \”Aryanization\” had already dispossessed many Jewish businesses and property. Still, historians mark November 1938 as a decisive break: the era of German Jewry as it had existed effectively ended, and German society was changed irreversibly.\n\nThe immediate pretext for the pogroms was the assassination on November 7, 1938, in Paris of German diplomat Ernst vom Rath by Herschel Grynszpan, a Jewish teenager. Within hours of German radio reporting the killing, anti-Jewish riots erupted in some cities; two days later, after orders from the Nazi leadership, the violence was organized and intensified. At a gathering in Munich for the anniversary of the Beer Hall Putsch, propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels drafted directives that called for the destruction of Jewish businesses and synagogues. Police were told not to intervene, firefighters were instructed to protect only non-Jewish buildings, and looting was officially prohibited even as theft nevertheless occurred.\n\nOfficials’ instructions were carried out across Berlin, Cologne, Hamburg, Frankfurt and hundreds of smaller towns and villages. Many Germans either joined the attacks or watched without intervening. \”The November 1938 pogrom was carried out in plain sight,\” said Raphael Gross, president of the Deutsches Historisches Museum. \”It could be seen by everyone \u2014 the press of the world, foreign diplomats and all citizens.\”\n\nDiplomats in Germany reported scenes of \”cultural barbarism\” and widespread looting; some accounts were especially brutal. Reports collected by Hermann Simon, former director of the Centrum Judaicum, included the Polish consul general in Leipzig describing a woman stripped and nearly raped, the Latvian ambassador likening Kurfurstendamm to a battlefield, and the Finnish envoy noting pervasive shame and condemnation among the German population. Governments received these dispatches, but most took only limited action. A small number of concrete responses did follow: for example, the Kindertransport to England began after November 1938, bringing many children to safety. But by and large international reactions were inadequate.\n\nFew at the time predicted the scope of what would come. In a stark misjudgment, the Italian embassy wrote on November 16, 1938, that it was inconceivable Germany would one day send hundreds of thousands to execution or confine them in massive camps.\n\nHistorians today regard the events of November 9, 1938, as a turning point that revealed the regime’s readiness for widespread, state-condoned violence against Jews. Because the old term \”Kristallnacht\” is now seen as trivializing, the events are more accurately referred to as the Reichspogromnacht or the November Pogroms.\n\nThis piece is a rewritten account of reporting originally published in German and previously adapted in English.”]}](https://fresh-world-news.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/914-17213993_6-768x432.jpg)
![{“title”:”November 1938 Pogroms Revealed Nazi Brutality”,”content”:”\”I can still clearly remember the morning of November 10,\” W. Michael Blumenthal recalled. \”My father was arrested early in the morning. Amid the commotion and despite the fact that my mother had forbidden me to do so, I went outside without being noticed. I saw the broken shop windows on Kurfürstendamm boulevard and smoke coming out of the synagogue on Fasanenstrasse.\” He was just 12 years old.\n\nThe Fasanenstrasse synagogue in Berlin was set alight on the night of November 9, 1938, and the image of burning synagogues and shattered storefronts quickly became the emblem of a coordinated, nationwide assault on Jews. That night and the days that followed saw roughly 1,300 synagogues and some 7,500 Jewish businesses destroyed; cemeteries, schools and homes were vandalized. Police largely stood aside as Jews were dragged into the streets, beaten and publicly humiliated. Fire brigades often refused to fight blazes in Jewish buildings, focusing instead on protecting \”Aryan\” properties.\n\nThe violence intensified on November 10, when about 30,000 Jewish men were arrested and sent to concentration camps including Dachau, Sachsenhausen and Buchenwald. Blumenthal\u2019s father was among those taken. Blumenthal remembered his mother\u2019s desperate questions as he was marched away: \”What’s going on? What are you doing with him? What has he done? Where is he being taken to?\” Even at 12, he felt the adults’ fear.\n\nBlumenthal’s family escaped to Shanghai in 1939, one of the few destinations then admitting Jewish refugees without visas. He later described his experience in his memoir From Exile to Washington: A Memoir of Leadership in the Twentieth Century.\n\nThe attack did not come from nowhere. Anti-Jewish persecution had been official policy since the Nazis took power in 1933. The Nuremberg Laws of 1935 legally defined Jews and imposed sweeping professional and social bans, and the program of \”Aryanization\” had already dispossessed many Jewish businesses and property. Still, historians mark November 1938 as a decisive break: the era of German Jewry as it had existed effectively ended, and German society was changed irreversibly.\n\nThe immediate pretext for the pogroms was the assassination on November 7, 1938, in Paris of German diplomat Ernst vom Rath by Herschel Grynszpan, a Jewish teenager. Within hours of German radio reporting the killing, anti-Jewish riots erupted in some cities; two days later, after orders from the Nazi leadership, the violence was organized and intensified. At a gathering in Munich for the anniversary of the Beer Hall Putsch, propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels drafted directives that called for the destruction of Jewish businesses and synagogues. Police were told not to intervene, firefighters were instructed to protect only non-Jewish buildings, and looting was officially prohibited even as theft nevertheless occurred.\n\nOfficials’ instructions were carried out across Berlin, Cologne, Hamburg, Frankfurt and hundreds of smaller towns and villages. Many Germans either joined the attacks or watched without intervening. \”The November 1938 pogrom was carried out in plain sight,\” said Raphael Gross, president of the Deutsches Historisches Museum. \”It could be seen by everyone \u2014 the press of the world, foreign diplomats and all citizens.\”\n\nDiplomats in Germany reported scenes of \”cultural barbarism\” and widespread looting; some accounts were especially brutal. Reports collected by Hermann Simon, former director of the Centrum Judaicum, included the Polish consul general in Leipzig describing a woman stripped and nearly raped, the Latvian ambassador likening Kurfurstendamm to a battlefield, and the Finnish envoy noting pervasive shame and condemnation among the German population. Governments received these dispatches, but most took only limited action. A small number of concrete responses did follow: for example, the Kindertransport to England began after November 1938, bringing many children to safety. But by and large international reactions were inadequate.\n\nFew at the time predicted the scope of what would come. In a stark misjudgment, the Italian embassy wrote on November 16, 1938, that it was inconceivable Germany would one day send hundreds of thousands to execution or confine them in massive camps.\n\nHistorians today regard the events of November 9, 1938, as a turning point that revealed the regime’s readiness for widespread, state-condoned violence against Jews. Because the old term \”Kristallnacht\” is now seen as trivializing, the events are more accurately referred to as the Reichspogromnacht or the November Pogroms.\n\nThis piece is a rewritten account of reporting originally published in German and previously adapted in English.”]}](https://fresh-world-news.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/914-17213993_6-320x180.jpg)