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Published December 22nd, 2017 – 18:46 GMT
A group of anti-Muslim activists with the antifa group “Pro Libertate Berlin” has taken to Facebook to post a video calling for a boycott of the World Cup 2018, scheduled for next year in Russia. The group’s Facebook page has received more than 800,000 likes in less than a week.
The organizers of the boycott have no problem showing solidarity for antifascists outside of Russia – the group of anti-immigrant “anti-fascist” activists has received support from over two million Facebook users since its launch, more than 500,000 of which are from outside Russia.
The boycott does however display the disturbing trend that anti-fascist groups have begun to show solidarity with anti-Muslim propaganda. Since June, antifascists have coordinated the boycott of a variety of World Cup events, including the 2022 Women’s World Cup in Qatar, as well as the 2022 Asian Cup and 2022 European Championships. Some of these events have included far-right and far-left organizers, who have used the events to spread false information about refugees being a threat to European security.
The boycott of World Cup 2018 has been organized in cooperation with the anti-fascist group “Pro Libertate Berlin”, and as far as I could see, no one in “Pro Libertate Berlin” is taking a stance that Russia’s World Cup has anything to do with “refugees”. On October 5, the organization wrote in its Facebook post: “We are against and support the boycott,” and called on “Pro Libertate Berlin” supporters to “stand in solidarity with the anti-fascist movement in Russia.”
“We are against the World Cup,” “Pro Libertate Berlin” wrote in the same post. “We support the boycott.”
That post has received over 700