From YNet:
Malaysia will not allow Israel’s Paralympics swimming team enter the country to participate in the World Para Swimming Championships in July, despite two months of efforts by the Israel Paralympics Committee.
The event, set to be held in the Malaysian city of Kuching, is a critical one since the results will affect the formulation of 2020 Paralympics in Tokyo. The city will play host to more than 600 swimmers from 70 countries. The fact that there are no diplomatic relations between the Jewish state and Muslim nation is making it hard for the Israeli team to obtain visas.
Tomer Ilan pointed out to the World Para Swimming organization that this is a direct violation of their own Code of Ethics:
They responded that they are looking into this and will provide a further update “in due course.”
It should be emphasized that as far as I can tell, every time an international body threatened to drop support for an event in a Muslim majority country that disallowed Israeli athletes, the Muslim country caved in.
Let’s hope that Para Swimmng will uphold their own ethical standards and not enable discrimination against Israeli athletes, a practice that is long overdue for extinction.
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