The world’s largest coffee trade organisation has announced that the 2018 World Coffee Roasting Championship, World Cup Tasters Championship and World Brewers Cup will go ahead as planned in Dubai—despite protests about the United Arab Emirates’ history of LGBT+ rights abuses.
The Specialty Coffee Association (SCA) has released a statement in which it announces a ‘Deferred Candidacy' policy where it encourages some world championship qualifiers to compete the following year.
“This policy is designed to protect competitors who may be prevented from participating in a world championship event due to nationality, ethnicity, gender identity, sexual identity/orientation, health, bereavement, or force majeure," the SCA statement reads.
The association has been slammed for comparing someone’s nationality, ethnicity, gender identity or sexuality to dealing with the death of a loved one—and for continuing on with the event, despite protests.
As a result of the decision, the Sprudge Media Network has pulled out of it’s planned media partnership with SCA.
"Today’s announcement from the Specialty Coffee Association Board of Directors is wildly offensive and unviable," Sprudge commented.
"This language—”to protect competitors who may be prevented from participating in a world championship event due to nationality, ethnicity, gender identity, sexual identity/orientation, health, bereavement, or force majeure”—compares competing while gay under threat of legal penalty with that of a death in the family.
"It says that being gay is roughly equivalent to enduring a tragedy. It contains no protections, or event acknowledgements, of the dangers faced by queer volunteers, coaches, judges, vendors, members of the press, and travelling attendees in countries like the UAE."
Narrative Coffee—based in Washington state, USA—has also pulled out of upcoming SCA events, writing: "Placing the onus of life-safety on the LGBTQI competitors through an official deferment is absurd."
Narrative added that the decision endangered the lives of LGBT+ competitors, placed them at a logistical disadvantage in the competition and "continues the systemic disenfranchisement of minority members by limiting access to professional development opportunities based on discriminatory practices and locales."
The SCA has been criticised on Twitter for its 'Deferred Candidacy' policy.
In August this year, a transgender woman and her male friend were arrested in a Dubai shopping mall for 'public indecency' because of their attire.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) condemned UAE authorities for “arbitrarily arresting transgender, gay, and gender non-conforming people on the grounds of a law that criminalises men ‘disguising’ as women”.
