Not just Ukraine, talk about Palestine too: Squash champ

Egypt's Ali Farag, the world's number one squash player, used his victory speech at the Optasia Championship yesterday to express his dissatisfaction with Western media coverage of Russia's invasion of Ukraine last month, reports Indian news portal NDTV.

He believed that it failed to address "oppression elsewhere in the world." People should talk about Palestine the same way they talk about Ukraine, according to the professional squash player.

"We've never been allowed to speak about politics and sports, but all of a sudden now it is allowed. So that we are allowed, I hope that people also look at the oppression everywhere in the world."

"I mean the Palestinians have been going through that for the past 74 years," he added, referring to conflict with Israel.

Farag, slamming Western media, claimed that the Palestinian crisis did not receive much attention in the media as it "doesn't fit the narrative of the media of the West."

"But now we can talk about Ukraine and so we can talk about the Palestinians," the player continued.

The Western media's coverage of the invasion of Ukraine has also been criticized, said NDTV.

A group of Arab and Middle Eastern journalists stated they had seen examples of racist reporting that normalized violence in non-European places by contrasting the Ukrainians under siege with the people of the Middle East.