Mo Salah, Star Of Liverpool And Egypt, Was Awoken From His Hotel Room And Brought To Take Pictures With Bad Guy Chechen Leader Kadyrov
AP News- Mohamed Salah was relaxing in his hotel room in Grozny when he was informed an important guest dropped in unexpectedly and was waiting for him in the lobby.
When the Egypt star forward went down, he found Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov.
The Moscow-backed former rebel had a favor to ask of Salah: Could he accompany him for the short drive to the stadium where the rest of Egypt’s World Cup squad was training and several thousand local fans were in attendance?
The Sunday evening episode sparked uproar on social media given the poor human rights record of the leader of Chechnya, and what was perceived as Kadyrov’s use of Salah to score a public relations boon.
Kadyrov, who sports the hallmark beard of the ultraconservative Muslims known as Salafis, is a former rebel who switched his loyalties to Moscow. He has been the dominant figure in Chechnya since the 2004 assassination of his father, President Akhmad Kadyrov.
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He has enforced strict Islamic rules in Chechnya, relying on his feared security forces to stifle any dissent. Moreover, his rule has been marred by numerous reports of extrajudicial killings and torture in the republic which saw two devastating separatist wars in the 1990s.
Recently, Kadyrov came under pressure when widespread reports surfaced of a broad crackdown on gays in his region. He insists, however, there are no gay people in the region.
The World Cup starts on Thursday. It’s so fucking brutal how little we care given America isn’t playing. I love the World Cup so much, but I’m not emotionally invested at all. I guess I want Iceland to win? Or maybe England? Australia is fun. This is why you have to gamble on stuff like this. It’s the only way to care. I can’t root for any team we’ve ever fought a war against, and that rules out Russia, Germany, Mexico, Japan, maybe Colombia because of drugs, Iran because Trump says they’re bad hombres, and let’s throw Serbia in there because of the Yugoslavia bombings in the late 90s. I suppose by that logic, I shouldn’t root for England either. But that’s water under the London Bridge, baby!
As Russia is hosting the tournament, it puts a huge political spotlight on Putin and Russia’s relations with the participating countries. Chechnya is a “federal subject” of Russia, and the leader of Chechnya is this guy Kadyrov. He looks like the combined sperm offspring of General Radek from Air Force 1 and Mose from The Office.
He’s also a really bad guy. He’s been rounding up Chechens suspected of being gay and… making them disappear. Which he denies because he says there are no gay people in Chechnya. Which is statistically… improbable. Oh, he’s also tortured people and may or may not have made any political opponents disappear. Finally, and perhaps most damning, it appears his beard was pasted to his face from the collected pubic and rectal hairs of a pubescent choir. You could bunch that shit up and scrub a cast iron skillet clean, even if it was cemented with charred casserole. No soaking necessary.
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Salah obviously doesn’t have a choice; he has to take the photo. Look at the this picture: