British boxing champion Anthony Joshua declined to comment on the human rights situation in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday, where a woman was sentenced to 34 years in prison for her Twitter activity shortly before a fight in Jeddah.
Anthony Joshua was speaking from this city in the west of the kingdom, where Ukrainian Oleksandr Usyk will put his IBF, WBA, WBO and IBO world titles on the line against him on Saturday.
The British boxer told AFP that people in Saudi Arabia seemed "
cool " to him and that he preferred to avoid "
negative
" comments .
I'm here now enjoying Saudi Arabia.
We all like the positive side of things.
Let's not focus on the negative
,” he said.
A Saudi court sentenced a student to 34 years in prison for '
providing aid
', via her tweets, to political opponents who seek to '
disturb public order
', according to a court document seen by AFP Wednesday.
The London-based human rights organization ALQST denounced in a statement "
the longest prison sentence ever imposed by the Saudi authorities on a peaceful activist
" in a context of "
already excessively harsh repression
".
Saturday's ' Rage on the Red Sea
' fight
is one of the events for which Ryad has been accused of '
sportswashing
“, a way to restore, through the organization of sporting events, the international image of a country.
