As South Australia prepares to host the Saudi-backed LIV Golf, a human-rights watchdog has slammed the tournament amid what it described as a "deterioration" in the country's humanitarian record.
The Adelaide leg of the breakaway tour gets underway at the Grange Golf Club on Friday, and will feature some of the world's leading players, including majors winners Brooks Koepka, Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson, Bubba Watson and Cameron Smith.
But Adelaide's involvement with the tournament has been a cause of controversy since it was announced in November, because of LIV's links to Saudi Arabia.
Human Rights Watch researcher Joey Shea, who is a specialist in Saudi politics, described the tournament — which is backed by the Saudi government's Public Investment Fund — as a blatant example of "sportswashing".
"Saudi Arabia has experienced one of its worst periods for human rights in its modern history," she told the ABC.
"Last year in March, we saw the largest single day execution in recent history. 81 people were executed in Saudi Arabia in a single day."
Ms Shea described the tournament as a "tool" to improve the international image of Saudi Arabia.
"We really see LIV Golf as a major sportswashing attempt by Saudi Arabia to cover up its egregious abuses," she said.
The Public Investment Fund is chaired by the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and "owns a reported 93 per cent of LIV Golf", Ms Shea said.
Last year, the Biden administration ruled that Prince Mohammed, who has been described as the Saudi kingdom's de facto ruler, had immunity from a lawsuit over the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi — an operation which US intelligence believed was ordered by the Crown Prince.
"Despite Mohammed bin Salman's promises of reforms on human rights, we've really seen the situation only deteriorate in the past few years," Ms Shea said.
"Male guardians have effective control over many areas of women's life, including divorce, marriage, child custody and healthcare.
"Many of the women who had campaigned for reforms on women's status … women's personal status … were arrested and arbitrarily detained."
LIV a 'positive economic opportunity'
At a players media conference in Adelaide today, the 2020 US Open Winner and LIV participant Bryson DeChambeau said he was focused on "playing golf" and rejected claims of sportswashing.
"We talked about that last year, and we already kind of kicked that to the kerb. It's something that I truthfully believe is inaccurate," he said.
"People have their opinions and perspectives on it, but we certainly don't feel that way."
Public debate around LIV has been awash with claims and counterclaims of hypocrisy and double standards, with the state government embracing the tournament at the same time as it has been outspoken on other human rights matters including Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Earlier this year, the ABC revealed Australia's ties to Saudi Arabia go far deeper than golf, and that Defence Department approval is routinely given for Australian-made weapons to be sent to Saudi Arabia.
"I'm aware of the issues that people have raised," SA Tourism Minister Zoe Bettison said today.
"But each and every one of us here uses equipment [and] different businesses every day that the Saudis are invested in.
"We know that they're involved in LIV Golf and we decided that this was a good international event here for South Australia."
Ms Bettison said 63,000 tickets had so far been sold, but refused to say how much the state government had invested in the tournament, describing that as a "commercial-in-confidence arrangement".
"One of the best things about democracy is our ability to speak up and raise those concerns, but at the same time look at how we can look for positive economic opportunities for our government," she said.
"We have a bigger focus here, and the Premier touched on this — this is about people thinking about South Australia differently. We want them to think about this as an exciting place to invest."
SA Premier Peter Malinauskas was last year accused by Opposition Leader David Speirs of double standards for backing the Saudi enterprise at the same time as he was speaking out against Russia's attack on Ukraine.
In November last year, Mr Speirs — who has also condemned Russia — described the LIV tournament's finances as "dirty money" and the Saudi government as "despotic".
But Mr Malinauskas rejected accusations of double standards, and countered them with the assertion that Mr Speirs was himself guilty of "acute, undeniable hypocrisy".
He said Mr Speirs had thrown his support behind the popular Harvest Rock Festival which is run by Live Nation, in which the Public Investment Fund is a major investor.
Today, Mr Speirs reaffirmed his opposition to SA hosting LIV Golf.
"Giving money to a despotic regime where women have to be under the guardianship of a man for their whole life is not acceptable," he said.
"We're paying for print advertising, social media advertising … we're normalising the Saudi regime."
