Heads of Russian NGOs for people with disabilities urge International Paralympic Committee not to violate clean Paralympians' rights
MOSCOW. Aug 16 (Interfax) - The heads of the All-Russian Society of the Deaf, the All-Russian Society of the Blind, and the All-Russian Society of the Disabled have appealed to International Paralympic Committee (IPC) President Philip Craven to reconsider the facts that prompted the IPC to suspend the Russian Paralympic Committee and bar Russian Paralympians from competing in the 2016 Paralympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.
"No balanced and just decision can be made until the investigation is completed without high risks of violating the rights of hundreds of clean Paralympic athletes. Clean Paralympians cannot be held responsible for circumstances that led to a belated and incomplete investigation. It is wrong to allow the rights of hundreds of athletes to be violated because of certain individuals' wrongdoings," the societies' heads said in an open letter to Craven.
"As far as we are concerned, the Russian Paralympic Committee has not been directly implicated in any violations of anti-doping rules and therefore cannot be subjected to sanctions," it said.
The authors of the letter are "extremely concerned about the haste with which momentous decisions are made within an exceptionally short period of time based on controversial information, which, as we believe, should at least be investigated comprehensively involving all parties concerned."
"Otherwise, impartiality of such decisions appears highly doubtful, and they themselves can lead to irreversible negative consequences not only for clean and fair athletes but also for the entire community of people with disabilities in Russia, and ultimately, for the development of the entire Paralympic movement as a whole," the letter says.
The authors of the letter urged the International Paralympic Committee to take its cue from the International Olympic Committee, which earlier decided to admit all clean Russian athletes to compete in the 2016 Summer Olympics.
The International Paralympic Committee ruled on August 7 to suspend the Russian Paralympic Committee's membership and bar Russians from the Paralympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, based on facts cited in a report by World Anti-Doping Agency Independent Commission head Richard McLaren, who alleged, in particular, that Russia has a state-sponsored doping system and that numerous doping samples by Russian athletes were tampered with in the period between 2012 and 2015.