The UCI has suspended the president of the Afghanistan Biking Federation (ACF) for sending “abusive and/or threatening” messages.
Fazli Ahmad Fazli has been banned from all cycling-related actions for 15 months, following a ruling from the governing physique’s Ethics Charge on Tuesday.
The suspension comes after evaluations that Fazli had intimidated riders and journalists, prioritised himself and his family in an evacuation mission for prone cyclists, and threatened to droop riders’ licenses.
The UCI opened its investigations into the ACF president just about three years up to now, and initially dominated there was “no proof” that justified pursuing a breach of ethics. On Tuesday, the governing physique revealed it had continued its investigations.
A UCI assertion study: “On this respect, it was found that the President of the Afghanistan Biking Federation had, on quite a few occasions, despatched messages to members of the Afghan biking neighborhood which have been deemed to be in breach of Articles 5, 6.4 and a pair of.1 of Annex 1 of the UCI Code of Ethics ensuing from their abusive and/or threatening nature, and the reality that he resulting from this reality abused his place.”
The articles cited inside the assertion examine with abuse of place, failure to protect people’s bodily and psychological integrity, and psychological abuse.
Following the Taliban’s takeover of power in Afghanistan in 2021, the ACF and UCI labored collectively to organise the evacuation of 165 people.
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Fazli was awarded a UCI Profit for his involvement inside the evacuation, credited for his “courageous dedication to the occasion of biking, notably women’s biking in a country the place stopping for this set off is a hazard”.
In November 2021, two months after Fazli obtained the award, CyclingTips reported allegations that, in compiling the itemizing of people to be evacuated, senior figures contained in the ACF had prioritised their very personal family and mates over prone cyclists.
There have been then extra allegations that Afghan cyclists had been matter to verbal and bodily abuse, in response to a report in Escape Collective.
ACF president Fazli has now been judged to have despatched messages of an “abusive and/or threatening nature”, and suspended for 15 months by the UCI.
The UCI has talked about it’s going to make no extra contact upon the selection of its Ethics Charge at this stage. Biking Weekly has contacted the ACF for comment and may substitute this textual content if it responds.