Our statement is a response to Mr. Khalil Ahmed Khan’s request to become a member of the International Council for Traditional Sports and Games. Mr. Khan notified us in a personal message via the WhatsApp that he sent such an offer to 300 addresses – to government agencies, non-governmental organizations, scientific and educational organizations.
We really received confirmations of the mass mailing and drew attention to the impersonal nature of the letter. However, our indignation is caused by the illegal misuse of the UNESCO logo by Khan’s letter, with which it is deliberately associated with the logo of the still non-existent organization ICTSG.
In this regard, it is important to note that Mr. Khan organized several unsuccessful campaigns to discredit the World Ethnosport, appealing specifically to the illegal misuse of the UNESCO logo. In June 2018, on the eve of the General Assembly of the World Ethnosport, he made a mass mailing with a charge of illegal misuse of the UNESCO logo, but we got this right from the National Commission of the Russian Federation for UNESCO in 2011 when our organization was established. In February 2019, he again sent out two letters of similar content addressed to UNESCO by unknown TSG activists Aman Kumar Sharma, Lee Jong Hak, Kim Bu Ki, Kim Jong Tae, Jung Hun Gun. None of these activists has the PhD and has never held any meaningful TSG events.
In this Statement, we are to note that in April 2019, the UNESCO Ad hoc Advisory Committee on TSG was disbanded since Mr. Khan did not complete this mission, he was instructed to notify all the TSG communities with which he had links. UNESCO’s decision to dissolve this Committee was taken in view of the fact that Khan does not have the PhD required to serve as an expert of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization as well as the lack of Mr. Khan\’s necessary positive experience in leading an international sports organization.
In addition, UNESCO took into account the fact that Mr. Khan has a reputation as a brawler and a loser, he filed an initially absurd lawsuit in the Sports Arbitration Court in Lausanne against the United World Wrestling and the Olympic Council of Asia, but subsequently withdrew the claim, realizing that he would lose. However, the decisive argument about the termination of cooperation with him was taken in September 2019, when it became known about the use of sports organizations for criminal enrichment of Mr. Khalil Ahmed Khan. One of the country\’s leading newspapers, Pakistan Today, claims that he used international judo and jujitsu competitions for illegal migration.
To conclude this Statement, we strongly warn against cooperation with Khalil Ahmed Khan and draw attention to the fact that misusing the UNESCO logo is illegal because the Ad hoc UNESCO Committee on TSG has been disbanded. Khan and his \»activists\» were not invited and admitted to current meetings on the theme of traditional games that took place this fall: Convention of the World Martial Arts Mastership Committee with participation of Hyun-Byun Lee, Chairperson of the UNESCO Executive Board, and Ban Ki-moon, former UN Secretary General, in Chungju, South Korea, and the Consultative meeting on the UNESCO Global Project Creation of an Open Digital Library on Traditional Games at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris. At both meetings, the President of the World Ethnosport, Dr. Alexey Kylasov, was a keynote speaker, because the World Ethnosport continues cooperation with UNESCO.