The World Chess Federation has banned a chess master because he is said to have sexually harassed minors, among other things. Now a victim has spoken out.
Anna Cramling Bellón is currently playing for Team Sweden at the Chess Olympiad in Budapest. However, a podcast episode with her that was released the day before the tournament began is causing a stir beyond the chess scene: “Sjakksnakk”.
In it, Bellón not only reports on her chess career, but also on sexual harassment by a chess player. Even though the 22-year-old does not name him, it is quite obvious that she is one of the victims of the Latvian Andrejs Strebkovs. The International Chess Federation, because he was found guilty after an internal investigation of sexually harassing female players – including minors.
Strebkovs is said to have sent letters with pornographic content and used condoms to female chess players. According to the Fide report, some of the recipients were only 14 years old.
Anna Cramling Bellón reports harassment
“It’s disgusting, it’s crazy,” said the Spanish-Swedish Fide master in the podcast. “The craziest thing was that he sent the letters as if he were someone else.” She believed the letter was from a friend. “It’s sick. I was completely horrified and thought: ‘Why am I getting something like this?'” According to Bellón, that was four to five years ago. At the time, she also believed that she was the only one this had happened to.
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In fact, Fide counted at least 15 victims of Strebkovs in more than ten years. The association proved the crimes through DNA traces. “Fide does not tolerate any form of harassment or abuse within the chess community, especially when minors are involved,” said association president Arkady Dvorkovich when announcing Strebkovs’ ban.
Chess player defends himself against ban
According to Fide, Strebkovs himself fought against the ban. He argued that only one case – from 2021 – could be the subject of a complaint, since the other letters had nothing to do with the chess competitions or chess. He was unable to avert the five-year ban.
For Cramling Bellón, this sentence is too lenient: “He should have received at least 30 to 40 years. Five years is far too short. I don’t understand what was going on,” the chess player said in the podcast. “This man had the addresses of all these people and sent these young girls something so disgusting. It’s terrible.”
Sources: (from minute 51), , , , .
Source: Stern
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