Robbie Williams is defending his decision to perform in Qatar during the World Cup, which starts tomorrow night. Fellow musicians such as Dua Lipa and Rod Stewart have already stated that they would not perform in Qatar, as human rights groups say Qatari laws discriminate against women and LGBTQ+ individuals. (Earlier this month, a Qatar World Cup ambassador told a German TV broadcaster that homosexuality was “damage in the mind.”) In an interview with the Italian newspaper Il Venerdì di Repubblica, Williams started with, “Of course, I don’t condone any abuses of human rights anywhere.”

Williams continued: “But, that being said, if we’re not condoning human rights abuses anywhere, then it would be the shortest tour the world has ever known: I wouldn’t even be able to perform in my own kitchen.” He added: “Anybody leaving messages saying ‘no to Qatar’ are doing so on Chinese technology. It would be hypocritical of me to not go [to Qatar] because of the places that I do go to.”

Williams kept going: “You get this microscope that goes ‘OK, these are the baddies, and we need to rally against them.’ I think that the hypocrisy there is that if we take that case in this place, we need to apply that unilaterally to the world. Then if we apply that unilaterally to the world, nobody can go anywhere.”

Williams concluded: “What we’re saying is: ‘You behave like us, or we will annex you from society. Behave like us, because we’ve got it right.'” Williams is currently scheduled to perform at Doha Golf Club in Qatar on December 8. Amnesty International has asked Williams to use the concert to “publicly address the topic of Qatar’s poor human rights record.”

In other Qatar news, ESPN reports that World Cup organizers have banned the sale of alcohol around Qatar stadiums after last-minute showdown talks. FIFA said in a statement: “Following discussions between host country authorities and FIFA, a decision has been made to focus the sale of alcoholic beverages on the FIFA Fan Festival, other fan destinations and licensed venues, removing the sales points of beer from Qatar’s FIFA World Cup 2022 stadium perimeters.”