The famed English singer-songwriter Robbie Williams has offered his response to people who have criticized his upcoming performance at the Qatar World Cup. The musician faced backlash after the performance was announced, with many believing that Williams should not play at a country with Qatar’s level of human rights abuses. Williams took to an interview with the Italian publication il Venerdi to respond to the backlash.

In his interview, Williams argues that his critics are hypocrites who have decided to pick and choose which human rights abuses to take seriously. Consequence of Sound quotes the artist arguing that “Anybody leaving messages saying ‘no to Qatar’ are doing so on Chinese technology,” pointing out that China has also committed significant attacks on human rights.

Williams goes on: “You get this microscope that goes ‘okay, 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.”

He argues that “change will take a long time… 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 clarifies that “condone any abuses of human rights anywhere,” but says that it would be impossible for him to tour if he avoided any place responsible for human rights abuses: “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.”

Robbie Williams previously drew up controversy after criticizing the conduct of legendary English rockers Oasis, describing them as “Bullies.” Robbie Williams recently released a new album entitled XXV, which led to him breaking the UK Chart record of most #1 albums.