It's not FIDE (the world chess federation) that's protesting this. They simply had one country offering to host the tournament and automatically gave it to them

It's not FIDE (the world chess federation) that's protesting this. They simply had one country offering to host the tournament and automatically gave it to them, period. For FIDE this also isn't a controversial place to hold this, they held a world championship in Khadaffi's Libya, wanted to hold one in Hussein's Iraq, and their president believes in aliens and makes money doing business with Assad.