A roundup of the struggle for human rights and freedoms, from Pakistan to Poland
Continue reading...Category Archives: World Cup
‘We have fallen into a trap’: for hotel staff Qatar’s World Cup dream is a nightmare
Exclusive: Seduced by salary promises, workers at Fifa-endorsed hotels allege they have been exploited and abused
When Fifa executives step on to the asphalt in Doha next November for the start of the 2022 World Cup finals, their next stop is likely to be the check-in at one of Qatar’s glittering array of opulent hotels, built to provide the most luxurious possible backdrop to the biggest sporting event on earth.
Now, with a year to go before the first match, fans who want to emulate the lifestyle of the sporting elite can head to Fifa’s hospitality website to plan their stay in the host nation. There they can scroll through a catalogue of exclusive, Fifa-endorsed accommodation, from boutique hotels to five-star resorts.
Continue reading...The men who built Qatar’s World Cup dream deserve some of David Beckham’s pay packet | Pete Pattisson
The ex-England star’s deal for his ambassador role is in marked contrast to the wages of the host nation’s migrant workers
I doubt Nirmala Pakrin knows who David Beckham is, but she knows about Qatar.
Her husband, Rupchandra Rumba, a 24-year-old from Nepal, died in 2019, gasping for breath in a squalid camp for labourers on the outskirts of Doha, while working for a contractor on one of the new World Cup stadiums.
Continue reading...Qatar has failed to explain up to 70% of migrant worker deaths in past 10 years – Amnesty
World Cup host has not properly investigated fatalities, rights group says, citing concerns over heat stress and safety
World Cup host Qatar has failed to investigate the deaths of thousands of migrant workers in the past decade, according to a new report by Amnesty International.
The human rights organisation said the majority of migrant worker deaths in Qatar are attributed to “natural causes”, cardiac or respiratory failure; classifications which are “meaningless” without the underlying cause of death explained, according to one expert cited.
Continue reading...Migrant guards in Qatar ‘still paid under £1 an hour’ ahead of World Cup
Promises of better working conditions ring hollow for tens of thousands of security guards, who say they still work long hours for low pay
Every day at 5pm, Samuel boards the company bus that takes him to his night shift as a guard at a luxury high-rise tower near Qatar’s capital, Doha. When his shift ends 12 hours later, he says he will have earned £9, just 75p an hour.
Samuel, who is from Uganda, says he almost never has a day off. “You have to tell lies, like ‘you are sick, you’re not feeling good’, so that you get a day off,” he says.
Continue reading...Rights group fear for migrant activist ‘disappeared’ in Qatar
Malcolm Bidali, a Kenyan who blogged about migrant workers’ plight, detained by Qatari security services
A Kenyan security guard in Qatar who has written about the plight of migrant workers has been “forcibly disappeared”, human rights group say.
Malcolm Bidali was detained by the Qatari security services over a week ago and is being held in an undisclosed location, according to a coalition of rights groups, which include Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.
Continue reading...Revealed: 6,500 migrant workers have died in Qatar as it gears up for World Cup
Guardian analysis indicates shocking figure likely to be an underestimate, as preparations for 2022 tournament continue
More than 6,500 migrant workers from India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka have died in Qatar since it won the right to host the World Cup 10 years ago, the Guardian can reveal.
The findings, compiled from government sources, mean an average of 12 migrant workers from these five south Asian nations have died each week since the night in December 2010 when the streets of Doha were filled with ecstatic crowds celebrating Qatar’s victory.
Continue reading...Maradona lifts the World Cup: David Yarrow’s best photograph
‘I bribed a stadium guard with whisky and got dead close just as he was lifted on to another player’s shoulders. It was like a biblical scene. He looked magnificent’
On the final day of exams at Edinburgh University in the summer of 1986, most students partied, but I flew directly to Mexico City. I was 20 years old and studying business and economics while taking photos on the side. I’d never been to the Americas before, and I wasn’t at all a good photographer; in fact, I was incredibly average.
I arrived at the 1986 World Cup under the guise of being a freelance photojournalist, but I was a Scotland fan first and foremost – they always used to say that Scottish journalists are just fans with typewriters. I did have a press pass that I’d managed to blag off the Times, which granted me access to the media pen, but I was much more interested in watching football than taking photographs of it. There was a moment in the first round of a match with Uruguay when Scotland missed an open goal. Back at the Times they were watching the TV coverage of the game and could see the striker with his head in his hands, and in the background me with my head in my hands and with my camera nowhere near the moment. And they thought: “Well this guy, Yarrow, he’s not focused on the task at all.”
Continue reading...World Cup likely to stay in Qatar despite new bribery accusations in US
- US prosecutors say three Fifa officials took bribes during voting
- Qatar supreme committee denies any allegations of wrongdoing
The 2022 World Cup is highly unlikely to be moved from Qatar despite the latest criminal indictment by the US Department of Justice accusing three senior Fifa officials of receiving bribes for voting in favour of the Gulf state hosting the tournament.
The indictment, the latest in the long-running US prosecution of football officials for alleged corruption, accuses Nicolás Leoz, the Paraguayan then president of Conmebol, South American football’s governing body, and the former Brazil federation president Ricardo Teixeira of being paid bribes to vote for Qatar at the decisive Fifa executive committee (exco) meeting in December 2010. A third then very senior member of the exco under the former president Sepp Blatter, who is not named but is identifiable as Julio Grondona, the then president of Argentina’s FA, is also accused of being paid to vote for Qatar, but Grondona, who died in 2014, was never criminally charged.
Continue reading...Former Fox executives indicted in Fifa bribery scheme
Multimillion dollar scheme involved kickbacks to Fifa officials for broadcast rights to the 2018 and 2022 World Cup
Two former senior executives at Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox corporation have been indicted over their alleged role in a multimillion-dollar bribery scheme involving kickbacks to Fifa officials in exchange for broadcast and marketing rights to some of the world’s biggest football tournaments.
The US Department of Justice announced on Monday that Hernan Lopez, the former chief executive of Fox International Channels and Carlos Martinez, the former president of Fox Latin America, have been charged with wire fraud and money laundering offenses, marking another series of indictments in the US government’s sprawling investigation of corruption in world football.
Continue reading...The Guardian view on Özil, Arsenal and Liverpool: football with a conscience | Editorial
The clubs have taken very different stances on human rights issues this week. Commercial interests do not absolve them of social responsibilities
Two of England’s most prestigious Premier League football clubs, both owned by US investors, have been confronted by international human rights abuses in recent days, and responded with starkly contrasting positions. Liverpool, who as European champions are competing in Qatar in Fifa’s Club World Cup, produced a carefully diplomatic statement which nevertheless managed to be forthright in supporting improved conditions for migrant workers labouring in the Gulf.
Campaigners had asked the club to consider using its reputational power to highlight the deaths of many young men working on construction projects in baking heat. Its chief executive, Peter Moore, challenged Qatar to seriously address the risks of heat stress for workers, reaching into Liverpool’s own heritage to say that any and all unexplained deaths should be investigated thoroughly and bereaved families should receive the justice they deserve. That call for accountability was woven into a more predictable corporate clarification: “We remain a sporting organisation and it is important that we are not drawn into global issues on the basis of where our involvement in various competitions dictates that our fixtures take place.”
Continue reading...Qatar stadium deaths: the dark side of the glittering venue hosting Liverpool
Premier League leaders urged to join fight for better working conditions as they prepare for Fifa Club World Cup match
As Liverpool fans stream into Qatar to watch the Fifa Club World Cup next week, it will be easy to forget the thousands of workers from the poorest countries in the region who have toiled for years to construct its glittering buildings.
When they take their seats at the Khalifa International Stadium, where Liverpool will play their semi-final match, they may not realise that scores of workers who refurbished the stadium were housed in filthy, overcrowded accommodation with an ever-present stench of raw sewage.
Continue reading...World’s football bodies urge Saudi Arabia to stop pirate TV service
Fifa, Uefa and Premier League ask Saudi government to clamp down on beoutQ
The world’s biggest football authorities, including those who run the Premier League, World Cup and Champions League, have called on Saudi Arabia to take action to stop a sophisticated, homegrown pirate TV and streaming service that is illegally broadcasting matches internationally.
The strongly worded letter from the exasperated sports bodies – including Fifa, Uefa, Germany’s Bundesliga, Spain’s La Liga and Italy’s Serie A as well as the Asian Football Confederation – comes after almost 18 months fruitlessly attempting to mount a legal challenge in Saudi Arabia to block the service, called beoutQ.
Continue reading...Branded a no-go zone: a trip inside the 93, France’s most notorious banlieue
It is seen as a lawless breeding ground for hooliganism and drug trafficking. But a photographer called Mister Happiness is on a mission to tell the real story about the demonised area
‘She put her pen down,” says Monsieur Bonheur, “and told me to stop dreaming.” The French photographer is recalling the day he told the careers advisor at his school that he wanted to study fashion design. “She said, ‘Your parents won’t have the money to pay for those schools. They won’t be able to pull strings. You should consider something more appropriate for a black kid from the 93, like fixing central heating systems.’”
There is still disbelief in Bonheur’s voice as he recounts this decade-old conversation. “She was reminding me of the codes,” he says, “advising me to play by the rules.”
Continue reading...Revealed: Lynton Crosby’s £5.5m offer to undermine 2022 Qatar World Cup
Tory strategist’s pitch detailed how CTF Partners would spread negative stories and press Fifa to ‘restart bidding process’
Sir Lynton Crosby offered to work on a campaign to cancel the 2022 Qatar World Cup and get it awarded to another country in return for £5.5m, according to a leaked plan that gives a rare insight into the activities of one of the world’s best-known political operatives.
The detailed pitch document – “a proposal for a campaign to expose the truth of the Qatar regime and bring about the termination of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar” – was written in April last year and personally signed by Crosby.
Continue reading...