Category Archives: Qatar

Australian academic ‘haunted’ by possibility of false confession during torture in Qatar

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Exclusive: Lukman Thalib says he struggles to recall what he said during ‘calculated’ torture

An Australian public health professor alleges he told Australian consulate staff he was being tortured and held without charge they visited him in a Qatari prison, but says they did nothing to help.

Biostatistician Prof Lukman Thalib, 58, was arrested at his Doha home and detained for five months without charge in Qatar, where he had been working as acting head of Qatar University’s public health department.

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‘We’re treated as children,’ Qatari women tell rights group

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Gulf state’s male guardian rules deny women right to wed, travel, work or to make decisions about their children, report says

Women in Qatar are living under a system of “deep discrimination” – dependent on men for permission to marry, travel, pursue higher education or make decisions about their own children, according to a new report.

Opaque rules on male guardianship leave women without basic freedoms, according to Human Rights Watch (HRW), which has analysed for the first time the way the system works in practice.

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The foreign royals and billionaire tax exiles collecting UK’s furlough millions

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Read the list of super-rich claimants, from Saudi princes to Dubai monarchs, tax exiles to the UK’s richest

Glympton Park is a sprawling, 2,000-acre estate featuring an 18th-century stately home, nestled in the verdant Oxfordshire countryside near Woodstock.

It was bought for £8m in 1992, by Prince Bandar bin Sultan bin Abdul Aziz al-Saud, the senior Saudi royal whose past roles include ambassador to the US. He is said to have spent £42m on renovations, including a pheasant shoot and bullet-proof glass on the driveway to thwart would-be assassins.

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UK furlough scheme pays out millions to foreign states and tax exiles

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Qatari owners of Harrods and the Ritz claimed £3m alongside payouts to Saudi royals and British National party from Covid job support scheme

Billionaire tax exiles, the British National party, Saudi royals and oil-rich Gulf states have claimed millions of pounds in taxpayer-funded furlough money, the Guardian can disclose.

The revelations, based on analysis of government information, have sparked dismay among MPs at the use of a scheme designed to support struggling businesses and prevent mass unemployment, with one complaining of public money being scattered “like confetti”.

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‘Like a bad joke’: Al Jazeera staff bemused at rightwing US venture

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Rightly, a digital platform for conservatives, goes down awkwardly in Qatari-funded news organisation

Al Jazeera’s surprise decision to launch a digital platform for conservatives in the US has left many within the Qatar-based news organisation dumbfounded and confused, staff have told the Guardian.

The network has announced the launch of Rightly, a platform that will host programmes and produce online content aimed at “audiences currently underrepresented in today’s media environment”, in this case right-of-centre Americans.

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Revealed: 6,500 migrant workers have died in Qatar as it gears up for World Cup

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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.

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G4S migrant workers ‘forced to pay millions’ in illegal fees for jobs

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UK-based security firm faces calls to repay charges made by recruitment agents for jobs in Gulf states and conflict zones

Migrant workers working for the British security company G4S in the United Arab Emirates have collectively been forced to pay millions of pounds in illegal fees to recruitment agents to secure their jobs, the Guardian can reveal.

An investigation into G4S’s recruitment practices has found that workers from south Asia and east Africa have been made to pay up to £1,775 to recruitment agents working for the British company in order to get jobs as security guards for G4S in the UAE.

Forcing workers to pay recruitment fees is a widespread practice, but one that is illegal in the UAE, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. The practice allows companies to pass on the costs of recruitment to workers from some of the poorest countries in the world, leaving many deep in debt and vulnerable to modern forms of slavery, such as debt bondage.

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Qatar and Saudi Arabia breakthrough is more exhaustion than compromise

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Talk of brotherly unity rather than lessons learned dominated the Gulf Cooperation Council summit

The meeting on Tuesday between Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, crown prince Mohammed bin Salman and his Qatari counterpart Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani was hailed as a breakthrough that brought together two feuding parties who were finally willing to resolve their differences.

But as the two leaders gathered at a Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) summit in the north-western Saudi region of Al-Ula there was no mention of concessions, or further ultimatums, such as those that had led to the rift. The detente seemed borne more of exhaustion than compromise; the talk more of brotherly unity than lessons learned, and the end to it all more about the incoming US president than regional realpolitik.

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Arab states agree to end three-year boycott of Qatar

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Reconciliation with Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Bahrain and the UAE includes a non-aggression pact

A three-year boycott of Qatar by four other Middle Eastern countries that disfigured Gulf cooperation and raised concerns in the west about a strengthened regional role for Iran and Turkey has come to a stuttering close.

“The kingdom is happy to welcome you,” Saudi Arabia’s crown prince Mohammed bin Salman said as he greeted Qatar’s emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, on the tarmac of the airport in Al-Ula, north of Medina, on Tuesday.

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Revealed: how abusive texts led to discovery of hacking of Al Jazeera

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Threatening messages led to monitoring of phone that unearthed evidence of cyber-attack against Qatar-based network

A series of abusive text messages sent to an Al Jazeera investigative programme were the first crumbs that eventually led to the discovery of an unprecedented hacking operation against dozens of staff from the Qatar-based media network, according to one of the journalists who was targeted.

Researchers at Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto claimed on Sunday that the UAE and Saudi Arabia used spyware sold by an Israeli private intelligence company to access the phones of at least 36 journalists, producers and executives from Al Jazeera, as well as that of a London-based reporter with the Al Araby network.

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Australian professor and son detained in Qatar for five months without charge

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Arrest of public health expert Lukman Thalib and son Ismail Talib came three months before US accused Australian-based son Ahmed Luqman Talib of links to al-Qaida

An Australian public health professor and his son have been detained in Qatar for almost five months without charge, and are receiving consular assistance from the Australian embassy.

Australian citizens Prof Lukman Thalib, 58, and his son Ismail Talib, 24, were arrested at their home in Doha by local authorities on 27 July, and are being kept at an undisclosed location.

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Breakthrough in Qatar dispute after ‘fruitful’ talks to end conflict

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Saudi prince hails progress in negotiations brokered by Kuwait and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner

A breakthrough in the three-and-a-half-year dispute between Qatar and its neighbouring Gulf states appears to have been achieved following what were described as “fruitful” talks to resolve the conflict.

The Saudi foreign minister, Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud, said “significant progress” had been reached in the last few days and he was optimistic all countries were close to finalising a resolution.

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Australian lamb industry hit as Qatar cancels subsidy on $300m-a-year trade

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Deal supporting third biggest export market ended abruptly. In October, Australia heavily criticised Qatari officials over incident at Doha airport

The Qatari government has moved to cancel a subsidy for the Australian lamb industry, even as Australia’s agriculture and meat sector continues to reel from Chinese import bans.

Australia’s $300m-a-year lamb trade with Qatar has been underpinned by a subsidy program in place since 2015. It was due to finish in 2023, but the Qatari government made the sudden move to cancel the deal as of 31 December.

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Qatar firms’ failure to pay leaves migrant workers destitute – report

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Despite government measures, thousands left struggling during Covid outbreak as companies withhold salaries and benefits, research shows

Companies in Qatar have failed to pay “hundreds of millions of dollars” in salaries and other benefits to low-wage workers since the coronavirus outbreak, according to new research by the human rights group Equidem.

In its report, Equidem describes how thousands of workers have been dismissed without notice, put on reduced wages or unpaid leave, denied outstanding salary and end of service payments, or forced to pay for their own flights home.

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Qatar charges airport officials over invasive searches after baby found

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Prosecutors have also launched proceedings to arrest child’s mother, who left country

Prosecutors in Qatar have announced that the airport police officers who ordered forced vaginal examinations of female passengers after a newborn child was discovered abandoned in a bin have been charged and could face prison sentences of up to three years.

Prosecutors did not say how many officers faced charges over the incident last month at Hamad international airport, which sparked widespread anger in Australia, a key destination for the state-owned Qatar Airways.

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Australian women say Qatar has not contacted them since invasive Doha airport examinations

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Women say they have had no apology from Qatar Airways or government and are considering legal action

Women who were removed from a Qatar Airways flight and subject to an intimate medical examination, sparking international outrage last month, have not received any individual apologies or been directly contacted by the airline.

Passengers on the flight, which departed Doha for Sydney on 2 October, have told Guardian Australia there has been no direct contact with them from either Qatar Airways of the Qatari government in the six weeks since the incident took place.

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Qatari officials intimidated claimants in terror case, high court told

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Met police counter-terror unit has been asked to investigate allegations, court hears

Counter-terrorism police have been asked to investigate claims that witnesses and claimants in a terror-funding case were intimidated by officials working for the state of Qatar, the high court has been told.

Allegations of perverting the course of justice emerged at the hearing in London on Wednesday in a case involving compensation claims submitted originally by eight Syrian refugees against Doha Bank, the headquarters of which are in the Gulf state.

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Australian MPs pull out of dinner with Qatari ambassador over Doha airport incident

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Members of security and intelligence committee snub invite in protest at invasive treatment of women before flight to Sydney

Australian politicians from the major parties have pulled out of a formal dinner at the Qatari ambassador’s residence in protest at the invasive treatment of women at Doha airport.

Members of parliament’s security and intelligence committee have taken the stand as political pressure grows for the government to strengthen its response to the compulsory medical examination travellers endured before travelling from Doha to Sydney on 2 October.

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Qatar expresses ‘regret’ after women from 10 flights taken for medical examinations at Doha airport

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Australia’s foreign minister says 18 women, including 13 Australians, on Qatar Airways flight were subjected to compulsory intimate searches

The government of Qatar has said it “regrets any distress or infringement on the personal freedom of any traveller” caused by a decision to conduct intimate medical examinations of women transiting through Doha international airport, in what it said was an “urgently-decided search” to find the mother of an abandoned baby.

On Wednesday morning the Australian government confirmed that 18 women on a flight from Doha to Sydney were subjected to the compulsory medical examination, including 13 Australian citizens. Passengers from 10 flights leaving Doha on the evening of 2 October were affected.

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France urges end to boycott of French goods as Macron defends Muhammad cartoons

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Calls for boycott of French goods after president’s remarks at tribute to murdered teacher Samuel Paty

France has appealed for foreign governments to stamp out calls by what it calls a “radical minority” for a boycott of French products after Emmanuel Macron’s public backing of the Muhammad caricatures.

The appeal came as anger escalated across the Islamic world over the president’s remarks at a national tribute to the murdered high-school teacher Samuel Paty last week, with Turkish leader, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, calling on Monday for a complete boycott of French products in Turkey.

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