Category Archives: Qatar

‘I was absolutely terrified’: Australian witness recounts Qatar strip-search ordeal

Posted on by

Kim Mills was one of nine women taken off a Qatar Airways flight in Doha, and the only one not to be strip-searched as authorities hunted the mother of an abandoned newborn baby

An Australian woman has described the “terrifying” experience of being taken off a Qatar Airways flight by authorities who strip-searched passengers as they tried to identify the mother of an infant found in the Doha airport toilets.

Kim Mills was one of nine women taken off a Qatar Airways flight bound for Sydney on 2 October and led through the bowels of the Hamad International airport to what appeared to be a dark carpark or turning circle, where three ambulances were waiting to perform medical examinations to determine if any of the women had recently given birth.

Continue reading...

Australia demands answers after women taken from Qatar Airways flight and strip-searched

Posted on by

Thirteen Australians reportedly among women taken off flight at Doha and subjected to medical examination after newborn found abandoned in airport

The Australian government has registered “serious concerns” with Qatari authorities after women on a flight from Doha to Sydney were ordered to disembark the plane and subjected to a strip search and a medical examination.

Flight QR908 to Sydney was due to leave Hamad International airport at Doha at 8.30 on Friday 2 October, but was delayed for four hours, apparently after a newborn infant was found dead in the airport.

Continue reading...

Afghan peace talks with Taliban begin in Doha with rocky path ahead

Posted on by

Securing a ceasefire and safeguarding rights of women and minorities are key challenges

The Taliban and Afghan government negotiators launched historic peace talks on Saturday, aiming to end decades of war through a political settlement that would be unprecedented in the country’s recent history.

Negotiations will be long and complicated; there is a yawning gulf between the Taliban’s vision of an austerely Islamic state and the government’s commitment to the constitution that guarantees democracy and women’s rights, even if its implementation is mixed.

Continue reading...

New employment law effectively ends Qatar’s exploitative kafala system

Posted on by

Workers will be able switch jobs without employers’ permission, but rights groups say measure does not go far enough

Workers in Qatar may now change jobs without needing to obtain their employers’ permission, ending one of the most criticised elements of the country’s labour system.

The government has also announced an increase in the minimum wage, but rights groups have said the measure does not go far enough, leaving low wage workers earning as little as £1 an hour.

Continue reading...

Migrant workers in Qatar face ‘structural racism’ says UN report

Posted on by

World Cup host heavily criticised over discrimination and ‘coercive conditions’ experienced by labourers from south Asia and Africa

The United Nations has raised “serious concerns of structural racial discrimination against non-nationals” in World Cup host nation Qatar, in a highly critical report to be presented to the UN human rights council this week.

The report, by the UN’s special rapporteur for racism, Tendayi Achiume, is notable for its uncompromising language, saying a “de facto caste system based on national origin” exists in Qatar, “according to which European, North American, Australian and Arab nationalities systematically enjoy greater human rights protections than South Asian and sub-Saharan African nationalities”.

Continue reading...

Amanda Staveley in tears as Barclays lawyer accuses her of ‘hustle’

Posted on by

Businesswoman is seeking £1.5bn from bank in high court action over £2bn Qatari loan

A businesswoman embroiled in a £1.5bn high court battle with Barclays broke down in tears after bank bosses accused her of engaging in a “hustle”.

Amanda Staveley has made complaints about bank bosses’ behaviour when negotiating investment deals during the 2008 financial crisis.

Continue reading...

UK Finance boss resigns as Amanda Staveley high court case continues

Posted on by

Ex-Barclays executive Stephen Jones says he apologised over alleged sexist remarks referred to in court documents

The boss of the banking lobby group UK Finance has resigned just weeks before his alleged sexist remarks about the financier Amanda Staveley are due to be revealed in the high court.

Stephen Jones, a senior Barclays executive during the financial crisis who became the first chief executive of UK Finance in 2017, said he had also apologised to Staveley and the body’s staff about the comments, which were made as the bank scrambled to save itself from nationalisation in 2008.

Continue reading...

‘We’re poor people’: Middle East’s migrant workers look for way home amid pandemic

Posted on by

Gulf states prepare for demographic shift as migrant workforces return home, with prospects bleak for those who stay

During 14 years in Lebanon, Jevie Olido’s four children have grown up without her, her marriage has failed and her parents have grown old. Now, the income that kept her far from her home in the Philippines has also gone, rubbed out by the coronavirus crisis and an economic implosion that has forced thousands of desperate domestic workers like her to look for ways to leave.

In neighbouring Jordan, Samir Ali, an Indian garment worker, is also waiting to be paid, after only receiving his March salary when he and other foreign workers at their factory threatened to strike. The pandemic has crippled production across the country and caused clashes between labourers and employers. Eight of the 40 men had registered to go back to India once their contracts had finished. “We’ve decided this factory is really bad,” he said. “We’re poor people, so we have to find another way.”

Continue reading...

Covid-19: Greece quarantines all passengers from Qatar flight

Posted on by

All 91 travellers put in quarantine after 12 test positive, illustrating risk of welcoming back tourists

Greece has been forced to confront the risks of restarting international tourism after authorities announced that 12 out of 91 passengers onboard a Qatar Airlines flight to Athens had tested positive for coronavirus.

The civil protection ministry responded by suspending air links to and from the Arab state until 15 June. All 91 travellers on the flight were immediately placed in quarantine. 

Continue reading...

Global report: leaders urge free vaccines as France allows staycations

Posted on by

French drugmaker criticised for giving US priority; Gordon Brown says Covid-19 solution is global

More than 140 world leaders and experts have called for future Covid-19 vaccines to be made available to everyone free of charge, amid growing tensions between drug companies and governments and a boycott of vaccine summits by the US.

Vaccines and treatments for the virus should not be patented, say the signatories to an open letter published in the run-up to next week’s meeting of the World Health Assembly, the policy-setting body of the UN’s World Health Organization. Instead, scientific breakthroughs must be shared across borders, they urge.

Continue reading...

Qatar’s migrant workers beg for food as Covid-19 infections rise

Posted on by

Desperation and fear mount in the Gulf state as thousands of labourers are left with no job, no money and no way out

Low-wage migrant workers in Qatar, one of the richest countries in the world, say they have been forced to beg for food as the economic fallout of the coronavirus pandemic takes a devastating toll, following a surge in the outbreak that has seen one-in-four people test positive.

In more than 20 interviews, workers in the World Cup host nation have described a mounting sense of desperation, frustration and fear. Many told the Guardian they have suddenly been left jobless, with no other way to earn a living. Others say they are desperate, but unable, to return home. Some have been forced to plead for food from their employers or charities.

Continue reading...

Migrant workers bear brunt of coronavirus pandemic in Gulf

Posted on by

Rights groups say host countries should offer foreign workers same protections as citizens

Crammed into work camps, stood down from their jobs, facing high rates of infection and with no way home, hundreds of thousands of migrant workers are bearing the brunt of the coronavirus pandemic in the Middle East, migrant advocates and diplomats say.

Such workers’ risk of exposure to Covid-19 is so high, rights groups say, that host countries need to offer the same protections granted to their citizens or face the threat of a rampant outbreak that proves ever more difficult to contain.

Continue reading...

Despite coronavirus, it’s ‘business as usual’ for World Cup workers in Qatar

Posted on by

As the Gulf state outlaws ‘all forms of gatherings’, migrant workers continue to toil on construction sites

Migrant labourers building stadiums and infrastructure for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar are still being sent to work on crowded construction sites, despite a government order outlawing “all forms of gatherings” because of the coronavirus pandemic.

With less than 1,000 days to go until the tournament kicks off, workers said it was “business as usual” as construction continued at a relentless pace.

Continue reading...

Covid-19 lockdown turns Qatar’s largest migrant camp into ‘virtual prison’

Posted on by

Thousands of labourers trapped in squalid, over-crowded conditions as huge area of Doha Industrial Area sealed off by police

Qatar’s largest labour camp for migrant workers has become a virtual prison and is in total lockdown after hundreds of construction workers became infected with Covid-19.

Police are guarding the perimeter of a huge zone within the “Industrial Area”, leaving thousands of workers trapped in squalid, over-crowded camps, where the virus can spread rapidly. No one can enter or leave, say workers who live in the area, many of whom had been working on Fifa World Cup 2022 infrastructure projects.

Continue reading...

Qatar World Cup: report reveals 34 stadium worker deaths in six years

Posted on by

Latest figures show nine stadium worker deaths in 2019 alone, as human rights organisations criticise delay in implementing labour reform

Nine migrant labourers working on the stadiums for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar died in 2019, the “supreme committee” organising the event has announced, bringing the number of deaths on World Cup projects to 34, since construction began six years ago.

31 of the deaths, including the nine who died last year, are classified as “non-work related”, a term the supreme committee uses to describe deaths that largely occur off the worksite, most of which are attributed to sudden and unexplained cardiac or respiratory failure.

Continue reading...

The despot dilemma: should architects work for repressive regimes?

Posted on by

Bjarke Ingels is the go-to golden boy for Big Tech – and now Brazil’s Bolsonaro wants a bit of his magic. But should architects boycott oppressive leaders? Do their buildings glorify their ideology?

Sun-kissed walkways in the sky, platefuls of seafood ceviche, a private helicopter pickup from the beach – the Instagram account of Danish architect Bjarke Ingels has unfolded like an escapist travelogue epic in recent weeks, as his adventures in Latin America have taken their place in his dizzying globetrotting itinerary. But there is one photograph he hasn’t been so keen to share with his 730,000 followers: of him standing next to Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil’s far-right president, with the uneasy smile of a man who’s just secured his latest big commission from another unsavoury despot, in this case one who has boasted of being “proudly” homophobic.

According to a statement from Brazil’s ministry of tourism, Ingels visited Brazil to tour several states and discuss strategies for developing sustainable tourism on its north-east coast, in partnership with the Nômade Group, which recently built an eco-conscious luxury resort in Tulum, the ruins of a Mayan walled city in Mexico.

Continue reading...

Qatar eases exit rules but concerns linger over abuse of domestic workers

Posted on by

Exit permits to be scrapped, but requirement for domestic workers to give employers 72 hours’ notice is ‘problematic’, say activists

Domestic workers in Qatar must give their employers advance notice before leaving the country, in a new policy that campaigners say raises concerns for those trapped in abusive situations.

As pressure mounts on Qatar to tackle labour exploitation ahead of the 2022 World Cup, it announced last week that it was abolishing restrictions on leaving the country for nearly all migrant workers, who previously had to obtain their employer’s permission.

Continue reading...

The Guardian view on Özil, Arsenal and Liverpool: football with a conscience | Editorial

Posted on by
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 World Cup chief insists progress being made on migrant rights

Posted on by

Gulf state says it plans to end kafala system in response to criticism of migrant workers’ treatment

The Qatari official in charge of organising the most controversial edition of the football World Cup since the tournament’s inception in 1930 has claimed that criticism of his country’s treatment of migrant workers will have a ripple effect that will improve regional labour standards.

The 2022 World Cup has been dogged by criticism of its host’s kafala system, which ties migrant workers to so-called sponsorship by their employer, meaning they cannot move jobs or leave the country without the employer’s approval.

Continue reading...

Qatar stadium deaths: the dark side of the glittering venue hosting Liverpool

Posted on by

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...