Doha lacks knowledge of the value of human rights

Mahmoud Mohammadi

At a time when the world celebrates International Human Rights Day, Qatar is practicing its habit of violating everything related to human rights, and in this it does not differentiate between anyone, whatever his nationality, color or religion, for everyone in Doha is under the guillotine as long as he is alien to the people of Qatar, and in many cases the injustice of the Qataris themselves is prolonged.

Failed regime

The political regime governing Doha does not hesitate to use all means to cover up its failure to manage the country’s crises, the latest of which is the outbreak of the corona virus, which prompted it to resort to illegal methods to escape from its international obligations, especially towards foreign workers and their financial and human rights.

The spread of the corona pandemic in Qatar revealed many losses and violations committed by the regime, especially in their dealings with workers and their intransigence to continue their work, which confirms that Doha will continue to work to finish preparing for the 2022 World Cup without considering the losses that may affect workers due to direct contact, continuous gatherings, and offering them as sacrifices to corona, despite repeated warnings by the World Health Organization to reduce it as much as possible to fend off the spreading global pandemic.

In this context, a report by Equidem, a human rights organization, revealed that companies in Qatar have not paid “hundreds of millions of dollars” in salaries and benefits to low-wage workers since the outbreak of the corona virus, increasing their suffering in one of the richest countries in the world.

Equidem reported that thousands of workers were dismissed without prior notice, given reduced wages or unpaid leave, deprived of due salary and end-of-service payments, or forced to bear the costs of flights to return to their countries.

The findings of the report amount to the level of “wage theft” on an unprecedented scale, which made workers destitute and suffer a shortage of food, and they were unable to send money to their families in their homelands during the pandemic, according to the Guardian.

The newspaper cited separate research by the Business and Human Rights Resource Center, which found that in 87% of the “worker abuse” cases that affected nearly 12,000 workers since 2016, they were related to unpaid or late wages.

About 2 million foreign workers are employed in Qatar, most of them from South Asia, and many of them work on construction projects related to the 2022 World Cup.

Employment crisis in Qatar

Amnesty International revealed at the end of March that hundreds of workers were infected with the corona virus in Doha’s industrial zone, as the organization confirmed that Doha closed parts of the industrial zone after hundreds of cases were recorded in the country, demanding that they not discriminate in health care for people with corona.

As the world struggles to contain the spread of the corona virus, migrant workers trapped in camps such as those in Qatar are at greater risk of the pandemic spreading among them, given that the labor camps in Qatar are very crowded and lack adequate water and sanitation.

The Qatari emirate had secretly paid $400 million to representatives in the International Federation of Football Association (FIFA) just 21 days before announcing its winning to host the 2022 World Cup, in addition to executives from the Qatari Al-Jazeera channel signing a television contract to buy the rights to broadcast the World Cup matches, which is the largest among the offers presented to FIFA.