Human rights organizations call for immediate action to lift ban imposed on Qatari citizens

Ali Ragab

Human rights organizations have condemned the dangerous and vulgar curve that the Qatari authorities are adopting in ignoring the calls for lifting the travel ban imposed on a number of Qatari citizens, including a member of the ruling family, and preventing some of them from disposing of their money without legal basis and in sheer arbitrary measures.

It called on the head of the National Human Rights Committee in Qatar, Ali bin Smaikh Al-Marri, to contact the Qatari security authorities to urgently lift the arbitrary travel ban and urge the Qatari authorities to abide by their international obligations, in particular the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which is bound to guarantee the right to freedom of movement, which Qatar recently ratified.

The undersigned organizations called on the special rapporteurs of the United Nations and the international community to urgently intervene and communicate with the Qatari authorities in order to immediately end the campaign of intimidation, harassment and travel bans imposed on these citizens, and to drop the unfounded charges against them.

On April 18, 2016, the Qatari authorities prevented Sheikh Saud bin Khalifa Al Thani from traveling, based on a decision issued by the National Command Center of the Ministry of Interior, and the Qatari government has taken arbitrary measures against him, including preventing him from attending the periodic family meeting that takes place in the Emiri Diwan in the presence of the emir.

In early 2018, in a post on his page on social media, Sheikh Saud demanded the Qatari authorities to allow him to travel in order to receive treatment, as his health condition necessitated his travel for treatment outside the country, but the authorities did not respond to his request.

On April 1, 2019, Sheikh Saud resorted to the Qatari judiciary and filed a lawsuit to challenge the travel ban issued by the Ministry of Interior, and on May 8, 2019, the Administrative Court ruled to accept the appeal due to the possibility of the administration abusing its right in the absence of reasons for the travel ban. Instead of the Qatari authorities complying with the judiciary rulings, they continued their intransigence, and the State Security Agency issued another separate decision banning him from travel on May 2, 2019, in accordance with Article 7 of the State Security Service Law. It was a decision that the judiciary considered legitimate, given that it was issued by the same competent authorities and related to state security.

The Qatari authorities also prevented Qatari citizen and businessman Abdullah Ahmed Al Mohannadi from traveling after he was subjected to arbitrary detention for a period of three weeks after he criticized the absence of the rule of law and government corruption, especially with regard to the Ministry of Interior, which made the Qatari authorities issue a decision preventing him from traveling since 2013, as well as freezing his private and commercial funds without giving any reasons for that. Although the Qatari authorities had closed his case, he was still banned from traveling for nearly seven years.

On January 8, 2017, human rights defender Dr. Najeeb bin Muhammad Al-Nuaimi, former Minister of Justice, was placed on the list of those banned from travel, due to his opposition and critical positions of the Qatari government and its policies, which he expressed peacefully through social media, where he was informed of the ban through a text message sent to him from the Attorney General’s office in Doha without explanation. Nuaimi has remained banned from travel since this date and until now, despite a ruling issued by a Qatari court on June 4, 2017, stating that the travel ban was canceled due to the absence of the justification for the ban.

The Qatari executive authorities continue to prevent Nuaimi from traveling in an arbitrary executive procedure without any legal basis, which indicates that this decision came as a punishment for him for his political positions in a clear violation of his right to freedom of opinion and expression, or to practice his work as a human rights lawyer.

Within the same context, Qatari citizen Muhammad Yusef Al-Sulaiti was arbitrarily arrested and prevented from traveling without his knowledge of the reasons for the ban, by using local laws restricting basic freedoms and that are inconsistent with international conventions and agreements signed by Qatar, especially Law No. 5 of 2003 amending the establishment of the State Security Service, where he was detained for five months. After his release, he remained banned from traveling, and the Qatari authorities have arrested Sulaiti again only two days after a human rights organization sent a complaint regarding his situation to the United Nations, where the State Security Service arrested him from his home. Until this moment, Sulaiti is still in incommunicado detention in state security prisons, while his Twitter account was deleted.

Human rights organizations affirm that the arbitrary measures taken by Qatar against the four Qatari citizens violate the right to freedom of expression guaranteed in the Qatari constitution and guaranteed under international human rights law and Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which Qatar ratified under Decree No. 40 of 2018. Also, the travel ban includes an explicit violation by the Qatari authorities of Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Article 12 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

Then these organizations called on the United Nations to quickly intervene to pressure the Qatari authorities to end all the arbitrary measures against the four Qatari citizens, remove their names from the travel bans and release those detained. They also demanded the Qatari authorities to amend the laws that contain vague and overly broad terms, which are used to restrict basic freedoms, especially Law No. 5 of 2003 amending the establishment of the state security apparatus, as well as the Law on Community Protection, for their apparent conflict with the texts of international conventions and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and adherence to their international obligations.