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Three months before Doha hosts the 2022 World Cup, Qatar recently arrested and deported at least 60 foreign workers who protested after months without pay, an advocacy group said.
Qatar faces intense international scrutiny of its labor practices ahead of the game. Like other Gulf Arab states, Qatar is heavily reliant on foreign labor, and workers’ protests a week ago — and Qatar’s reaction to it — could further fuel such concerns.
The head of a labor consulting firm investigating the incident said the detentions raised new doubts about Qatar’s commitment to improving the treatment of workers. “Is this really coming out?” asked Mustafa Qadri, executive director of Equidem Research.
In a statement to The Associated Press on Sunday night, the Qatari government acknowledged that “some protesters were detained for violating public safety laws.” It declined to provide any information on arrests or deportations.
Video footage posted online showed 60 workers protesting outside the Doha offices of Al Bandary International Group, which includes construction, real estate, hotels, food services and other businesses, on August 14.
Equidem said some of the demonstrators had not been paid for up to seven months.
Protesters block an intersection in front of the Al Shoumoukh tower on Doha’s C ring road. The video matches known details of the street, including several large portraits of Qatar’s ruling emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani.
The Qatari government acknowledged that Al Bandary International Group had not paid wages and its labour ministry would pay “all delayed wages and benefits” to those affected.
“The company had been investigated by authorities for non-payment of wages prior to the incident and is now taking further action as it missed the deadline to resolve the arrears,” the government said.
Police later arrested protesters and held them in detention centers, which some said had no air conditioning and were unbearably hot, Mr. Kadri said. Temperatures in Doha this week reached around 41 degrees Celsius.
He said police told detainees they could sleep without air conditioning if they could strike in hot weather.
A detained worker who called Equidem from the detention center described as many as 300 colleagues he had there, from Bangladesh, Egypt, India, Nepal and the Philippines. Some were paid after the protest, while others were not, he said.
Qatar, like other Gulf Arab states, has in the past deported foreign workers who have demonstrated, and linked residence visas to employment. The right to form unions remains tightly controlled and only available to Qataris, and the country’s right to assemble is limited, according to Washington-based advocacy group Freedom House.
The small energy-rich country on the Arabian Peninsula is home to the state-funded Al Jazeera satellite news network.
However, speech in the country remains tightly controlled. Last year, Qatar detained and subsequently deported a Kenyan security guard who wrote and spoke publicly about the plight of the country’s migrant workforce.
Since FIFA awarded the tournament to Qatar in 2010, the country has taken steps to overhaul the country’s employment practices, including the abolition of its so-called kafala employment system, which links workers with employers who have The right to decide whether to quit or quit. even countries.
Qatar has also established a minimum monthly wage of 1,000 Qatari riyals (£232) for workers and requires food and housing allowances for employees who do not receive food and housing allowances directly from their employers.
Activists such as Mr Kadri called on Doha to do more, particularly to ensure workers are paid on time and to protect them from abuse by employers.
“Have we all been duped by Qatar over the past few years?” he asked, suggesting the recent reforms may be a “cover” for authorities to allow current labor practices to persist.
The World Cup will start in November.
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