Demands to investigate Qatar’s human rights violations

CAIRO – 10 March 2018: The Manama Center for Human Rights has demanded the international society to assign a United Nations envoy specialized in human rights to Qatar to prevent any violations regarding human rights.

According to a statement from the center on Friday, March 9, the international mechanisms to preserve human rights should interfere in the Qatari situation and investigate the Qatari violations against its citizens and foreign workers.

The statement also claimed that the Qatari National Committee for Human Rights is not a fair independent organization anymore, as it works for Doha’s favors and interests.

The center decried the Qatari violations as “a first” in international law and policy.

The Qatari Al-Ghufran tribe has renewed its formal complaint against the state’s regime to the United Nation Human Rights Council (UNHRC) to investigate the violations against them, which are claimed to include arrest, torture, seizure of properties, revocation of nationality, forced migration and being banned from entering the country again.

According to Sky News, Ghufran already issued a first complaint against Doha last September in which they explained how Qatar violated their rights. “We wonder about the reason behind ignoring out first complaint,” the Qatari tribe’s spokesperson, Jaber Abdel Hady, told Sky News on Friday. A 12-member delegation traveled to Geneva to attend the UNHRC session.

There have been allegations regarding Qatar’s constant breaching of human rights against foreign workers, especially migrant construction workers building stadiums for the 2022 World Cup.

On August 2017, media outlets disclosed the harsh conditions and unjust practices that were imposed on domestic workers in Doha.

The news website Carbonated stated that the workers are living in a clear tragedy, without intervention from any of the officials, especially regarding human rights.

The newspaper revealed the existence of about 4,000 migrants at risk of death due to the denial of human rights and the lack of Qatari officials’ mercy. It stated that those migrants work in harsh summer temperatures to build the new stadiums. The newspaper said that up to 15 workers stay in one small room at the residence of their work, called a "practical camp", and they don’t even have the privilege to complain.

The newspaper Construction Week Online described the workers' situation in Qatar as "non-humanitarian" and pointed out that the Qatari government has no "mercy" because it treats the workers as "slaves”.

Qatar’s policies are controversial to the Arab quartet (Egypt, Saudi Arabia, UAE and Bahrain), given its alleged support of terrorism. On June 5, 2017, Qatar was hit by its biggest diplomatic crisis in years after the Arab quartet’s decision to cut diplomatic ties with Doha and impose economic sanctions amid accusations of financing terrorism – a claim Qatar rejects. The Arab quartet halted all land, air and sea traffic to and from Qatar, and withdrew their diplomats and ambassadors from the country.

The Arab quartet issued 13 demands to Doha – later shortened to six principles – which included closing the news channel Al-Jazeera, curbing relations with Iran, and not intervening in the internal affairs of Arab nations.