Former Qatar resident hits out at economic slavery

An article in the increasingly daring Doha News has highlighted the problem of dissent in Qatar. Lawyer Kristen Jarvis Johnson, a former resident of the Gulf state, concedes that she kept quiet about economic slavery while living there, but has now urged ex-patriot residents still in Qatar to do the opposite and speak out.

The World Cup - smothered by a nation's flag
 and rooted in economic interests 

Better late than never, except for those who've already died. The customary depressing comments below the piece slate Johnson for speaking out from the safety of abroad. But then that's somewhat the point, isn't it? She writes that after the excitement of settling in a new country with a new job wears off, "the dark realization sets in that we are supporting modern day slavery. We feel that we risk our reputation and livelihood if we speak out.

"The consequences of contrarian speech are drastic and create huge risk for those who wish to voice an opinion," she continues, citing the country's cyber-crime law. But now she's ready to concede that "six months after leaving, I am still haunted by the thousands of people working under harsh conditions to prepare for the 2022 World Cup and to build the country’s infrastructure. All of these workers are employed under the kafala (sponsorship) system, one that many people in Qatar are quick to criticize behind closed doors."

There are a lot of things that happen behind closed doors in repressed Arab societies. The consumption of alcohol and other drugs. Homosexuality. And, according to Johnson, political dissent. Most expats, she writes, "wait to speak up, if at all, until after they have completed their stay in Qatar. This leads to criticism about people living large while in the country who only publish scathing commentaries after they leave. It’s more complex than this, but it is true."

What are the options? Leave the country? Don't go there in the first place? Form a huge union of expats and picket building sites? (Yes, I'm being facetious, but it would beat handwringing from several thousand miles away - would the Qatari state arrest and imprison several hundred wealthy foreigners?) Johnson's answer is that "we, the international community, must continue to stand up for the rights of those slaving away on Qatar’s World Cup preparations. We can implore the leaders of Qatar to scrutinize their legal system, to get rid of laws that violate basic human rights, and to protect the workers building the nation’s infrastructure."

Well, human rights groups have been trying that for years, but "the leaders of Qatar" would rather stifle dissent than listen to it. They will only act if Fifa pulls the tournament, but the chances of that have now diminished to almost nothing. Beyond the vacuous tokenism of its slogans, Fifa does not care about human rights. The most disgraceful World Cup in football's history will take place as planned, because the business of sport has become more important than human life itself.

Boycott the Rio Olympics - it's the very least you can do

A reader's letter in today's Süddeutsche Zeitung is short and to the point with regard to this coming fortnight's Olympics in Rio: "There is someone who can undertake action against doping: us. Only when we refuse to watch this now risible event will something change. Because nobody's forcing us to watch" (Martin Schüller, Cologne).

Olympics - sick and limp

Last night the French/German public broadcaster arte screened a documentary about the labour conditions of Nepalese workers in the Gulf States, with a particular emphasis on Qatar. The film painted the same depressing picture as previous media and Amnesty International investigative reports. Working conditions, accommodation, quality of life and wages for most of the estimated 1.7 million south-east Asian workers in Doha are lousy, while passports are still being confiscated to prevent workers from leaving the country or switching employers. "The world is doing business with a slave state," said Sharan Burrow, the General Secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation.

How can sports fans settle down in their armchairs to watch sporting events like these, knowing what we know? It seems there's no case to be made against boycotting these events, because it's increasingly harder to find any reasons to justify watching them at all.

If you were at a party and the barman collapsed and died because he'd been working a 12-hour shift and had had nothing to eat or drink, would you merrily keep drinking and dancing after the body was dragged away and a new barman stepped in to replace the deceased worker? Would you bother buying a lottery ticket if you knew that Vladimir Putin, or one of his associates, had already been given the winning numbers in advance?

It's easy to see why the vast majority of sports fans will watch the Olympics, and the next two World Cups as well. All week there have been quotes out of Rio from journalists, athletes and officials about how they just want the flame lit, and the games to start. The International Olympic Committee's decision not to ban Russia, its unconscionable exclusion of Russian whistle-blower Julia Stepanowa, the crappy living conditions in the barely finished Olympic village, and reports of the dangerously polluted waters for the forthcoming aqua events have all made for heavy reading. Let's have some running and throwing instead!

Who among us wouldn't rather watch a competitive (if ultimately meaningless) race between several of the world's strongest, fastest humans than the latest news of cronyism, corruption and dubious alliances at the top level of international sports administration? Because if supple, sinewy athletes are running round the track while flag-waving spectators cheer from the stands, then everything must be alright now. Right?

Still, I agree with Mr. Schüller of Cologne, and you can add the favela clearances and displaced Rio residents as another reason, as well as thousands of extrajudicial killings , not to mention the monstrous waste of state money that millions of Brazilians would rather have seen spent meeting their basic needs. We should all opt to switch off Rio 2016 for the next two weeks. It's literally the very least that we can do.

Worker Discrimination At Asian Cup in Qatar

Empty seats, but still no room for migrant workers?

The majority of Qatar's immigrants, making up an estimated 70 per cent of the country's one million population (according to this piece at the Canadian site Maclean's), come from South Asia and work in either the domestic or the construction industries. The website reports that many workers are paid $2,200 per annum for 12-hour days, and quotes Human Rights Watch researcher Samer Muscati as saying that their working conditions are the equivalent of "forced labour".

Is there any reason to believe that the oil-wealthy nation will improve those conditions for workers employed to build the eight World Cup stadia? Perhaps, with some pressure from FIFA. Georgetown University, the Washington DC-based educational establishment with a campus in Doha, lobbied for better working conditions on its newest construction site in the Qatari capital, so there's already a precedent for football's governing body to follow.

There's a telling anecdote from a Qatar resident in the comments section to the piece about how he went to a game between Australia and South Korea at the current Asian Confederations Cup and saw five Nepalese migrant workers refused admission to the stadium on the grounds that there were only tickets left for the stadium's Family Section:

"My friend and I were in the 'family' section, where there were several groups of Arab and Western men. Our supposed 'family section' was not a family section at all. It was a general seating area. So, why on earth would five workers be denied entry into a stadium with 10,000 empty seats? Because that is the way things work in Qatar. That is the way it is in malls, in parks and anywhere else that labourers are not wanted. These young men are the very ones who will be building the stadiums, the roads, the infrastructure needed to put on the World Cup when Qatar hosts it in 2022. But, will these workers be allowed into the stadiums? They work long hours in brutal conditions, live in squalid conditions and tend to earn very low wages. Often, their passports are taken away, and they are subject to a system that essentially makes them slaves to their employers."

So, once FIFA has been assured that slave labour working conditions have been eradicated, there's a second Fair Play issue for it to work on the next time it sends a delegation to Qatar. If football is the great leveller that it claims, no one should be turned away at the gates on the grounds of race and class. And especially not at a FIFA-sanctioned tournament like the AFC.