Human Rights in Qatar

 Hello everybody, welcome back to the Middle East and North African Human Rights Blog. This week we will be continuing our review of human rights in the Persian Gulf region of the Middle East with the State of Qatar.

After the country's history of domination and control by both the Ottoman empire and the British Empire into the latter 20th century, the country gained independence in 1971. Throughout the 80s and 90s, Qatar experienced massive economic growth and development which raised its power and influence in Middle Eastern politics (Qatar). An example of the country’s growing power was their participation in the Gulf War against Iraq in 1991 (Szczepanski). However, in the midst of a growing development, the ruling clan of Al Thani was unstable which saw a coup in 1995 in which Emir Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thaini ousted his father from power and focused on modernization (Qatar). An example of his modernization policies included women's suffrage, the creation of Al Jazeera TV Network, the permission to build Catholic Churches, and built closer ties with the United States (Szczepanski). Qatar allowed the US to use the country as its base for Central Command during the 2003 Iraq War. Along with developing the economy, Qatar is an important country in regard to sports such as soccer. They have hosted numerous FIFA World Cups and will host it again in 2022. Despite these developments, Qatar has a poor human rights record which includes violations of women's rights, worker rights, and freedom of expression. Women face wife spread discrimination in Qatar which includes male guardian laws and need to get permission for marriage, study abroad, work and obtain certain healthcare (World Report 2021). Divorce is also difficult for Women to obtain and are unable to act as their children's guardian after divorce. Qatar has a population of 2.8 million but only about a tenth of them are Qatari citizens. The rest are foreign workers who constitute about 90 percent of Qatar’s population. These workers who make up a vast majority of the country's population face egregious human rights violations and their conditions are at the complete discretion of their employers through the Gulf Cooperation Council's Kafala system (Qatar Archives). Abuses of these foreign workers include non-citizenship, wage theft, forced labor, and being unable to join a union or call a strike. Their employers can also control worker’s residency permits and are subject to poor investigations of labor violations by the government which side with their employers (Qatar Archives). These conditions overshadow events such as the World Cup which is built on the suffering of these foreign workers. Freedom of expression is severely restricted in Qatar with critics of the government often being arrested with unfair trials. Legislation which is meant to ban “content which harms the country” is used to curtail expression which is critical of the government, expressions of LGBTQ+ identity (same sex relations are also illegal), and anything which the government sees appropriate to censor (World Report 2021). Qatar has much work to do if the government is serious about applying human rights to their country. There must be vast changes in labor policy, protection of women’s rights, abolition of the Kafala system, and increased right to expression. Qatar must offer citizenship to the vast majority of foreign workers in the country to guarantee equal status under the law and end the slavery like conditions which affect over 90 percent of the country’s population. 

Citations:

“Qatar Archives.” Amnesty International, https://www.amnesty.org/en/location/middle-east-and-north-africa/qatar/report-qatar/. 

“World Report 2021: Rights Trends in Qatar.” Human Rights Watch, 13 Jan. 2021, https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2021/country-chapters/qatar. 

“Qatar.” Historical Overview, https://mofa.gov.qa/en/qatar/history-of-qatar/historical-overview. 

         Szczepanski, Kallie. “The Country of Qatar: Facts and History.” ThoughtCo, ThoughtCo, 13 Nov.             2019, https://www.thoughtco.com/qatar-facts-and-history-195080.