Qatar World Cup construction 'will leave 4,000 migrant workers dead'

[lilFlip]

A bunch of hypocrites all of them: Qatar, Fifa and national associations(Western, Latinos etc etc.).


Nobody cares if poor die... as long as it doesn't benefit their political/religious agenda.

Just imagine 20 (national white) people dying due to English or French administration's negligence had they been the host of 2022 event... all mayhem would've been caused by now...

But since it's expendables from poor countries we are talking about: nobody gives a crap.

I hate this planet!!

 

[Gabbar Singh]

When the FIFA/Qatar bribery scandal was exposed many officials in Qatar and at FIFA blamed the 'right wing British media' for undermining the Qatar World Cup.

Wonder what excuse they'll use to smear the Guardian?

Qatar workers building the first stadium for Qatar's 2022 World Cup have been earning as little as 45p an hour, the Guardian can reveal.

The pay rate appears to be in breach of the tournament organisers' own worker welfare rules and comes despite the Gulf kingdom spending £134bn on infrastructure ahead of the competition.

More than 100 workers from some of the world's poorest countries are labouring in ferocious desert heat on the 40,000-seat al-Wakrah stadium, which has been designed by the British architect Zaha Hadid and is due to host a quarter-final.

Pay slips show they are toiling up to 30 days a month for as little as £4.90 a day. The rates are among the lowest the Guardian found during a week-long investigation into conditions for migrant labourers across Qatar's construction industry, and come despite pledges by the tournament's organisers to make workers' rights "our top priority".

Hadid, whose practice is likely to earn a multimillion-pound fee on the project, said in a joint statement with fellow design firm Aecom that they were "working closely with our clients to ensure that any outstanding issues are resolved".

Stadium workers also told the Guardian their passports were being held by their manager, in apparent breach of the World Cup organisers' own worker welfare standards which state: "The contractor shall ensure that all workers have personal possession of their passports and other personal documents."

Withholding passports has been identified by the Qatar government's own lawyers, DLA Piper, as an abuse of the country's migrant labour sponsorship system that can contribute to conditions of forced labour.

The problems for the World Cup workers come after the Guardian revealed on Monday that migrant labourers who fitted out luxury offices used by Qatar's World Cup organising committee have not been paid for up to a year and are now living in squalor.

http://www.theguardian.com/global-d...qatar-world-cup-stadium-workers-earn-45p-hour

 

[ddss]

Only way to stop these deaths is if the big associations of FIFA (Brazil, Germany, England...) start boycotting this world cup.

 

[Zaz]

Disgusting The greed and morality of the elite knows no bounds

The only way to stop this is if enough people create a fuss that the sponsors are forced to pull out or at least review their partnership due to the negative impact this has on their brand

 

[ddss]

True, plus I dont know how any player who could play happily on a stadium built on top on 4000 corpses.

 

[GenericBrand]

When the FIFA/Qatar bribery scandal was exposed many officials in Qatar and at FIFA blamed the 'right wing British media' for undermining the Qatar World Cup.

Lol we even had some members here crying out that it was some Western conspiracy and that the British were jealous that Qatar was hosting it

 

[Saeed]

I guess People shouldn't go to watch this world cup.

 

[shaykh]

In fairness these working conditions are standard for the Gulf...

The Burj Khalifa had people making $4 a day working 12 hour days and doing that 6 days a week...when 7,000 protested the response was deportations...

The Gulf is a nasty place with the worst aspects of capitalism combined with racism...

Is anyone really surprised that Qatar like other gulf states is exploiting its workers?...was hosting a world cup gonna change their work practices?...what does FIFA care?...

 

[lilFlip]

In fairness these working conditions are standard for the Gulf...

The Burj Khalifa had people making $4 a day working 12 hour days and doing that 6 days a week...when 7,000 protested the response was deportations...

The Gulf is a nasty place with the worst aspects of capitalism combined with racism...

Is anyone really surprised that Qatar like other gulf states is exploiting its workers?...was hosting a world cup gonna change their work practices?...what does FIFA care?...

I am disgusted man.

Outrageous

 

[shaykh]

I guess People shouldn't go to watch this world cup.

In the same vein people should boycott pretty much the whole of Dubai lol...which is built on slave labour...

 

[thivaakar]

Every monument that was built in UAE and other fancy oil rich country has our blood, sweat and tears.

 

[Gabbar Singh]

One of the saddest things about this all is that these deaths will all have been for nothing because I seriously doubt if the World Cup in Qatar will go ahead anyway.

Two Britons detained in Qatar after researching the treatment of migrant workers have flown back to the UK.

Krishna Upadhyaya and Gundev Ghimire were held for nine days and then had to wait another 11 days for permission to leave the Gulf state.

Qatar said the men, reported missed on 31 August, had been detained for "violating the law of the land".

They had been working for the Norway-based Global Network for Rights and Development (GNRD).
Solitary confinement

Mr Upadhyaya, a researcher and Mr Ghimire, a photographer, had been carrying out research for a report on human rights in Qatar, which is due to host the football World Cup in 2022.

The pair flew into Heathrow Airport late on Friday.

Mr Upadhyaya told the BBC on Saturday they had been detained at Doha airport while trying to fly home and kept in solitary confinement for nine days.

He said they had to wait for a further 11 days for their cases to be closed

The men, both of Nepalese origin, had been in Qatar since 27 August, GNRD, a Norway-based non-governmental organisation, said.

Human rights groups have accused the Qatari authorities of employing foreign labourers in "slave-like" conditions.

In May, Qatar moved to change controversial laws on foreign workers that tied migrant workers to a single employer.

Human rights campaigners said the sponsorship system was akin to modern-day slavery.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-29294328

A member of FIFA's Executive Committee believes Qatar will be stripped of the 2022 World Cup because of safety concerns relating to the soaring heat.

Speaking to German publication Bild, former president of the German Football Association Theo Zwanziger said: "Personally, I believe that the World Cup will not take place in 2022 in Qatar."

The world's biggest sporting event was controversially awarded to the desert country in December 2010, and would represent the first major sporting spectacle hosted anywhere in the Middle East.

Football's world governing body FIFA have since been widely criticised for awarding Qatar the tournament, typically hosted in June and July, when temperatures in the Arab state average at around 50°C.

"It may be possible to use special cooling techniques in the stadiums, but the World Cup will not only take place in the stadiums," Zwanziger explained.

"There are fans from around the world who would be in the roads. The first life-threatening incident would immediately lead to public prosecution

http://www.itv.com/news/2014-09-22/...ves-qatar-will-be-stripped-of-2020-world-cup/

 

[Sakss]

The WC will be held ..Too much money involved...and people getting huge sums to keep it in Qatar.

I was speaking to my boss Qatari National. and he said look the world will obviously create an issue as its the first major event here. We successfully carried out Doha Games in 2006. He also said Qataris have huge investments in UK and other European Countries , they cant dare of boycotting the cup.

 

[Dios]

One of the saddest things about this all is that these deaths will all have been for nothing because I seriously doubt if the World Cup in Qatar will go ahead anyway.

http://www.itv.com/news/2014-09-22/...ves-qatar-will-be-stripped-of-2020-world-cup/

Sad that if the WC is taken away from Qatar it will be because of the discomfort caused to tourists by the heat and not because of the deaths of thousands of workers forced to work in slave-like conditions. What a world we live in.

 

[Cpt. Rishwat]

Every monument that was built in UAE and other fancy oil rich country has our blood, sweat and tears.

The Brits get paid very well there, you must be doing something wrong.

 

[Cpt. Rishwat]

The WC will be held ..Too much money involved...and people getting huge sums to keep it in Qatar.

I was speaking to my boss Qatari National. and he said look the world will obviously create an issue as its the first major event here. We successfully carried out Doha Games in 2006. He also said Qataris have huge investments in UK and other European Countries , they cant dare of boycotting the cup.

They'll probably calculate that the Qataris will keep their investments in Europe regardless of what happens to the WC. Qataris will bark a lot but I think they will be too spineless to pull out.

 

[chacha kashmiri]

Sad that if the WC is taken away from Qatar it will be because of the discomfort caused to tourists by the heat and not because of the deaths of thousands of workers forced to work in slave-like conditions. What a world we live in.

There is lots of talk in the gulf about how foriegners recieve all the jobs even in good sectors while unemployment still exists

With enough foriegners in the gulf, they really should work as a block to set up unions and minimum rights for themselves, otherwise there are expendable for some other jonny foriegner to come and carry on if they want to go back home

 

[Gabbar Singh]

1300 dead and still 8 years to go.

Union activists today held up hundreds of red cards in a sign of anger at the treatment of migrant workers in Qatar, where the 2022 football World Cup is being held.

The TUC Congress in Liverpool called for Qatar to be stripped of hosting the tournament unless working conditions were radically improved.

The conference heard that since the country was awarded the World Cup in 2010, more than 1,300 construction workers from India and Nepal have died.

Football’s world governing body Fifa was urged to take urgent action improve working and living conditions for migrant workers building stadiums and other sites for the tournament.

Neil Vernon of construction workers’ union Ucatt, told the conference that workers had been “slaughtered” to fuel a construction boom, warning: “Thousands more workers will die before the World Cup in 2022 unless action is taken now.”

Vicki Grandon of Unite said Fifa should act to stop the World Cup in Qatar becoming a “graveyard”.

http://qatarwatch.net/wp/news/union-fury-at-qatar-workers-plight/

 

[Gabbar Singh]

Ironically the very 'type' of people who are building their stadiums are not even allowed into the shopping malls over there.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/VluY5SWfjSI" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

[yeh cheez]

Qatar forces slave labor to run marathon

In an effort to break the Guinness World Record for the largest marathon ever, officials in Doha, Qatar, bused in thousands of immigrant slaves working in the country and forced them to run in whatever clothes they had -- including even if they were shoeless.

Many workers wound up running in jeans and flip-flops, Doha News reported. Those who tried to leave were forced to stay in the marathon and cross the line, which was required for their participation to count. The marathon was started at 2 p.m., when the temperature was 84 degrees.

The logic behind the event, which was a half-marathon, was amazingly ignorant: The race's official website branded the marathon as a protest against global negative opinions toward Qatar, including a "decisive response to the campaign waged by the sector of envious haters on the success of Qatar to host the 2022 FIFA World Cup, and to their false allegations of persecution of workers and residents in our beloved country."

Somehow, forcing slaves to run 13.1 miles in the heat doesn't seem to be the appropriate response to those allegations. Meanwhile, Qatar has been slammed by Amnesty International for its "severe" exploitation of slaves in Qatar. The country operates a system of slavery that turns employees into property owned by their employers.

Employers often hold the passports of those individuals, which prevents them from escaping the country.

http://yahoo.thepostgame.com/blog/h...n-marathon-shoeless-bid-guinness-world-record

 

[Gabbar Singh]

Qatar invited a BBC team to view the "improved" migrant worker conditions and then arrested them for doing their jobs.

BBC journalist tells of his arrest in Qatar after filming World Cup labourers



A BBC journalist has recounted how he and his team were arrested and detained in Qatar while attempting to film the living and working conditions of the country's low-paid Nepali labour force. Something the BBC had been invited to do by the Qatari authorities in the fist place.

The arrest took place while the team were travelling to a labour camp outside Doha, the Qatari capital, to gather additional footage for their report.

Mark Lobel, the BBC's Middle East correspondent, and his three-man team were held for nearly two days before being released.

The BBC had been invited to Qatar as part of a PR tour to view new accommodation built for Qatar's migrant workforce and following his release Lobel was ushered back onto the official media trip.

"It was as if nothing had happened, despite the fact that our kit was still impounded, and we were banned from leaving the country," Lobel wrote in an article on the BBC website.

He said that Qatar had brought no charges against him or his team but that their belongings had not been returned.

Lobel also reported that Qatar had kept the group under surveillance ahead of the arrest, saying that security officials shown him photographs of himself at a coffee shop and lying by a swimming pool.

Qatar has been widely criticised for its treatment of migrant labourers, large numbers of whom are working on construction projects for the 2022 FIFA World Cup due to be held in Qatar.

Rights groups say many of the labourers live in poor and often unsanitary conditions and can go unpaid for months. Qatar's kafala system, which ties migrant labourers to their employer or sponsor, has also come under scrutiny.

In December last year a report by The Guardian newspaper said that Nepali labourers working on Qatar's World Cup infrastructure had died at a rate of two a day in 2014.

Unhappy with the international criticism over its treatment of migrant labour, Qatar has reacted strongly. In March Qatari officials arrested journalists from West German Broadcasting (WDR) working on a documentary on the plight of migrant workers in Qatar.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...nalist-tells-of-arrest-in-qatar-10257498.html

 

[JaDed]

GCC countries are in a different century seriously.If any country that's not an ally of Western countries or a non-Muslim country had ever done anything like this there would be huge uproar.

 

[Cpt. Rishwat]

GCC countries are in a different century seriously.If any country that's not an ally of Western countries or a non-Muslim country had ever done anything like this there would be huge uproar.

That's because too many westerners are employed in those countries and they earn a fortune. Just a few weeks back the Sunday Times ran an article on British ex-pats earning up to £60k a year as teachers in Qatar. That's tax free with full medical insurance, living accommodation provided and a free flight home every year. There was a girl in her 20's talking about the great lifestyle out there and how she had no plans to come home.

 

[Varun]

That's because too many westerners are employed in those countries and they earn a fortune. Just a few weeks back the Sunday Times ran an article on British ex-pats earning up to £60k a year as teachers in Qatar. That's tax free with full medical insurance, living accommodation provided and a free flight home every year. There was a girl in her 20's talking about the great lifestyle out there and how she had no plans to come home.

Sure, but that's still 10% of the expats out there. The uproar from the comrades of the remaining 90% is largely absent, and I think that is what Jaded is referring to.

 

[Cpt. Rishwat]

Sure, but that's still 10% of the expats out there. The uproar from the comrades of the remaining 90% is largely absent, and I think that is what Jaded is referring to.

I can only assume those countries have vested interests so keep quiet.

 

[James]

Big drive from the Western countries to get the Qatar World Cup thrown out. Looks like it might work.

I kind of agree with this in principle, because there is reasonably solid evidence to suggest that the vote was rigged, but it's kind of hypocritical as well, because if England/USA/France etc was hosting the World Cup then whether it was rigged or not nobody would bat an eyelid.

Football is approaching institutionally corrupt status now.

 

[Saqs]

Big drive from the Western countries to get the Qatar World Cup thrown out. Looks like it might work.

I kind of agree with this in principle, because there is reasonably solid evidence to suggest that the vote was rigged, but it's kind of hypocritical as well, because if England/USA/France etc was hosting the World Cup then whether it was rigged or not nobody would bat an eyelid.

Football is approaching institutionally corrupt status now.

How will they though? There would be too much of a backlash and Qatar will most likely sue Fifa for an astronomical amount of damages.

 

[Markhor]

The arrests of those BBC journalists shows how the Qataris know they have blood on their hands and so like any other fascist regime they try to hide the shameful truth from the world.

They will not have the World Cup hosting rights removed but I hope football fans will boycott this World Cup. Don't line the pockets of the Qatari slave drivers.

 

[Markhor]

I wonder if any of the footballers will bother to read up on any of this and someone will actually take a principled stand - and boycott this World Cup. Refuse to play in a blood-soaked tournament.

Probably not. Those endorsement deals are too valuable.

 

[Suleiman]

Used to live there, every month there would be a news story of a house maid or a driver getting severely beaten by their owners (Who were 90% of the time Indians from kerala, the rest Indonesian or Filipino)

A chemistry teacher in my school there got thrown in jail after a few 9th grade Qatari bullied him by grabbing his hair, putting their finger in his nostril, and calling him jackie Chan (he was nepali). He responded by saying "please don't be racist, what if I called you a terrorist?", and the kids told their rich Qatari parents that he insulted the religion. Few days later the door of his house was knocked down and he was thrown in jail, then deported back to Nepal few days later. You can search up the news story on google.

So sadly the 4000 dead statistic doesn't surprise.

 

[Gabbar Singh]

The sad thing is that Qatar is the richest nation on earth (GDP per capita) so there is no need to treat the world cup workers like this. They just need to spend a little more and provide them with a safer working environment.

According to the group Play Fair Qatar, “more than 62 workers will die for each game played during the 2022 tournament.”

http://www.theguardian.com/football...p-2022-fifa?CMP=share_btn_tw#comment-52476711

 

[Cpt. Rishwat]

The sad thing is that Qatar is the richest nation on earth (GDP per capita) so there is no need to treat the world cup workers like this. They just need to spend a little more and provide them with a safer working environment.

According to the group Play Fair Qatar, “more than 62 workers will die for each game played during the 2022 tournament.”

http://www.theguardian.com/football...p-2022-fifa?CMP=share_btn_tw#comment-52476711

That is just it though, they don't need to. Third world govts don't seem to have any power or inclination to protect their citizens who work in the UAE, and it's not really a western problem as their citizens are treated very well and paid handsomely.

 

[Gabbar Singh]

For the sake of balance, here is the other side of the story.

Have 1,200 World Cup workers really died in Qatar?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-33019838

 

[Pak_Jazba]

This is just western hypocrisy at its best.

Workers willingly come to Gulf countries knowing the conditions theyll be working in. They come here to earn a living for their families back home. And to put things into context, workers have been dieing over a number of years in the UAE, Saudi and other Gulf countries. Yet, its perfectly alright to go there and earn a tax free living, hold plush houses in places like Jumeirah, Sheikh Zayed Road, Ranches where the construction was done on the shoulders of these very labours.
But when it comes down to an Arab country hosting a Global tournament, thats where it comes to bite them, because they can't actually see Arab countries grab the limelight for the good reasons.

 

[Markhor]

And the blood continues to pour. The 2022 World Cup will have the foul stench of blood and corpses hanging over it.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-38689250

A British man has died while working on a flagship 2022 World Cup stadium in Qatar, the organisers have said. The 40-year old man, who has yet to be named, died on Thursday while working on the Khalifa International Stadium. The organisers, the Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy, said his next of kin had been informed but provided no further details of his death.

Labour said the Qatari authorities and Fifa had been putting "profit before safety", and urged Fifa to investigate. The BBC understands the man was employed by a specialist German contractor.

The Foreign Office said it was in touch with the local authorities and ready to support the man's family "at this very difficult time".
Rights group Amnesty International says it is the second death reported by the organisers related to a workplace incident at a Qatar stadium in the last three months.

Its global issues deputy director James Lynch said it was "very concerning", and organisers must investigate what safety measures were in place.

 

[gani999]

It was a wrong decision to give World Cup to Qatar... They no sporting history when it comes to Football. There are only 2 million people in that country. The games should be held in countries were football is popular and a country which have a proper football team.

Qatar does have a foot ball team, in a manner of speaking. And a very good one at that.

My Lebanese friend tells me that Qatar successfully bribed the entire Lebanese national team to don Qatari colours.