(The Conversation) – When the longtime political chief of Hamas was assassinated in late July 2024, it didn’t just leave the entire Middle East on edge. It also created a political headache in Qatar.

That’s because the death of Ismail Haniyeh, the result of an apparent Israeli operation, struck a blow to Doha’s already sputtering diplomatic efforts in the Middle east.

The Gulf state has long been the staging ground for negotiations involving Israelis and Palestinians, including Haniyeh, who lived in Qatar. But recent criticism from the U.S. and Israel for, in their view, failing to put enough pressure on Hamas had led Qatar’s leaders to question its role.

And then came Haniyeh’s death.

“How can mediation succeed when one party assassinates the negotiator on the other side?” pondered Qatar’s prime minister and top diplomat, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani. Israel is widely believed to be behind the assassination, although no claim of responsibility has been made.

As an expert on Gulf politics, I believe bin Abdulrahman’s question is a valid one. As the first anniversary of the Oct. 7 attack in Israel approaches, Qatari officials face a challenge. Mediation has produced diminishing returns – both for the warring parties and for Qatar itself. But moving away from mediation would represent a seismic shift for Qatar, which has put it at the heart of its foreign policy for decades.

Diplomacy as policy

Qatar is a small state in a volatile neighborhood. Over the past 45 years, the region has experienced multiple interstate wars and periods of revolutionary upheaval. Throughout that time, successive generations of Qatari leaders have looked toward diplomacy and mediation as a way to advance the country’s interests.

Indeed, Qatar’s constitution, in effect since 2004, requires a foreign policy “based on the principle of encouraging peaceful resolution of international disputes.”

Such a formal commitment to dispute resolution marks Qatar as distinct from most of its Gulf peers. But the approach is rooted in a pragmatic calculation of how and where a small country can best exercise leverage in regional and foreign policy.

In this way, Qatari officials have worked as mediators for two decades.

Initially, they found success, helping resolve in 2008 a particularly intractable political crisis in Lebanon, which appeared to be heading to civil war. The breakthrough in Lebanon and a two-year stint on the United Nations Security Council in 2006 and 2007 helped put Qatar on the diplomatic map.

But Qatar’s negotiating efforts haven’t always worked out. Qatari officials failed to facilitate breakthroughs between warring Sudanese factions in Darfur in 2011 and between the Houthis and the central government in Yemen’s decadelong civil war since 2014.

Much of the early mediation efforts were led by the veteran foreign minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim Al Thani, who was also appointed prime minister in 2007.

Bin Jassim engaged in a personalized style of policymaking based on his vast range of international contacts and his ability to lean on Qatari entities, such as the Qatar Investment Authority, in his diplomatic efforts.

Evolving policy

Bin Jassim stepped down as both prime and foreign minister in June 2013 as part of a carefully planned handover of power to the current emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani.

By this time, the Qatari leadership was facing a backlash from neighbors such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates over what they viewed as Qatari support or sympathy for Islamist movements during the multinational series of uprisings known as the Arab Spring.

In 2017, the Saudis and Emiratis, along with Bahrain and Egypt, cut diplomatic ties with Qatar and accused Doha – without evidence – of supporting regional terrorist groups.

But such criticism didn’t deter Qatar from its policy of mediation as diplomacy. Rather, in the decade since the 2013 political transition in Doha, Qatari mediation has evolved and expanded. In 2023, a new position of Minister of State for International Cooperation was created within the Foreign Ministry, giving greater institutional depth and professional capability to policymaking.

Qatar’s mediation efforts have also evolved away from the unilateral actions involving Islamist groups that raised regional concerns during the Arab Spring.

Instead, Qatari officials have acted at the request of other countries to serve as potential mediators.

In this way, the Gulf state worked intensively with the U.S. and representatives from the Taliban in a process that culminated in the 2020 Doha Agreement that set a timeline for U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.

It similarly worked with Israeli officials to facilitate financial and humanitarian support for the Gaza Strip in the five years prior to the Hamas-led attacks of Oct. 7.

Hamas retreats to the tunnels

But since that assault and the Israeli operation in Gaza that followed, Qatari mediation has had only limited success.

It was instrumental in negotiating the temporary cease-fire in November, but fighting quickly resumed and the devastation of Gaza intensified soon after.

Meanwhile, both U.S. and Israeli politicians have attacked Qatar for continuing dialogue with Hamas.

That criticism led the Qatari prime minister to warn in April that Doha may reassess its role in Gaza as a result.

Four months on, the killing of Haniyeh has narrowed still further the pathway for further diplomacy. Haniyeh, like his predecessor as head of the Hamas Political Bureau, Khaled Mashal, had a base in Doha.

The man appointed to succeed Haniyeh in that role, hardliner Yahya Sinwar, is believed to be in a tunnel in Gaza and cannot reasonably hope to be in Doha given the current circumstances.

Following Haniyeh’s death, the White House did reach out to Qatar to thank the nation for its mediating efforts, but it’s increasingly difficult to see how Qatar can broker any breakthrough.

Talks will continue. Israeli and Egyptian officials met in Cairo on Aug. 3, after Haniyeh’s assassination, without Qatari representation. But negotiations broke down after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly imposed new demands.

De-escalating Iran tensions

With the dominant view in Doha that Israeli leadership simply isn’t willing to engage in good-faith talks, still less reach a cease-fire deal, officials in Qatar are likely to focus on mitigating any Iranian response against Israel. This began with an emergency meeting of the Organization of Islamic Conference members, including Iran, in Jeddah in Saudi Arabia on Aug. 7.

With no viable political strategy for a Gaza cease-fire currently in place, de-escalating tensions involving Iran – rather than trying to broker peace between Palestinians and Israelis – will dominate Qatar’s approach in the days and weeks ahead.

Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, Fellow for the Middle East at the Baker Institute, Rice University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Bonus video added by Informed Comment:

What is Qatar’s role in the Middle East? | DW News Video

Analysts rushed to comment that the enlargement is anti-democratic and China-centric; however, a close look at the enlargement shows that the enlargement is not only about China but more of a consensus of the five powers, including, more importantly, India and Russia in addition to China. Of course, China is the most potent power in the bloc and might increase its influence over time. However, the current expansion shows that none of these countries are states that India and Russia reject, as they include Saudi Arabia and the UAE, two powers that have warm relations with India and an increasingly close relationship with Russia. Moreover, Brazil was already willing to accept Argentina as a member of BRICS in case it would help the neighbouring country in its quest for foreign reserves.

Indeed, these analysts ignore the warm relations between India and the two Gulf states, underestimate the tension between China and India, and tend to show the current members of BRICS under great Chinese influence, which is not necessarily true as India and China have significant issues, including but not limited to border crises. Otherwise, China President Xi Jinping’s meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the BRICS Summit in South Africa would not present a significant diplomatic incident.. The tension worsened in 2020 and cost the lives of 20 Indian soldiers.

Is BRICS+ the new G7?

In its current form, BRICS represents around 40.72 percent of the world population; if the new members accept the offer, the representation will rise to 45.95 percent, a significant rate as China and India’s share is around 35.48 percent. Similarly, the current GDP share of the BRICS is around 25.77 percent, while the expansion would bring it to around 28.99 percent, another significant increase as 17.86 percent of the current club’s GDP comes from China alone. On the other hand, the G7 represents around 27 percent of the world’s GDP and around 10 percent of the world’s population.

BRICS has long been considered an alternative initiative to the Western system as it includes Russia and China as leading powers, despite its loose institutionalization. One of the BRICS targets is to de-dollarise trade and bypass US sanctions on global trade. Indeed, BRICS created a development bank to encourage trade in local currencies and support developmental projects, an alternative to the Western-centric IMF and World Bank.

While BRICS, in its current form, does not challenge UN-based institutions, it can be considered an alternative to the G20 or G7, if not a rival. The G20, too, is not a very effective platform but a place where world leaders discuss significant issues and attempt to form a global agenda. Indeed, G20 meetings have recently been defined as “empty talks” by analysts.

China and the Gulf

While none of the new members states that China would reject their membership, showing their membership as pure Chinese influence is inherently wrong as they include two members of the GCC with India who already share close ties. The close ties between India and the GCC can be seen from the G20, too, as India invited the UAE and Oman as this year’s G20 guests, in addition to Saudi Arabia, a permanent member of the G20.

While India is particularly close to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates because of the number of expatriates in the Gulf, China is interested in these states for more strategic reasons. China made headlines in May when it brokered a normalisation agreement between Saudi Arabia and Iran. However, inviting Iran and its regional rivals Saudi Arabia and the UAE together to the bloc is interesting as the bloc does not want to include only the “isolated” countries from the Western system, preventing it from being a platform of excluded powers.

Even though the existence of Russia and China and their influence in the bloc signal anti-Americanism, BRICS, even in its 11-member form, is not inherently anti-American. Indeed, Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, stated, “We do not want to be a counterpoint to the G7, G20, or the United States.” This is an important message for Saudi Arabia and the UAE, as they do not want to exclude themselves from the American security umbrella but also want to diversify their security and strategic importance to gain leverage against the US. Thus, by joining this kind of organisation, they hit two birds with one stone.

Not long ago, in 2022, Saudi Arabia and the UAE were granted dialogue partners in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, an even bigger anti-Western organisation than the BRICS. Iran was granted full membership in the Shanghai Cooperation Council in 2023. Therefore, despite Iran and its Gulf rival Saudi Arabia and the UAE not sharing warm relations and having situated themselves on different poles, if Saudi Arabia and the UAE’s role is upgraded to full membership in the Shanghai Cooperation Council and Saudi Arabia accepts BRICS offers, these two non-Western organisations would be platforms where they can have dialogue and use it as leverage with the West. As these two clubs will be new platforms where non-Western states have leadership, they can offer more equal negotiations between Iran and its Gulf neighbours, as none would have better privileges over others.

Of course, considering the new members, including the closest US MENA partners such as Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Egypt, one wonders if they are really asking for an alternative to US hegemony. In its 11-state form, the new bloc can benefit the organisation and the new members, including those directly linked to the US security umbrella. While Russia and China attempt to counterbalance the US-based Western system, most of the new members, most importantly in our case, the UAE and Saudi Arabia, attempt to diversify their geopolitical engagements with the rest of the world while still giving greater attention to the US and the West. The greater attention paid to the US and the West can be seen from their reactions to the offer, particularly Saudi Arabia’s. While UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed published a statement showing his appreciation of the offer, Saudi Arabia is yet to accept the offer and stated it will study the deal and give an appropriate decision,” a message to its Western allies that their priorities are still the West and also could be a bit disappointed by the offer to Iran too.

In short, considering the share of China and India’s oil and gas exports from Saudi Arabia and the UAE, along with India’s warm relations with these states, the invitation of these two states can be considered Indian-influenced as much as Chinese. Moreover, considering South Africa’s relations with Ethiopia and Brazil’s relations with Argentina, one can say BRICS’s enlargement is not solely Chinese dictation but more of a common ground for all members.

At the end of November 2022, UK prime minister Rishi Sunak announced that the “golden era” between Great Britain and China was over. China may not have been too bothered by this news however, and has been busy making influential friends elsewhere.

In early December, Chinese president Xi Jinping met with the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) – a group made up of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates – to discuss trade and investment. Also on the agenda were talks on forging closer political ties and a deeper security relationship.

This summit in Saudi Arabia was the latest step in what our research shows is an increasingly close relationship between China and the Gulf states. Economic ties have been growing consistently for several decades (largely at the expense of trade with the US and the EU) and are specifically suited to their respective needs.

Simply put, China needs oil, while the Gulf needs to import manufactured goods including household items, textiles, electrical products and cars.

China’s pronounced growth in recent decades has been especially significant for the oil rich Gulf state economies. Between 1980 and 2019, their exports to China grew at an annual rate of 17.1%. In 2021, 40% of China’s crude oil imports came from the Gulf – more than any other country or regional group, with 17% from Saudi Arabia alone.

And the oil will likely continue to flow in China’s direction. In 2009, it was predicted that China would require 14 million barrels of oil per day by 2025. In fact, China reached that figure in 2019 and is expected to need at least 17 million barrels per day by 2040. At the same time, the US became a net oil exporter in 2019 and thus achieved a longstanding foreign policy goal: to overcome its dependence on Middle Eastern fossil fuels.

China has benefited from increasing demand for its manufactured products, with exports to the Gulf growing at an annual rate of 11.7% over the last decade. It overtook the US in 2008 and then the EU in 2020 to become the Gulf’s most important source of imports.

These are good customers for China to have. The Gulf economies are expected to grow by around 5.9% in 2022 (compared with a lacklustre 2.5% predicted growth in the US and EU) and offer attractive opportunities for China’s export-orientated economy. It is likely that the fast-tracking of a free trade agreement was high on the summit’s agenda in early December.

Strong ties

The Gulf’s increased reliance on trade with China has been accompanied by a reduction in its appetite to follow the west’s political and cultural lead.

As a group, it was supportive of the west’s military action in Iraq for example, and the broader fight against Islamic State. But more recently, the Gulf notably refused to support the west in condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It also threatened Netflix with legal action for “promoting homosexuality”, while Qatar has been actively banning rainbow flags supporting sexual diversity at the Fifa men’s World Cup.

So Xi’s visit to Saudi Arabia was well timed to illustrate a strengthening of this important partnership. And to the extent that anything can be forecast, a deepening of the Gulf-China trade relationship seems likely. On the political front, however, developments are less easy to predict.

China is seeking to safeguard its interests in the Middle East in light of the Belt and Road initiative, its ambitious transcontinental infrastructure and investment project.

But how much further might the Gulf states be prepared to sacrifice their longstanding security pacts with western powers (forged in the aftermath of the second world war) in order to seek new ones with the likes of Beijing? Currently, America has military bases (or stations) in all six Gulf countries, but it is well documented that the GCC is seeking ways to diversify its self-perceived over-reliance on the US as its primary guarantor of security (a sentiment within the bloc that was pronounced while Obama was president, less so with Trump, but on the rise again with Biden).

In the coming period, the GCC will need to decide which socioeconomic path to pursue in the post-oil era where AI-augmented, knowledge-based economies will set the pace. In choosing strategic ties beyond trade alone, the Gulf states must ask whether the creativity and innovative potential of their populations will be best served by allegiances to governments which are authoritarian, or accountable.

Emilie Rutledge, Lecturer in Economics, The Open University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Shortly before Lionel Messi took to the stage to lift up the World Cup trophy, Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani put a black cloak, called a “bisht,” over the Argentinian soccer star’s shoulders.

Images of Messi wrapped in black fabric, which might have been construed as obscuring his national jersey, caused confusion around the world. Many fans questioned why the Argentinian soccer star was shrouded in an Arabian cape, with some suggesting that it “ruined an iconic moment.”

What is the bisht? And what is its significance?

A cloak for the ages

As a scholar of Middle Eastern cultural traditions, I’m aware that the origins of the bisht date back to the fifth century B.C. It was initially used as a traveling coat to protect the skin of nomadic shepherds and Bedouins as they journeyed through different climates.

The word itself derives from Persian and translates literally to “on one’s back.” Also called an “aba” in Arabic, the bisht is traditionally a long, hand-woven cloak made of camel hair and goat fur. Its fibers were specifically crafted for the harsh desert climates – both cold and warm.

The process of spinning and weaving the fabric together – usually black, brown, beige or gray – makes it highly breathable.

Over time, tailors began adding specialized trim to the cloth, such as hand-spun gold or silver. The trim, called “zari,” was crafted by mixing fine metals with silk to give it a lasting sheen. The zari was added to the outer portions to distinguish traveling cloaks from those to be worn by dignitaries or on special occasions.

By the time of the Prophet Muhammad in the sixth century, soldiers and generals who performed well were shrouded with a bisht after battle in the conquests of the Persian and later Arab empires. The more transparent the fabric and more ornate the trim, the higher the honor. In countries such as the United Arab Emirates and Qatar that were formed in the early 1900s, royalty and politicians, referred to as Al Malaki, frequently wore the more ornamented bisht.

Culture and the meaning of style

Today, there are many kinds and levels of the bisht, ranging in price from a few hundred to a few hundred thousand U.S. dollars. While the invention of the sewing machine facilitated the mass production of these cloaks, royalty, dignitaries and sheikhs wear only handmade, woven and trimmed bisht.

Like fashion and outerwear around the world, Middle Eastern clothing such as the bisht or the traditional white robes worn by many Arabs in the Persian Gulf, called “dish dasha,” are a status symbol.

For Qataris, shrouding Messi, the star of the FIFA World Cup, with their most honorific clothing was an opportunity to share their culture – and the geopolitical importance of the World Cup games – with the world.

Pardis Mahdavi, Provost and Executive Vice President, The University of Montana

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

To illustrate this, in the 1990s, a friend told me that a Western doctor who he accompanied in a day visit to the West Bank told him the Muslim women they met didn’t look Muslims because they were educated and beautiful. Another Western man told me that his favorite Palestinian city was Nablus but he did not want to go there because its population are almost entirely Muslims and prefers to visit Bethlehem and Ramallah as they have more Christians. Based on that I advised a Western tourist to visit Ramallah while she was in Jerusalem. She told me the church she was visiting advised her to avoid Arabs and Muslims and that going to the West Bank was dangerous.

It is, therefore, not surprising that there is a campaign to discourage football fans from traveling to an Arab country. Admittedly, some critics of the Qatar World Cup there are sincere people with genuine human rights concerns. Let us, however, examine the issues raised by the press. White nationalist Rupert Murdoch’s right-wing British newspaper, The Sun published an article entitled “…Only six percent of Brits believe Qatar should host 2022 World Cup. It highlighted issues like the high price of alcohol and accommodations. The newspaper suggested moving the tournament to England. Note that there have been forms of alcohol ban in Italy and France at World Cup tournaments.

The Times cited such issues as LGBTQ rights and the deaths of migrant workers who helped building the tournament venues. Yet the World Cup in Russia was not criticized despite the harsh treatment of LGBTQ persons there, and many World Cups were held in Western countries at a time when LGBTQ rights did not exist there. Migrant workers in Qatar have a lower fatality rate than they do in their home countries, though admittedly this statistic does not include infant mortality at home. It seems likely that the workers’ fatality rate as guest workers is similar to that in their countries of origin. Official Qatari numbers show that 37 workers died building the stadium, but with millions of guest workers in Qatar, this is not out of line with the expected death rate. The Guardian printed an op-ed on the subject with a highly misleading headline that implied that there had been 6500 such deaths, which the article beneath the headline did not allege. The false number has nevertheless gone viral. All this is not to say that there is no room for improvement in the treatment of migrant workers in Qatar. Bandying about phony numbers, however, is irresponsible.

Migrant workers in Qatar typically earn ten times there what they did in their home countries. The World Bank argues that more labor migration to rich countries could transfer $1.7 trillion to the developing world. World Bank economists have also estimated that migrant workers from low-income countries who work in a Gulf oil and gas state for three years and live frugally during that time can accumulate enough wealth permanently to move up half a class back home. That is, members of the working class can become lower middle class, and those from the lower middle class can become middle class. Returning workers often open a business.

Professional journalism implies representing both sides of the story. An AlJazeera program in Arabic devoted one episode to dealing with this issue. Former professor and Oxford lecturer, Farhang Jahanpour told the program that the reasons behind the call for the boycott are economic and political as some Western media outlets will lose money due to broadcasting rights. The program highlighted that Rupert Murdoch who owns The Sun and FOX News complained to FIFA that the timing of the event will cost him money. The program also revealed that The Daily Telegraph, which is partially owned by Qatar’s rival Saudi Arabia, promoted relocating the world cup elsewhere by falsely trying to link Qatar to extremism.

Furthermore, the general secretary of the International Trade Union, Sharan Burrow told the program that the Guardian figure was a mistake as this included all deaths of all causes since the start of construction not only deaths related to construction work. On the same topic, FIFA Ethics and Regulations Watch campaign director in London Alistair Thompson said that the Western media did not pay much attention to an Amnesty International report which highlighted improvements in work regulations and rights in Qatar.

Marc Owen Jones, an associate Professor in Middle East Studies at HBKU pointed out that Western media tends to report negatively on smaller, less powerful and less visible countries when they host major sports events. Moreover, when it comes to Arab and Muslim countries, Western media tend to represent them negatively. In comparison with the last world cup in Russia, the British press was more lenient with Russia and separated its coverage of the World Cup from Russia’s brutality.

In France, another country with a colonial history in the Middle East, some cities decided to show black screens in public places instead of World Cup games. Unlike the British press, however, the French press didn’t attempt to hide its Islamophobia. One French Newspaper depicted Qatar football team as terrorists. Speaking to Aljazeera program, founder and director of the French Institute for International and Strategic Affairs, Pascal Bonifac was more straightforward and said some hate the idea that a Muslim country is hosting the world cup. A Brazilian former sports minister also highlighted that the Western press don’t like it when major events are held in the southern hemisphere and they gave Brazil and South Africa some hassle when they hosted the World Cup.

The hypocrisy is clear when we consider that few in Europe were concerned about human rights when the 2019 Eurovision Song Contest was held in Israel, which is militarily occupying 5 million Palestinians deprived of basic rights, or seemed to care Europe immigration policy causes the deaths of thousands of immigrants in the Mediterranean annually. Some critics –a minority– are genuinely concerned about human rights but it is obvious that the main reason behind calling to boycott this World Cup is because it is held in an Arab Muslim country. The Western media which have long demonized Arabs and Muslims hate to allow the world to see anything positive happening there. For a lot of people outside the Western world, this is a case of West is best that re-enforced the racist idea of clash of civilizations and the illusion of Western supremacy.

Nobody, however, said it better than the European FIFA president Gianni Infantino: “We are told to make many lessons from some Europeans, from the Western world. I’m European. I think for what we Europeans have been doing for 3,000 years around the world, we should be apologising for the next 3,000 years before starting to give moral lessons to people.

“How many of these European companies who earn millions and millions from Qatar or other countries in the region — billions every year — how many of them have addressed migrant-worker rights? I have the answer: none of them because if they change the legislation it means less profits.”

The Biden administration on Monday signaled its awareness of the need for natural gas allies who can offset Russia, just as Washington has used Saudi Arabia’s petroleum to offset Iran’s. The other natural gas giant aside from Russia and the U.S. itself is the small Gulf state of Qatar, ruled by Emir Tamim Al Thani. Sheikh Tamim was a guest at the White House on Monday, where President Biden praised the country as a strong American ally. Clearly, the Biden White House hopes that Qatar’s plans substantially to expand its gas production will over time offer Europe an alternative to Russia.

As I have pointed out before, because of its long term contracts with customers like China, Qatar is unlikely to be able to offer Europe an alternative to Russian gas this year. But its Liquefied Natural Gas will increasingly be available in European markets the in the coming years.

The US relationship with Qatar is more complex than just natural gas. Qatar played an essential role in helping the US evacuate over 100,000 people from Afghanistan late last summer after the Taliban took over. It offers the U.S. the rights to al-Udeid Air Force Base, which is all the more important now that the US has lost Bagram base in Afghanistan. Many of the sorties against ISIL, the terrorist organization in Iraq and Iran were flown from Qatar.

In addition, Qatar Airlines just announced that it is buying $34 billion worth of Boeing passenger jets (the 737 Max) and freight jets (the 777x). As President Biden pointed out, this purchase translates into thousands of jobs for American workers.

President Biden on Monday designated Qatar a “Major non-NATO Ally.” It joins Egypt, Israel, Pakistan, Jordan, Morocco and other countries, along with the other Gulf states of Kuwait and Bahrain in that status. “Ally” is perhaps an exaggeration, since the designation does not imply a mutual defense pact. Its major advantage to the other country is that such allies have special access to high tech US weaponry.

Qatar has correct relations with Iran, and it appears that it is also offering to help mediate a return of the US to the 2015 nuclear deal, from which Trump withdrew.

In short, Qatar is turning into a Swiss army knife for the Biden administration, with a series of useful features regarding US foreign policy.

This cementing of the US relationship with Qatar comes after a rocky period during the Trump administration. In spring of 2017 the gullible and ignorant Trump fell easy victim to the propaganda of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. He tweeted out a vicious attack on Qatar, blaming it for all the problems in the Middle East and especially for “terrorism.” As noted, Qatar hosts some 12,000 U.S. troops at al-Udeid base and has been a key ally in the war on terrorism, so this allegation did not even make any sense. In June, 2017, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt placed Qatar under a trade embargo and tried to overthrow its government, but failed.

With a knowledgeable and experienced foreign policy hand like Biden at the till, the U.S. has made a 180 degree turn toward.reinforcing its ties with Qatar. In part, it is a fall-out from the Ukraine crisis. But Biden’s team is also skittish about the traditional over-dependence on Saudi Arabia, given that it has been behaving erratically. Biden campaigned on cooler relations with the Saudis, and they are cooler, though the US is still selling Riyadh defensive missile to missile systems. As for the UAE, it was a cheerleader for Trump and its ruler, Mohammed Bin Zayid, slipped into the US secretly after the 2016 election to meet with the Trump team at Trump Tower, not bothering to tell President Obama or then Vice President Biden about it. That looks pretty shady, and the Obama team found out about it anyway from signals intelligence. The UAE is pointedly not a major non-NATO ally. Besides, all it has to offer is petroleum, which as people go to electric cars will plummet in value.

The initiation of Rightly can be justified by looking to recent Qatar-US relations. Qatar was isolated during the four-year presidency of Republican Trump both by its neighbors and by the US Presidency. Trump, who had problems with liberal media, was not a fan of Al Jazeera either. Because Qatar’s rivals (Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates) think-tanks, lobbies, and media were closer to the right than left, they had more space and voice in the Trump administration. Qatar’s move in this sense seems more strategic as it does not want to be left out one more time when Republicans come to power.

Al Jazeera as a soft power

Even though the platform’s halt is not expected, one should remember that this move is not Al Jazeera’s first of its kind in the US. The Doha-based media network launched the Al Jazeera American in 2013 and closed it down in 2016 after spending around 2 billion dollars. Al Jazeera is one of the successful examples of ‘soft power.’ Qatar is a small but rich country thanks to its enormous gas reserves. The gas revenues transformed the tiny monarch into one of the most influential powers in the region. Internal and external investments accumulated the influence. Internally, Qatar invested in arts, sports, and public diplomacy, transforming the country into one of the regional hubs. Externally, Qatar invests in many countries’ real estate, finance, sports, and other sectors with the hand of its state investment funds. With these internal and external investments, Qatar not only became visible and known to the international audience but gained influence in the world.

Other than these investments, Qatar’s successful tool was its soft power strategy. Al Jazeera can be considered one of the most known and successful examples of its kind, not only for Qatar but for almost all ‘Global South.’ As a matter of fact, Al Jazeera has been considered as the voice of the Global South. The channel mostly undertakes a ‘liberal’ stand which is considered left in the US. Al Jazeera’s broadcasts of the Palestinian intifada, US occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq, and finally the Arab Spring were remarkable to the degree that it raised tension between the parties. George Bush, for example, revealed his wish to bomb Al Jazeera’s center due to its coverage. Al Jazeera’s, once again, proved its effectiveness in Arab Spring protests in which it sided with the protesters over the dictators.

Al Jazeera’s Motivation on ‘Rightly’

Al Jazeera’s motivation to create a right-wing channel is twofold: American domestic politics and the other is Qatar’s motivation to increase its influence and bargaining power. The 2020 US election was one of the most unconventional elections in recent years. The sitting president rejected the outcome and suggested that the votes were stolen. What was more interesting was Twitter’s ban on Trump. Twitter had been the sole medium for Trump’s communication during his 4-year presidency. Thus, such a move caused Trump’s silence.

‘Silence’ was a frequently used term for Trump, suggesting that he was the voice of the silenced crowd, the voice of the voiceless. The fact that even the right-wing media platforms internal division increased the silent state of the right-wing. Fox News, for example, did not cover Trump as he wished so. At the same time, the left-wing media was flourishing both in traditional and social media. In this sense, Al Jazeera’s new move can be considered a pragmatic move aiming to fill the lacune. If Rightly succussed to the same degree of Al Jazeera Arabic or Al Jazeera English, then Doha will significantly influence the American right-wing audience.

The second motivation was the Al Jazeera Network’s ineffectiveness in 3.5 yearlong blockades to Qatar by its neighbors, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain. As the right-wing President Trump exclusively and openly prioritized the material gains over everything, liberal platforms such as Al Jazeera English found it very difficult to influence Trump as Trump’s material gain was more in siding with the Saudi Arabi bloc. By creating the Rightly, Qatar aims to invest in influencing the right-wing politicians, including future Republican Presidents, to avoid the repeat of the same isolation. If Rightly achieve to gain the American right-wing audience, Qatar would be able to diversify its influence and secure its interests whomever it is power.

The question, however, is not limited to whether the Rightly will be visible but is the possible harm that it will create for the existing brands. As Al Jazeera has been the voice of Palestinians, Afghans, and Iraqis who suffer most from the Republican President’s decisions, will it be able to prevent its prestigious status for long?

Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt announced their boycott on the small peninsula on June 5, 2017.

Secretary of state Mike Pompeo has pushed for an end to the isolation of Qatar because it has destroyed the Gulf Cooperation Council, an alliance of six Sunni Gulf oil monarchies formed in 1982 to block Iran. The Trump administration has attempted to craft an alliance of Israel and the GCC states against Iran.

With the diplomatic efforts of Jared Kushner, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain normalized relations with Israel last summer. This step has made it easier for Israeli submarines to ply the oil Gulf, and opened the way for closer Israeli technological and presumably signals-intelligence cooperation with Dubai, one of the United Arab Emirates — all with an eye to deterring Iran.

h/t Wikimedia.

Qatar has been paying Iran $122 million a year for use of its air space, since Qatar Airways could not fly north over Bahrain or west over Saudi Arabia. Having to fly east before turning for Europe has also hurt Qatar Airways profits. Qatar also imported food from Iran during the first year of the blockade. The dependence of Doha on Iran meant that the Gulf Cooperation Council could not take a united hard line against the ayatollahs in Iran.

Likewise, even if it wanted to, Qatar was not in a position to normalize relations with Israel (though it has correct relations with that country anyway).

Although Jared Kushner is claiming credit for the breakthrough, behind the scenes the Saudis are saying that they took the step because they did not want the Qatar situation to be ongoing as the Biden administration took power. Barak Ravid reports at Axios that the Saudis wanted to “clean the table” in advance of Biden’s inauguration.

Biden and his prospective team have been deeply critical of Saudi Arabia over the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018, over the kingdom’s horrible human rights record domestically, and over the war that Riyadh is pursuing against Yemen, which has produced the worst humanitarian crisis in the world.

King Salman seems intent on mollifying the Biden team, and ending the boycott of Qatar is a relatively painless step. Now, when Biden officials meet with the Qatari ambassador, they won’t hear a litany of complaints against the Saudis. It is a relatively small thing, but Saudi Arabia is in big trouble with Washington and the king may think any little bit will help.

King Salman personally sent a letter of invitation to Sheikh Tamim of Qatar to attend Tuesday’s summit of the Gulf Cooperation Council. It will be the first time in 3 years that the emir has attended.

This thaw may also suggest a diminution of the power of crown prince Mohammed Bin Salman, who helped engineer the blockade in the first place. Likewise, it suggests that Saudi Arabia is now overruling the United Arab Emirates, where crown prince and de facto ruler Mohammed Bin Zayed had been even more committed to isolating Qatar than Bin Salman.

The attack on Qatar was the last battle of the Arab Spring. In 2011-13, the youth revolts in the Arab world were supported by Qatar, and as the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood rose to prominence (taking the presidency in Egypt in 2012), Qatar, long a backer of the Brotherhood, provided them aid.

Saudi Arabia and especially Bin Zayed deeply oppose the Muslim Brotherhood, seeing the fundamentalist, populist party as inherently revolutionary and republican with a small ‘r,’ i.e., they are like the Baptists in the southern colonies who joined George Washington to fight the British crown. Riyadh and Abu Dhabi have given billions to the military junta of Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in Egypt to root out the Brotherhood, after al-Sisi overthrew its elected government in 2013. The UAE has also backed military strong man Khalifa Hiftar in Libya against the more fundamentalist government in Tripoli.

Since Turkey’s president Tayyip Erdogan is also a backer of the Muslim Brotherhood, there has been a cold war for the past nearly a decade between the UAE-Saudi Arabia axis, which supports enlightened secular dictatorship as the model for the region, and the Turkey-Qatar entente, which supports a democratic sort of government in which Muslim fundamentalists can compete for power, just as the Christian Democrats compete for seats in the German parliament. The Middle East is basically Frederick the Great versus the Berlin Republic.

Since the Iranian government is basically the Shiite version of the Muslim Brotherhood, the UAE and Saudi Arabia want to isolate and roll it back, too. It isn’t part of the Turkey-Qatar entente, but they are considered “soft” on Iran by Riyadh and Abu Dhabi.

One of the Quartet’s demands was the shuttering of the Al Jazeera satellite news channel, which is funded by the Qatari government but has substantial editorial independence. Al Jazeera is pro-democracy and is willing to interview Muslim Brotherhood figures and not simply demonize them. This editorial line, of presenting “all sides of a story,” drives the UAE and Saudi Arabia crazy.

One of the sad things that has happened to Arab culture in the past decade is that the Saudis and the UAE have bought up many the newspapers/ news sites in the region, and the junta in Egypt has ramped up censorship, so that independent news reporting is very rare. Al Jazeera is thus one of the last independent voices, and the 2017 boycott was intended in part to close it down so as to give the Saudis and UAE full spectrum dominance in the region’s media.

The agreement to end the blockade on Qatar will not heal the rift entirely. The Gulf Cooperation Council was in part a security pact. How can the Qataris ever trust the Saudis and the UAE to have their backs? Some proposed a unified electrical grid throughout the Arab littoral of the Gulf. But any such system would open Qatar to being left in the dark if the campaign was renewed. That is, cooperation and vulnerability go together, and Qatar can’t cooperate too closely with people that tried once to destroy it lest it become highly vulnerable.

I also don’t expect Qatar’s correct relations with Iran to change, whatever hopes Mr. Kushner may have in that regard.

The boycott was imposed in June, 2017, with the active encouragement of Donald Trump. Only in the fall of 2017 did Trump back off and begin making up with Qatar. The blockading Quartet countries nevertheless kept the pressure on, preventing Qatar from importing food through Saudi Arabia or from using their air space. They also plotted to destabilize the Qatari currency and trumped up charges against the country of backing terrorism (which is ridiculous).

Back in 2017, the blockading Quartet may have plotted the overthrow and death of the reigning Emir, Sheikh Tamim b. Hamad Al Thani. Ironically, Kushner may have been in on the plot. The Turkish parliament halted any such plans by voting to send hundreds of Troops to Qatar as a signal that the powerful Turkish military would not put up with such a regime change.

Likewise, the US secretary of defense, James Mattis, and the secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, worked behind the scenes to protect Qatar. The small state hosts the al-Udeid US Air Force Base, with some 12,000 military personnel, from which US sorties are flown against ISIL in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan. Qatar is also a major natural gas exporter, in which ExxonMobil, of which Tillerson was the CEO before joining the Trump administration, was well aware and he hoped for an increased share for his old company of this valuable resource.

It should be remembered that Kushner has only partially helped fix what he and Trump broke.

Qatar survived, and has now had a victory of sorts. The major credit likely goes to the incoming Biden administration. We’re seeing signs that Biden’s determination to fix some of the dysfunctions of US Middle East policy is already having an effect, two weeks before he even takes office.

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Bonus video:

Al Jazeera English: “Saudi Arabia, Qatar ‘agree to open airspace, land and sea border’”

Enforcement Needed, Other Provisions in Effect Still Carry Risk of Abuse

( Human Rights Watch ) – (Beirut) – The success of the significant labor reform measures that Qatar introduced on September 8, 2020, will depend on how well the government enforces and monitors them, Human Rights Watch said today. The reforms will allow migrant workers to change jobs without employer permission and set a higher minimum wage for all workers, regardless of nationality.

Qatar is the first country in the Arab Gulf region to allow all migrant workers to change jobs before the end of their contracts without first obtaining their employer’s consent, one of the key aspects of the kafala (sponsorship) system that can give rise to forced labor. Qatar is the second country in the Gulf region to set a minimum wage for migrant workers, after Kuwait. The changes also apply to migrant workers who are excluded from labor law protections, such as domestic workers. However, other legal provisions that facilitate abuse and exploitation of migrant workers remain.

“Qatar’s new labor reforms are some of the most significant to date and could, if carried out effectively, considerably improve migrant workers’ living and work conditions,” said Michael Page, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “While these changes bring Qatar a concrete step closer to meeting its reform promises, the test will be in how effectively the government carries them out and consistently applies them.”

Over the past 10 years, Human Rights Watch, other human rights and migrant rights organizations, United Nations experts, trade unions, and media organizations have documented how the kafala system across the region underpins migrant workers’ vulnerability to a wide range of abuses, from passport confiscation to delayed wages and forced labor. These groups have revealed how key elements of the system allow migrant workers to remain trapped in employment situations where their rights to fair wages, overtime pay, adequate housing, freedom of movement, and access to justice are at risk. One such element is employer control over a migrant worker’s ability to change or leave their jobs.

Amendments to Qatar’s 2015 law on the entry, exit, and residence of expatriates, which applies to all migrant workers, regardless of their inclusion in the labor law, removed language that had previously required them to first obtain permission, in the form of a “No Objection Certificate” (NOC), from their employer in order to change jobs. This means that migrant workers can now change jobs without employer permission at any time during their employment, including during the probation period, as long as they notify their employers in accordance with Labor Ministry procedures within a prescribed notice period.

The amendments require that if the employee changes jobs within the probation period, which cannot exceed six months, the new employer is required to reimburse the previous employer’s recruitment costs, but only up to two months of the workers’ basic wage.

Qatar also amended certain provisions of the labor law to allow migrant workers to terminate their employment contracts at will, both during the probation period and after, as long as they notify their employers in writing within a prescribed notice period. If either the employer or worker terminates the contract without abiding by the notice period, they would be required to pay compensation to the other party equivalent to the worker’s basic wage for the notice period or the remaining part of the notice period.

Some migrant workers, including domestic workers, are not governed by the labor law, but new Labor Ministry instructions make clear that new rules for terminating employment contracts and changing jobs are consistent for all workers.

Qatar introduced some earlier changes as well. In January, it extended the right to leave the country without employer permission to migrant workers not covered by the labor law. The government had previously provided this right to most migrant workers in 2018, but not to those in government, oil and gas, agriculture, or domestic workers. However, employers can still apply for exceptions for a few workers, and domestic workers are required to inform employers that they wish to leave at least 72 hours in advance.

“Qatar has removed another key element of employer control, this time over workers’ ability to leave or change jobs, but authorities should now look to remove all remaining elements that tie migrant workers’ legal status to their employer,” Page said.

Migrant workers – and their dependents – still must rely on their employers to facilitate entry, residence, and employment in the country, meaning employers are responsible for applying for, renewing, and canceling their residency and work permits. Workers can find themselves undocumented through no fault of their own when employers fail to carry out such processes, and it is they, not their employers, who suffer the consequences.

Qatar continues to impose harsh penalties for “absconding” – when a migrant worker leaves their employer without permission or remains in the country beyond the grace period allowed after their residence permit expires or is revoked. The penalties include fines, detention, deportation, and a ban on re-entry.

Moreover, these remaining provisions can continue to drive abuse, exploitation, and forced labor practices, particularly as workers, especially laborers and domestic workers, often depend on the employer not just for their jobs but for housing and food. In addition, passport confiscations, high recruitment fees, and deceptive recruitment practices are ongoing and largely go unpunished, and workers are banned from joining trade unions or striking.

In 2017, Qatar entered a three-year technical cooperation program with the International Labour Organization (ILO), aimed at extensively reforming migrant workers’ conditions, including by reforming the kafala system. Qatar committed to implementing a contractual system to replace the kafala system, including to undertake the renewal of residence permits directly with migrant workers instead of through employers.

Qatar should allow migrant workers to renew their residence permits directly with the government, decriminalize the act of “absconding,” and amend the labor law to guarantee migrant workers’ right to strike and to form trade unions. In the meantime, and to ensure effective implementation of the introduced reforms, Qatar should introduce an amnesty that enables undocumented workers to regularize their status and relaxes their financial and legal obligations, Human Rights Watch said.

Qatar also passed legislation establishing a basic minimum wage of 1,000 QAR (US$274) that would apply to all workers, regardless of nationality or sector, replacing the temporary basic minimum wage of 750 QAR ($205). Under the new legislation, if the employer does not provide food and accommodation, they are required to provide allowances of 300 QAR ($82) for the former and 500 QAR ($137) for the latter, totaling a minimum of 1,800 QAR ($494).

The wage law, which will enter into force six months after its publication in the official gazette on September 8, also establishes a national minimum wage commission appointed by the Labor Ministry to review the amount at least once a year, taking into account economic factors, including economic growth, competitiveness, and productivity, as well as the needs of the workers and their families. The ministry is not obligated to appoint worker representatives to the commission, however.

Migrant-Rights.org has remarked that the accommodation and food allowances are too low. Qatar should ensure that its periodic review of the minimum wage involves genuine worker representation to ensure that it is a “living wage” in which workers and their families can enjoy the right to a decent standard of living, Human Rights Watch said.

Qatar also introduced amendments to the labor law that set stricter penalties for employers who fail to pay their workers’ wages and increase the number of labor dispute resolution committees, designed to give workers an easier and quicker way to pursue grievances against their employers. While these steps are important, they do not go far enough to tackle wage abuse. A recent Human Rights Watch report on wage abuse found that employers across Qatar frequently violate workers’ right to wages and that efforts to improve the situation have largely failed.

“Setting a nondiscriminatory basic minimum wage will mean little for migrant workers as long as employers can withhold, delay, and deduct from their wages without consequence,” Page said. “The only way to successfully tackle wage abuse is by creating effective wage protection systems and consistently penalizing those who fail to comply.”

The New Provisions

On August 30, Qatar amended some provisions of its 2015 law on the entry, exit, and residence of expatriates to allow all migrant workers to change jobs in accordance with Labor Ministry procedures, removing language that had previously required migrant workers to first obtain permission in the form of a “No Objection Certificate” (NOC) from their employer. Qatar also amended certain provisions of the labor law, setting out how migrant workers governed by the labor law can leave their jobs or change employers. These reforms came into effect immediately after the laws were published in the official gazette on September 8.

The amendments also removed the need for Labor and Interior Ministry approval for job change applications, which lacked a transparent process based on clear criteria. The Labor Ministry instructions on changing jobs state that workers can now independently process their job transfer and not incur any related fees. According to the instructions, the worker is required to notify their employer of their desire to change jobs and submit required documents through the Labor Ministry’s electronic notification system. Yet changing jobs is still a government-regulated process.

The amendments provide that the new employer is required to reimburse the previous employer’s recruitment costs, up to two months of the worker’s basic wage, only when the worker changes jobs during their probation period. Houtan Homayanpour, head of the ILO Project Office for Qatar, told Migrant-Rights.org that reimbursement for job change during the probation period is a matter of concern between the two employers, not the worker. He noted that the worker is not required to provide proof of such payment, and that disputes arising from that process will not interfere with the employee’s ability to change jobs.

A ministerial decree issued on September 21 further amended the 2015 law on the entry, exit, and residence of expatriates to allow migrant workers 90 days from the time of expiry of their residence permits to change jobs without employer permission “unless the permit has expired for reasons beyond the control of the expatriate”.

The labor law amendments provide that migrant workers covered by the law can now terminate their employment contracts at will, both during the probation period and after, as long as they notify their employers in writing within a prescribed notice period. The changes stipulate that a migrant worker must submit a one-month written notice if changing jobs within two years or a two-month notice if they have worked for their employer longer.

If either the employer or worker terminates the contract without abiding by the notice period, they would be required to pay compensation to the other party equivalent to the worker’s basic wage for the notice period or the remaining part of the notice period.

If the migrant worker leaves the country without giving notice or paying the compensation required in case they failed to provide notice, Qatari authorities can ban the worker from acquiring a work permit for one year from the date of their departure.

Qatar’s Labor Ministry instructions on changing jobs have attempted to include a safeguard – they state that if the employer fails to fulfill their legal obligations toward the worker, the worker is not obliged to observe the notice period to change jobs. This reflects part of a legal provision in the labor law that remains in cases in which a worker on a full-time job can quit if their employer breaks their obligations under the employment contract, endangers the worker’s health, assaults the worker, or misrepresents contract terms. Previously, this was the only way in which workers on fixed-term contracts could quit their jobs. The new amendments now allow workers to leave their employer or change jobs without needing to show a breach of obligations.

This provision is still helpful for workers who face abuse, as it entitles them to terminate without notice and presumably, the worker would not need to pay compensation to their employer.

Likewise, under the 2017 domestic workers law, domestic workers could previously terminate their contracts only if they could prove that their employer broke contractual obligations, physically harmed them, endangered their health, or misrepresented the contract terms, but under the new Labor Ministry instructions, domestic workers can also terminate their contract with or without notice, and in cases in which they face a breach of contract, they can still terminate contracts at any time, without notice, and maintain their right to end-of-service benefits. The instructions also state that an updated standard employment contract for domestic workers reflecting these rules is forthcoming.

Remaining Factors that Facilitate Labor Abuses

Human Rights Watch research has shown that abuses against migrant worker rights in Qatar are serious and systemic and that the violations often stem from its labor governance system, the criminalization of “absconding” – the routine confiscation of worker passports by employers, and the payment of recruitment fees by workers, which can keep them indebted for years. In conjunction with the prohibition on worker strikes, and the ineffective implementation and enforcement of laws designed to protect migrant workers’ rights, these factors have contributed to abuse, exploitation, and even forced labor.

Human Rights Watch spoke to over 80 migrant workers between January 2019 and February 2020 regarding their experiences working in Qatar. They were employed by diverse employers in various fields and include workers in professional occupations, as well as workers in low-paid jobs such as construction and domestic work.

An overwhelming majority said they experienced one or more of a wide range of labor abuses. Migrant workers cited several barriers to seeking redress or better working conditions, including the now-lifted need for employer approval to change jobs. They also cited the excessive control individual employers have over migrant workers’ legal status in the country, which allows employers to threaten and extort migrant workers to keep them working in abusive conditions and which deters workers from standing up to abusive employers for fear of retaliation.

“He bought my ticket home, but he didn’t pay my salary from January 2019 to October 2019,” a worker said of an abusive employer. “I couldn’t go to labor court because my ID was expired and I was scared I would be put in jail. My employer told me the moment I step outside I will be jailed.”

Migrant Workers’ Lack of Control Over Their Legal Status

Most workers interviewed expressed a fear of falling into irregular migration status, which could lead to arrest, detention, and deportation.

Employers are responsible for obtaining, renewing, and canceling work and residency permits for migrant workers, leaving workers dependent on them for their legal residency.

Employers are required to secure or renew residence permits for their workers within 90 days of a migrant worker’s arrival or of the expiration of the permit. An employer’s failure to secure or renew the permit within the prescribed time leaves the worker under threat of arrest, detention, and deportation, restricting their freedom of movement and discouraging them from seeking legal assistance. An employer can also cancel a worker’s residency permit at any time, which also limits the worker’s ability to remain in the country legally up to 90 days.

A worker who does not leave the country within the prescribed 90 days can be sentenced to a maximum of 3 years in prison or a maximum fine of 50,000 QAR, or both. They can be fined a further 200 QAR for each day they overstay their visa.

“I still don’t have a Qatar ID or a health card,” said a Ghanaian migrant worker who arrived in Qatar in September 2018 and who told Human Rights Watch in April 2019 that his company pays him late and sometimes doesn’t pay him at all. “If the police arrest me, they will deport me. And the sponsor will abandon me, and I won’t be given the money I am owed.”

One Kenyan migrant worker said that when he arrived in Qatar in October 2018, his company confiscated his passport and housed him in dismal accommodations with 10 to 12 people in 1 room. He said he works 12-hour days, rarely gets paid on time and some months not at all, and gets no days off, all of which violate Qatari law. For six months, he said, he waited for the company to issue him a residency permit, confining himself to his labor camp for fear of being arrested. “All you could do was go to work and back, no moving around, not even to the supermarket,” he said.

Migrant workers cited not having valid Qatari residence permits as a barrier to seeking justice. One migrant domestic worker from Kenya who arrived in Qatar in April 2019 said her employer had only paid her half her salary as of December:

She also took my passport and she never got me a QID [Qatari identity card], she hasn’t even taken me yet to get my fingerprints for the QID, so I can’t leave the house to complain about her to the labor court. How can I complain when I don’t even have a residency permit?

One migrant worker said that his employer had intentionally refused to renew his residency permit as retaliation for seeking redress for unpaid wages:

Twice I have been picked up by the police for having an expired QID – it’s not my fault, the company refused to renew my ID card after we [my colleagues and I] launched a case [at the labor dispute settlements committee] against them.

Workers’ dependence on employers for their legal status in the country could undermine the recent reforms and hinder a migrant worker’s ability to transfer to another job.

Absconding

While an employer can cancel their migrant worker’s residence permit at any time by initiating repatriation procedures without providing justification, a worker who leaves their employer without permission can be punished with imprisonment, fines, deportation, and bans for “absconding.” Employers can also be punished for not reporting to the authorities when their workers have “absconded.”

Human Rights Watch documented three cases over the past year in which employers filed false “runaway” cases, also known as “absconding” charges, against migrant workers in their employ after the workers submitted abuse complaints against them to the Labor Ministry, intentionally placing them at risk of arrest and deportation in retaliation.

“After all these years that I’ve lived and worked in this country, I know now, if I try to stand up to my employers, I will lose,” said one Indian migrant worker who lived and worked in Qatar for 13 years without incident but whose most recent employer had him deported as a runaway because he complained to the Labor Ministry about his wages being delayed for months at a time.

“My boss went to the police and told them I was a runaway, even though I was at home,” said a Filipino general cleaner who said she had stopped working and submitted a complaint at the Labor Ministry after her wages were not paid or delayed and that she experienced other abuses for over a year with her previous employer. “She is doing all this because I launched a case against her.” While the worker has since been able to clear the charges against her, her employer evicted her and other workers who complained from their accommodations, leaving them to fend for themselves without a job while they awaited the outcome of the labor case.

Threats, Extortion, and the Fear of Retaliation

Several migrant workers said they had continued to work for their employers despite abusive working conditions, either because of their employer’s threats or extortion or because they feared their employers would retaliate against them, including by refusing to regularize their status in the country or by filing a “runaway” case against them. While Qatar has introduced measures aimed at improving workers’ access to justice, the right to pursue compensation is often ineffective for migrant workers whose immigration status is controlled by an employer often responsible for the abuse.

“I’m afraid of my sponsor, and what will happen to me if I go to complain,” said a laborer from Bangladesh. He said his employer had demanded that he pay him 4,000 riyals ($1,098) to issue him a residency permit and threatened to submit a runaway case against him if he did not.

“We don’t want to criticize them because what we do helps our families [back home] and we don’t want to lose these jobs,” said a cleaner from the Philippines who said her employer made unfair deductions from her wages.

“When we complain [about our working conditions], they threaten to cancel our permits and send us home,” said a security guard from Kenya who said he had experienced passport confiscation, unpaid and delayed wages, and dismal housing conditions. “I cannot fight a big company like this.”

One Indian migrant worker who had worked as a personal driver since he arrived in Qatar in 2016 said in October 2019 that his employer exploited the control he had over his legal status in the country by subjecting him to both threats and extortion:

“Since the start of 2019, my employer stopped paying me properly. Sometimes it was delayed, sometimes only half salary. He kept saying he will pay soon. It was very bad because my family in India is very poor, they needed money. But I kept driving for him because I thought one day he will pay. In October 2019, I asked my employer to renew my QID, since it was expiring, he said I have to pay him QAR 5,000 if I want it renewed. He was blackmailing me. And I am so scared of driving without a QID – I don’t want to end up in jail.

I told him to just cancel my visa so I can go home, and he threatened to blacklist me from working in Qatar again. Eventually he told me I can go home, but on the condition that I agree that all my salary with him is settled. He bought my ticket home, but he didn’t pay my salary from Jan 2019 to Oct 2019. I couldn’t go to labor court because my ID was expired, and I was scared I would be put in jail. My employer told me the moment I step outside I will be jailed.”

via Human Rights Watch

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Bonus Video added by Informed Comment:

Al Jazeera English: “Qatar announces reforms to labour laws”