Qatar has evicted thousands of foreign workers from their homes in the capital Doha, Reuters news agency reported . More than ten apartment buildings are said to have been emptied to make way for the football fans. Authorities deny that the evictions are related to the World Cup.
Reuters news agency spoke with several migrant workers. They said workers in more than ten buildings around the station were forced to leave their apartments and find shelter elsewhere. According to the Qatari government, there is not much going on and everyone will receive new housing.
WORLD CUP IN QATAR
The 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar is very controversial. First of all, an investigation by the American FBI showed that Qatar was awarded the 2010 World Cup through bribery. In addition, in recent years the preparations for the tournament, such as building stadiums and other facilities, have violated human rights and at least 6,500 migrant workers have lost their lives. They were mainly from Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka and had to work in unsafe working conditions and extreme heat, Amnesty International said in a report. The government in Qatar has hardly ever conducted proper investigations into the deaths and FIFA is said to have looked away, according to the human rights organization.
SPORTWASHING
According to human rights groups, Qatar is guilty of sports washing: using a major tournament to put a country in a good light, while concealing misconduct and human rights violations. In addition to the death of migrant workers, the ban on homosexuality is also something that many believe makes Qatar an unsuitable host country. For example, a few weeks before the World Cup, Human Rights Watch released a report showing that LGBT people have been arbitrarily arrested and mistreated in the country for the past three years without charge.
The 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar is very controversial. First of all, an investigation by the American FBI showed that Qatar was awarded the 2010 World Cup through bribery. In addition, in recent years the preparations for the tournament, such as building stadiums and other facilities, have violated human rights and at least 6,500 migrant workers have lost their lives. They were mainly from Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka and had to work in unsafe working conditions and extreme heat, Amnesty International said in a report . The government in Qatar has hardly ever conducted proper investigations into the deaths and FIFA is said to have looked away, according to the human rights organization.
According to human rights groups, Qatar is guilty of sports washing: using a major tournament to put a country in a good light, while concealing misconduct and human rights violations. In addition to the death of the migrant workers, the ban on homosexuality is also something that many believe makes Qatar an unsuitable host country. For example, a few weeks before the World Cup, Human Rights Watch released a report showing that LGBT people have been arbitrarily arrested and mistreated in the country for the past three years without charge.
The authorities would not have announced the eviction in advance. In a building, which residents said housed 1,200 people, in Doha’s Al Mansoura neighborhood, people were told around 8 p.m. local time on Wednesday that they had only 2 hours to leave.
At around 10:30 PM that same evening, people were literally evicted from their homes and the doors of the buildings were closed. Some of the men, unaware of the action, hadn’t even returned in time to collect their belongings. ” We have nowhere to go,” a man told Reuters the next day. Some of them lie on mattresses on the sidewalk in front of their former home.
Reuters news agency also reports that not only the temporary migrant workers have been evicted, but also migrant workers who have been working in Qatar for a longer period of time suddenly have to move. Reuters spoke to Mohammed, a driver from Bangladesh who had lived in the same area for 14 years. On Wednesday, the council also came to tell him that he had 48 hours to vacate the property and seek shelter elsewhere.
Mohammed said the migrant workers responsible for building infrastructure in Qatar are being pushed aside as the World Cup draws closer. “Who made the stadiums? Who made the roads? Who made everything? Bengalis, Pakistanis. Now they’re leaving us all on the doorstep.”
According to the Qatari government, nothing is wrong. The evictions would have nothing to do with the World Cup, but with long-running plans to renew parts of Doha. According to a spokesperson, everyone would have been given a new home by now. The residents of the emptied flats would also have been properly informed about the out-of-home placement. At least one resident who spoke to Reuters disputes this and says there is nowhere to go.
FIFA has not yet responded to questions from Reuters about the latest World Cup scandal.
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