British newspaper: Labor demonstrations against the inhuman Qatari dealings

The British newspaper "Arab Weekly" said in a report that migrant workers in Qatar organized a rare protest regarding unpaid wages, as the protest came amid complaints in the immigrant community about the harsh living conditions that were aggravated by the pandemic.

Human rights groups have repeatedly expressed concern about the treatment of workers in Qatar, including the non-payment of salaries due, the lack of food and the dangerous conditions of detention of detainees.

Pictures on social media showed more than 100 men blocking a major road in al- Musheireb area in the capital, Doha, late Friday, clapping and chanting slogans in front of the police.

In response to the settlement of the overdue wages, the Ministry of Labor admitted, “A few foreign workers conducted a peaceful protest in al-Musheireb region on 22 May.”

Millions of foreigners, mostly from India, Pakistan, Nepal and Sri Lanka, work in Qatar, and many of them live in dirty camps far from the skyscrapers and the amazing malls in the region.

Nearly 90% of the population of Qatar are expatriate workers, as the state is trying to complete dozens of mega projects before the 2022 World Cup, and there have been reports of numerous deaths among workers working in bad weather conditions.

But the coronavirus and its devastating economic impact left many sick workers and other unemployed, unpaid and at the mercy of unscrupulous employers.

Human rights defender Amnesty International said last month that Qatar arrested dozens of migrant workers and expelled them last month, and Human Rights Watch criticized the plight of foreign workers in prisons this month.

Amnesty International quoted twenty Nepalese men as saying that the Qatari police arrested hundreds of migrant workers on the street, then detained them for several days, and then flew them to Nepal.

"The prison was full of people, we were given one piece of bread every day, and that was not enough," one Nepalese told a London-based human rights organization.

Amnesty said that all workers left Qatar without taking their payroll or end of service benefits.

Rights groups say low-wage migrant workers in rich oil countries often have large debt.

Such workers are vulnerable to the spread of the virus because they generally live in crowded labor camps, where one room can contain twelve workers, or share housing with many others in densely populated areas, where many of them lose their jobs, and may not receive care Good healthy.

T/S

ANHA