qatarperegrine | Qatar human rights report (Reply)

This week, Qatar's National Human Rights Committee released their first major report, which is shockingly candid about human rights abuses in Qatar -- abuses which the report warns "impair the reputation of the State at the international level." I haven't found the report itself online, but I've read an extensive news article about it (linked to below); here are the highlights.

Qatar's main human rights abuses

Workers' rights
Workers' rights are in such a shambles (particularly in the construction, excavation and concrete industries) that the Committee refers to expat workers' condition as "one of the contemporary forms of slavery." The most egregious problems include:

"arbitrary" and unfair laws regarding work visas. (Currently, expatriate workers depend on their employers to obtain and renew their visas. They (we) do not have the right to move from one job to another and are deported as soon as the job ends. This leaves workers at the mercy of their employers for their length of stay in Qatar.)
rampant abuse, including "long hours, beatings, detention, and sometimes sexual harassment, and sometimes rape."
poor living conditions (housing, food).
physical labor in high temperatures and humidity, which coupled with inadequate health care leads to many injuries.
workers' inability to complain about conditions for fear of reprisal, even if they're represented by a Working Group. Workers are generally powerless in relation to their employers: "In the event of any dispute between the employer ... the worker would find themselves without work, without a salary, without a passport, ... [unable] to exercise their right to move from one job or another, or even the right to return to their homeland."
the situation of domestic workers (maids and nannies), who (in addition to facing the above difficulties) are also susceptible to 16-hour work days and seven-day work weeks, physical and sexual violence and forced prostitution. There is no regulatory oversight of their conditions, and the new Labor Code protecting other expat workers does not apply to them.

Women's rights
The committee states that "we still need effective and serious moves to eliminate all remaining forms of discrimination against women and the achievement of full equality and the recognition of full citizenship for women." Currently women do not have legal equality to men in the following areas:

freedom of travel and movement.
citizenship (women can't pass citizenship to their husbands or children).
employment, particularly in equal pay for equal work.
allocation of land and housing allowances.
custody disputes.

Political freedoms
While commending the advancement of political freedoms under the new Constitution, the Committee decried:

the "large number of inmates, men and women" detained "without legal justification" as a result of Law No. 17 of 2002 and Law No. 3 of 2004 (which allow detention without charges for up to a year and indefinitely, respectively). These laws, which the Committee calls "a violation of the right to liberty and security of person," have been invoked more frequently since the Doha Players bombing and subsequent crackdown.
unacceptable prison conditions, particularly in terms of parole and medical release, overcrowding, and prison food.
excessive wait time for trial, particularly in labor cases. Laborers often spend over a year in detention waiting for their case to be heard, and must pay QR 300-500 in legal fees; both of these situations are in blatant contravention of the new Labor Law.
the expatriation of approximately 5,000 citizens in Dec. 2004, in violation of international standards of human rights.
self-censorship in journalism and the media, particularly on "domestic issues, especially on the subject of nationality, and the issues of workers, and the system of [exit visas], [legal bookings], and the victims of child jockeys, domestic workers and other topics."
the "many restrictions on the exercise of the right to organize," particularly the restriction of "private and professional associations" through Law No. 12 of 2004.

The Committee also said it "looked forward to the issuance of [a] law" guaranteeing "exercise of political rights." Way diplomatic, guys.

Economic and social rights
The new Constitution's solid protections of economic and social rights are marred by:

"the absence of a system of unemployment insurance."
the absence of a health insurance system.
the "near-lack of health care within the department of psychiatry and confusion between cases of illness and the psychological situations of mental illness," which violate the right to adequate health care. (AMEN!)
lack of public support or accessibility for the disabled (e.g. university education for deaf students)
insufficient Social Security for the elderly ($1125/mo., not indexed to inflation)

Recommendations

The Committee recommends "a comprehensive national plan to improve human rights in the State of Qatar," including:

accession to various international human rights treaties.
"a review and modification of the national legislation and consistent with international conventions on human rights."
reform of penal institutions consistent with a goal of "reform and rehabilitation."
initiatives to promote freedom of expression, reduce self-censorship, support Al Jazeera, and "support ... the right of access to information and freedom of scientific research and freedom of knowledge and the Internet." (Yay!)
the encouragement of civil society through "abolition of all restrictions on the establishment of private associations and professional societies."
reforms in the status of women, including the amendment of discriminatory laws, encouragement of female political participation, criminalization of violence against women (?!), extension of the Labor Law to domestic workers, and formation of a Committee on Violence against Women and another to study divorce and spinsterhood.
improved workers’ rights, focusing on reduction of abuses, exemption of workers from work visa fees, speeding labor dispute cases, and a complete "reorganiz[ation] the relationship between employers and workers on topics of transfer of work visas and exit visas, [granting] freedom of movement from one job to another." (YES!)

I'm making the recommendations sound quite vague, but of course this is just a broad outline. The report actually details specific steps to be taken in many of these areas.

Here's what's particularly remarkable: the National Human Rights Committee is a government-appointed body, and more than half its members are government employees. (At least, they were last week!) And yet it has absolutely not pulled its punches when reporting human rights abuses. I'm particularly impressed by the level of detail in its recommendations for fixing the problems -- and anxious to see what happens next!

Everything here has been condensed from an extensive synopsis of the report which appeared in yesterday's Al Sharq, here automatically translated into English by my hero Google. (If you'd like to read Al Sharq's article, here are two warnings. First, Google only automatically translates the first few paragraphs, but you can copy and paste the rest of the article into the text box here to translate it too. Second, be skeptical of the translation. The word it translates "bail" really means "work visa," for example.) The Peninsula has less comprehensive but more grammatical articles on the report here and here.