Christopher Pike/Bloomberg/Getty Images/FILEĪ Qatari government official told CNN in a statement: “Any claims that workers are being jailed or deported without explanation are untrue. Laborers rest in green space along the corniche in Doha, Qatar, on June 23.
He says he received paperwork upon his arrest, which Amnesty International says would likely have explained why he was being detained, but as it was in Arabic he did not know what it said and no translator was provided. Qatar has a 90-day grace period in which a worker can remain in the country legally without another sponsor, but if they have not had their permit renewed or reactivated in that time they risk being arrested or deported for being undocumented. He says he worked an extra two to four hours a day to supplement his income as he was not making enough money working six eight-hour days a week. Kamal believes he was arrested because he had a second job, which is illegal under Qatar’s 2004 Labour Law and allows authorities to cancel a worker’s work permit. They just send you back in the cloth you are wearing.” They don’t even allow you to collect your clothes. “Some workers who were just roaming outside wearing (work) dress were sent back. “When they put me on the flight, I started thinking: ‘Why are they sending workers back all of a sudden? It’s not one, two, 10 people … they are sending 150, 200, 300 workers on one flight,’” he says. CNN has reached out to the embassy but has yet to receive a response. Using a smuggled phone, he spoke to friends, one of whom, he says, brought his belongings – including his passport – to the jail, though he says he was sent home after the Nepali embassy had sent a paper copy of his passport to the jail. After a day or two, once a room is empty, they keep people from one country in one room.” “When they take you to the jail, they don’t give you a room right away. In one jail, there were around 250-300 people. “Inside the jail, there were people from Sri Lanka, Kerala (India), Pakistan, Sudan, Nepal, African, Philippines. Francois Nel/Getty Imagesĭescribing the conditions in the cell he shared with 24 other Nepali migrant workers, he says he was provided with a blanket and a pillow, but the mattress on the floor he had to sleep on was riddled with bed bugs. People are just standing there … some are walking with their grocery, some are just sitting there consuming tobacco products … they just arrest you,” he adds, before explaining he could not ask questions as he does not speak Arabic.Ī worker is seen inside the Lusail Stadium during a stadium tour on December 20, 2019, in Doha, Qatar. Kamal says he has yet to be paid the 7,000 Qatari Riyal bonus (around $1,922) he says he is entitled to from his previous employers, nor 7,000 Riyal in insurance for injuring two fingers at work. Much of the build-up to this tournament has been on more sober matters, that of human rights, from the deaths of migrant workers and the conditions many have endured in Qatar, to LGBTQ and women’s rights. It will be a historic event, the first World Cup to be held in the Middle East, but one also mired in controversy. Kamal – CNN has changed the names of the Nepali workers to protect them from retaliation – is one of many migrant workers wanting to tell the world of their experiences in Qatar, a country that will this month host one of sport’s greatest, most lucrative, spectacles – the World Cup, a tournament which usually unites the world as millions watch the spectacular goals and carefully-choreographed celebrations. “When they arrested me, I couldn’t say anything, not a single word, as I was so scared,” he told CNN Sport, speaking at home in southern Nepal where he has been working on a farm since being deported three months ago.
Without explanation, the 24-year-old says he was put into a vehicle and, for the next week, kept in a Qatari jail, the location and name of which he does not know. Kamal was standing outside a shop with other migrant workers, having finished yet another grueling working day, when he and – he says – a few others were arrested this August.
0 kommentar(er)
