DOHA: Qatar has issued new guidelines aimed at protecting thousands of expatriate workers employed on construction projects for the finals of the 2022 World Cup.
The state has faced mounting criticism from human rights groups over the safety and working conditions of migrants working in its booming construction industry.
Its Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy, responsible for organizing the tournament, issued standards it said would ensure workers are properly and promptly paid, that their housing is adequate and working conditions up to global standards.
Contractors will be required to set up bank accounts for their workers, creating a system under which the committee can verify that workers are paid in full and on time.
There will also be minimum requirements for worker accommodation covering everything from the number of beds per room to a minimum standard for cleanliness and hygiene.
The committee will require contractors and sub-contractors to ensure “world-class” health and safety for workers, equality in their treatment and protect their dignity.
Amnesty International said in November that workers were being treated like “animals,” and urged football’s world governing body FIFA to press Qatar to improve conditions for foreign laborers, most of whom come from South Asia.
It highlighted a series of abuses including “non-payment of wages harsh and dangerous working conditions and shocking standards of accommodation.”
Following an inspection tour a month earlier, international trade unionists described the working conditions for migrants as “not acceptable.”
Amnesty researcher James Lynch said the new guidelines represent “a positive — if partial — effort to prevent some of the worst abuses from taking place.”
“While this may be a good starting point, the charter will only address the concerns of... those involved in the construction of stadiums and training grounds.
“The standards will not apply to thousands of other migrant workers... including those who will build the wider infrastructure to support the hosting of the World Cup, including roads, hotels and railways.”
The Supreme Committee said it has engaged the International Labour Organization to verify that the procedures were being followed.
FIFA said the committee’s report will be used to prepare for a hearing Thursday at the European Parliament on the conditions of migrant workers.
After that, another detailed report will be delivered to the FIFA Executive Committee in March.
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Qatar issues expat worker welfare charter
Qatar issues expat worker welfare charter
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Iran vows fast trials over protests after Trump threat
Paris, France: Iran on Wednesday vowed fast-track trials for people arrested over a massive wave of protests, after US President Donald Trump threatened “very strong action” if the Islamic republic goes ahead with hangings.
In Tehran, authorities held a funeral ceremony for over 100 members of the security forces and other “martyrs” killed in the demonstrations, which authorities have branded as “riots” while accusing protesters of waging “acts of terror.”
The protest movement across Iran, initially sparked by economic grievances, has turned into one of the biggest challenges yet to the clerical leadership since it took power in 1979.
Demonstrators have defied the authorities’ zero-tolerance for dissent by turning out in protests all around the country, even as authorities insist they have regained the upper hand.
Iran’s judiciary chief Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei said on a visit to a prison holding protest detainees that “if a person burned someone, beheaded someone and set them on fire then we must do our work quickly,” in comments broadcast by state television.
Iranian news agencies also quoted him as saying the trials should be held in public and said he had spent five hours in a prison in Tehran to examine the cases.
Footage broadcast by state media showed the judiciary chief seated before an Iranian flag in a large, ornate room in the prison, interrogating a prisoner himself.
The detainee, dressed in grey clothing and his face blurred, is accused of taking Molotov cocktails to a park in Tehran.
- Blackout -
Trump on Tuesday said in a CBS News interview that the United States would act if Iran began hanging protesters.
“We will take very strong action if they do such a thing,” said the American leader, who has repeatedly threatened Iran with military intervention.
“When they start killing thousands of people — and now you’re telling me about hanging. We’ll see how that’s going to work out for them,” Trump said.
Iranian authorities called the American warnings a “pretext for military intervention.”
Rights groups accuse the government of fatally shooting protesters and masking the scale of the crackdown with an Internet blackout imposed on January 8.
Internet monitor Netblocks said in a post to X on Wednesday that the blackout had now lasted 132 hours.
Some information has trickled out of Iran however. New videos on social media, with locations verified by AFP, showed bodies lined up in the Kahrizak morgue just south of the Iranian capital, with the corpses wrapped in black bags and distraught relatives searching for loved ones.
- Calls to halt executions -
Iranian prosecutors have said authorities would press capital charges of “waging war against God” on some detainees.
According to state media, hundreds of people have been arrested.
State media has also reported on the arrest of a foreign national for espionage in connection with the protests.
No details were given on the person’s nationality or identity.
The US State Department on its Farsi language X account said 26-year-old protester Erfan Soltani had been sentenced to be executed on Wednesday.
“Erfan is the first protester to be sentenced to death, but he won’t be the last,” the State Department said, adding more than 10,600 Iranians had been arrested.
Rights group Amnesty International called on Iran to immediately halt all executions, including Soltani’s.
Norway-based NGO Iran Human Rights said it had confirmed 734 people killed during the protests, including nine minors, but warned the death toll was likely far higher.
“The real number of those killed is likely in the thousands,” IHR’s director Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam said.
Iranian state media has said dozens of members of the security forces have been killed, with their funerals turning into large pro-government rallies.
- Khamenei in hiding -
At Wednesday’s funeral ceremony in Tehran, thousands of people waved flags of the Islamic republic as prayers were read out for the dead outside Tehran University, according to images broadcast on state television.
“Death to America!” read banners held up by people attending the rally, while others carried photos of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Another image could be seen at the rally showing Trump’s assassination attempt, captioned: “This time it will not miss the target.”
It appeared to be referring to the assassination attempt against Trump during a campaign rally in 2024.
Amir, an Iraqi computer scientist, returned to Baghdad from Iran on Monday and described dramatic scenes in Tehran during protests on Thursday night.
“My friends and I saw protesters in Tehran’s Sarsabz neighborhood amid a heavy military presence. The police were firing rubber bullets,” he told AFP in Iraq.
In power since 1989 and now aged 86, Khamenei has faced significant challenges, most recently the 12-day war in June against Israel, which forced him to go into hiding.
Analysts have cautioned that it is premature to predict the immediate demise of the theocratic system, pointing to the repressive levers the leadership controls, including the Revolutionary Guard Corps, which is charged with safeguarding the Islamic revolution.
In Tehran, authorities held a funeral ceremony for over 100 members of the security forces and other “martyrs” killed in the demonstrations, which authorities have branded as “riots” while accusing protesters of waging “acts of terror.”
The protest movement across Iran, initially sparked by economic grievances, has turned into one of the biggest challenges yet to the clerical leadership since it took power in 1979.
Demonstrators have defied the authorities’ zero-tolerance for dissent by turning out in protests all around the country, even as authorities insist they have regained the upper hand.
Iran’s judiciary chief Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei said on a visit to a prison holding protest detainees that “if a person burned someone, beheaded someone and set them on fire then we must do our work quickly,” in comments broadcast by state television.
Iranian news agencies also quoted him as saying the trials should be held in public and said he had spent five hours in a prison in Tehran to examine the cases.
Footage broadcast by state media showed the judiciary chief seated before an Iranian flag in a large, ornate room in the prison, interrogating a prisoner himself.
The detainee, dressed in grey clothing and his face blurred, is accused of taking Molotov cocktails to a park in Tehran.
- Blackout -
Trump on Tuesday said in a CBS News interview that the United States would act if Iran began hanging protesters.
“We will take very strong action if they do such a thing,” said the American leader, who has repeatedly threatened Iran with military intervention.
“When they start killing thousands of people — and now you’re telling me about hanging. We’ll see how that’s going to work out for them,” Trump said.
Iranian authorities called the American warnings a “pretext for military intervention.”
Rights groups accuse the government of fatally shooting protesters and masking the scale of the crackdown with an Internet blackout imposed on January 8.
Internet monitor Netblocks said in a post to X on Wednesday that the blackout had now lasted 132 hours.
Some information has trickled out of Iran however. New videos on social media, with locations verified by AFP, showed bodies lined up in the Kahrizak morgue just south of the Iranian capital, with the corpses wrapped in black bags and distraught relatives searching for loved ones.
- Calls to halt executions -
Iranian prosecutors have said authorities would press capital charges of “waging war against God” on some detainees.
According to state media, hundreds of people have been arrested.
State media has also reported on the arrest of a foreign national for espionage in connection with the protests.
No details were given on the person’s nationality or identity.
The US State Department on its Farsi language X account said 26-year-old protester Erfan Soltani had been sentenced to be executed on Wednesday.
“Erfan is the first protester to be sentenced to death, but he won’t be the last,” the State Department said, adding more than 10,600 Iranians had been arrested.
Rights group Amnesty International called on Iran to immediately halt all executions, including Soltani’s.
Norway-based NGO Iran Human Rights said it had confirmed 734 people killed during the protests, including nine minors, but warned the death toll was likely far higher.
“The real number of those killed is likely in the thousands,” IHR’s director Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam said.
Iranian state media has said dozens of members of the security forces have been killed, with their funerals turning into large pro-government rallies.
- Khamenei in hiding -
At Wednesday’s funeral ceremony in Tehran, thousands of people waved flags of the Islamic republic as prayers were read out for the dead outside Tehran University, according to images broadcast on state television.
“Death to America!” read banners held up by people attending the rally, while others carried photos of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Another image could be seen at the rally showing Trump’s assassination attempt, captioned: “This time it will not miss the target.”
It appeared to be referring to the assassination attempt against Trump during a campaign rally in 2024.
Amir, an Iraqi computer scientist, returned to Baghdad from Iran on Monday and described dramatic scenes in Tehran during protests on Thursday night.
“My friends and I saw protesters in Tehran’s Sarsabz neighborhood amid a heavy military presence. The police were firing rubber bullets,” he told AFP in Iraq.
In power since 1989 and now aged 86, Khamenei has faced significant challenges, most recently the 12-day war in June against Israel, which forced him to go into hiding.
Analysts have cautioned that it is premature to predict the immediate demise of the theocratic system, pointing to the repressive levers the leadership controls, including the Revolutionary Guard Corps, which is charged with safeguarding the Islamic revolution.
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