Qataris Detain German Journalists

The Guardian newspaper has been running a series of articles uncovering the deaths and slave labour conditions of workers building World Cup stadia in Qatar.

This has prompted other journalists to head over and find out the story for themselves.

The Government has found a new tactic to deal with the global coverage of the atrocious conditions. It has started harassing and detaining journalists.

The Guardian is reporting that two German journalists, Peter Geisl and his cameraman Robin Ahne, were held by Qatari police this month while investigating the plight of those migrant labourers.

The article claims that the pair were filming working conditions from the balcony of their hotel, the Mercure Grand in the Qatari capital of Doha.

The police, who the pair say treated them well, clung to the “filming without permission” excuse.

Giesel told the Guardian:

“… the interrogations went on for several hours and then the security police got involved. They were talking about us sparking a riot by talking to the workers … and that’s why we got detained and put in jail.”

Before they were prevented from filming though, the pair secured  plenty evidence backing up the Guardian’s claims according to Geisel.

“We went to the Nepalese embassy and it was flooded with workers trying to get their passports and documents back. They tried to manipulate some of the footage and erase some. We weren’t finished with the shooting in general, but afterwards I didn’t have the nerve for it any more.”

The  Guardian’s expose followed on from the findings of the International Trade Union Confederation that the construction of the stadia could take 4000 lives if the current rate of deaths was extrapolated all the way through to the completion of the stadia.

In response to the claims, the Building and Wood Workers’ International (BWI) union sent a delegation of 18 observers to a construction site as part of a surprise inspection visit. They claim they were prevented from entering a site at Lusail, an area 44 miles north of Doha where the Qataris are constructing an entire new city for the World Cup.

FIFA’s response to the crisis has disappointed many.

President Sepp Blatter, said he would visit the recently appointed Emir of Qatar Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani to discuss the issue.

Tamim was appointed as recently as April this year but some in the Middle East are sceptical of his socially progressive credentials.

According to the Lebanon Daily Star, he is believed to be ‘closer to the Muslim Brotherhood than many in the current leadership, and may pursue more socially conservative policies’.

The Sheikh has little motivation to improve anything however after Blatter promised that the World Cup would go ahead regardless of any problems, or presumably deaths.

With an unfunny irony, it was on exactly the same day as FIFA’s Executive Committee was discussing the issue on October 3rd, Giesel and Ahne were and held.

They were lucky.

Friends and family contacted the German Embassy in Qatar, prompting the Office of the German government’s human rights commissioner, Herr Markus Löning to get involved.

However the nightmare of the truth being seen globally has not disappeared.

The Guardian claims that the footage shot by the German broadcasters has been acquired by Sky Sports News in London.

This is not the first time the Qatari police have attempted to interfere with the journalistic freedom of European soccer journalists.

In April 2011, two Swiss journalists from Francophone station Radio Televison Suisse (RTS) were handcuffed and interrogated at two police stations at police stations in Mesaieed and Wakra.

Switzerland’s ambassador in Kuwait intervened and the pair, reporter Christophe Cerf and cameraman Yvan Thorimbert, left with their camera after 13 days.

That incident prompted the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) to investigate. Mohamed Abdel Dayem, CPJ’s Middle East and North Africa program coordinator noted:

“Qatar must explain why the country that is to host the World Cup is detaining foreign journalists, and why the two men were compelled to stay in the country for nearly two weeks when they were never charged with a crime.”

The revelations that Qatar is harassing journalists investigating and preventing inspectors from inspecting raises yet more questions about the fitness of the Emirate to host a World Cup.

The broadcasting organisations of the world pay a fortune for rights and without them, the World Cup ceases to be profitable.

If deaths and slave labour conditions were insufficient to provoke concern from ESPN, BBC, Sky, Al Jazeera and the others, perhaps this latest development will persuade them to put pressure on FIFA.

Maybe even to the point of threatening not to carry the matches if Qatar is allowed to murder and enslave its workers, and obstruct foreign journalists. It seems,that this is the only language the multilingual Sepp Blatter truly understands.

Related:

“Slave Labour” is Building the Qatar World Cup

Qatar World Cup will ‘Kill 4000 Workers’

Committee to Protect Journalists (external link)