Irish Times: Qatar claims modernity to hide its repression

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A report by an Irish researcher criticized the ongoing attempts of the Qatari regime to appear as if Doha were more modern and liberal than its neighbors. In his piece, published in Irish Times, Michael Foley pointed out that Qatar's dualism between the conservatism and modernity will be revealed in the 2022 World Cup.

Qatar wavers between the conservative and the modern; it moves forward and then goes backwards. Outwardly, it exercises its diplomatic soft power. In recent weeks it has been funding public servants’ pay in Gaza and offering to help finance the ailing Lebanese economy.

The Al Jazeera TV channel is the bane of dictators and sheikhs throughout the Arab world. It broadcasts from Qatar’s capital, Doha, and is funded by the regime. But while Al Jazeera might appear as a beacon of press freedom – its closure remains one of the main Saudi demands for the lifting of the blockage – Qatar languishes at 125th on the World Press Freedom index.

Censorship within Qatar is strict, and Al Jazeera rarely turns its investigative talents on to its home turf.

Qatar’s low press freedom ranking notwithstanding, Northwestern University’s famous Medill school of Journalism has a Doha campus housed in a magnificent building in Education City, alongside five other US universities, and one from the UK, all enticed with 100 per cent finance.

Slavery in Qatar was abolished only in 1952, but recently a museum to slavery has opened in Doha. It was undoubtedly embarrassing for British-owned oil companies to be using slave labour when extracting Qatari oil in the 1940s and 1950s, so the British government negotiated the abolition of slavery, and helped pay owners compensation.

The museum portrayal of slavery is another exercise in finding a path through a sensitive issue, between the views of the religious conservatives and the modernisers. As one caption in the museum, referring to the current situation states: “Many construction workers in rapidly industrialising parts of the world, especially in the Gulf region, are considered to be contractually enslaved.”

While Qatar is not named specifically, anyone visiting would have no doubts that this included the hundreds and thousands of migrant workers in Doha, currently building the eight world cup stadiums. Recent changes in the law mean the majority of migrant workers are no longer bound to their employers, a development welcomed by the International Trade Union Confederation.

However, the changes mean little to the thousands of domestic workers in Qatar who endure restrictions on their movements as well as physical and sexual abuse.

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