This is a story about oppression, tyranny and the hunger for power. It’s yet another testament to Western leaders’ blindness, purchased with staggering wealth. Donations, investments in sports and academia, polished English—all of these have made it remarkably easy for Americans and Europeans to forget.
Beneath Qatar’s international PR apparatus lies a brutal reality. A reality of persecuting political rivals and regime opponents, a reality of a draconian legal system that crushes the little guy, and a shameful, ongoing exploitation of foreign workers. In conversations with Israel Hayom, people who lived in Qatar for years shed light on what happens behind the masks.
Qatar operates under a rather unusual situation. Migrant workers constitute approximately 90% of the population, which totals around 3.1 million people, and remain subject to a system known as kafala, or sponsorship, which was officially abolished in 2020 but continues to exist in practice.
According to human rights organizations, this system grants employers disproportionate power. Changing workplaces, for instance, is almost impossible. Moreover, this power leads to salary delays, forcing workers to strike or protest despite the risk of arrest or deportation.
Most are workers from poor countries such as Egypt, Pakistan, India and the Philippines. Other Gulf states also employ foreign workers under the same system. However, it seems that only in Qatar are they treated as modern-day slaves.
Ahmad Awwadallah, for example, was a regular guy looking for work in Qatar. Many young Egyptians like him fly to the Gulf after completing academic studies to secure a livelihood.
“I always called Qatar home, and now it’s the most hated place in the world for me because of the racism, xenophobia and injustice I experienced. I always excused racism and xenophobia in Qatar by saying there are uneducated people. But my story shows how the educated elite behaves in the same way,” he wrote in a letter he sent to none other than Sheikha Moza bint Nasser, mother of Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani and one of the most powerful figures in the state.
From his current residence in Egypt, Awwadallah describes working conditions in Qatar. “At the first company, we worked 12 hours a day, six days a week. At the second company, you had to work eight hours a day for six days. At the last company that dealt with World Cup projects, I remember that in some cases we worked three consecutive months without a single day off, even during the COVID pandemic.”
Hassan Abd al-Sadiq, a worker from Sudan, tells Israel Hayom about similar abuse. According to the contract with his employer, he was supposed to receive comfortable accommodation and medical care in exchange for work as an accountant at a sewing company, a respectable position by all accounts. Nevertheless, he found himself living in a room that served as a garbage collection point, without basic amenities such as a refrigerator or a washing machine. He was forced to pay for medical services out of pocket. Shifts lasted 12 hours each day, six days a week, and workers who dared use their phones were fined.
According to him, at one point, he was forbidden to pray at the mosque. “When I went to the Qatari labor office and filed a complaint, on that same day, my residency permit was revoked, and I was removed to Doha airport. Finally, his employer threatened to file a complaint against him if he ever returned to Doha.
In 2010, Qatari politician Khalid al-Hail turned his back on the ruling family and established the first opposition movement in the emirate—"The Youth Movement for Qatar’s Salvation.” The movement aspired to turn Qatar into a constitutional monarchy. This resulted in al-Hail and others being arrested, tried and sent to prison.
When he was released in 2014, he claimed the movement represented about 30,000 Qatari citizens out of 300,000 at that time (the rest of the residents are migrant workers). He even revealed that the movement had been involved in a failed coup attempt in 2011. Al-Hail also leaked thousands of documents that shed light on the ruling Al Thani family’s deep corruption.
After fleeing to the U.K., al-Hail transformed his youth movement into the National Democratic Party, which he currently heads. “The movement is not limited to exile,” al-Hail told Israel Hayom from his residence in Britain.
“We are active on the ground, organized and growing. Our goal is clear: to return sovereignty to the Qatari people through constitutional reform, an elected parliament with real authority, an independent judicial system and an end to rule by decree. We work through structured political organization, international contacts and internal mobilization to make change inevitable rather than hypothetical. This is not a distant vision; the process has already begun.”
In 2013, Qatari poet Mohammed al-Ajami was sentenced to 15 years in prison. The charge? “Incitement to overthrow the regime” and insulting then-Emir Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani He was apparently punished for a poem he wrote at the beginning of the previous decade, in which veiled criticism was leveled at Hamad bin Khalifa.
Inspired by the Arab Spring protests in Tunisia, al-Ajami wrote in the poem: “Arab governments and those who rule them, all without exception, are thieves. And there is one question that troubles the questioner’s mind, no official body will be found to answer it: Since he [the Arab ruler] imports everything from the West, why doesn’t he import law and freedom?”
After the poet spent about four years in prison, Emir Tamim bin Hamad granted clemency and released him.
Al-Ajami quickly left Qatar for Kuwait, to continue writing poems without fear.
Originally published by Israel Hayom.
