Bahrain dictatorship’s witch-hunt against foreign workers

This video is called Nepalese migrant worker shares story of labour abuses in Qatar.

Another video used to say about itself:

Pressure builds on Qatar after ‘migrant workers’ abuse‘ exposed

29 Sep 2013

The United Nations has condemned Qatar for failing to comply with an international convention banning the use of forced labor, as the 2022 World Cup host faces a barrage of criticism following a report on slavery-like mistreatment of migrant workers.

The UN’s International Labor Organization (ILO) says Qatar is failing to implement an international convention banning the use of forced labor. According to one of the provisions in the document, its signatories (Qatar joined the convention in 2007) have to inspect workplace conditions to ensure the rights of workers are not infringed upon.

The criticism comes after an investigative report in The Guardian newspaper, exposing conditions faced by migrant workers in the country that are akin to slave labor. The report revealed that at least 44 Nepalese construction workers died in Qatar Between June 4 and August 8.

Sharan Burrow, general secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation, described Qatar as a “slave state” in an interview with RT. According to the Confederation’s estimates, 400 Indian and Nepali migrant workers die in Qatar every year and that figure is expected to grow to at least 600 as the country employs larger numbers of migrant workers to construct facilities for the 2022 World Cup. Burrow has drawn a grim picture of what life is for foreign contractors in the Gulf state.

World Cup host Qatar must end ‘exploitation’: Amnesty: here.

“Modern-day slavery”: that is the phrase that The Guardian uses to describe the brutal working and living conditions endured by Nepalese migrant laborers who are building facilities for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. The emirate is spending some $100 billion, and recruiting 1.5 million workers to build stadiums, roads, ports and hotels for the millions of soccer devotees, officials and others expected to attend the event: here.

This video shows the testimony of marble cutters describing their working conditions in Doha, Qatar. (English, Spanish, French, German)

Nepalis forced to seek work abroad. While they may face slave-like conditions, abuse and even death in places like Qatar, good jobs remain scarce in their homeland: here.

In autocratic countries like Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Bahrain, immigrant workers often get starvation wages. Often, lots of money are deducted from their wages for travel costs from their home countries. Often, no wages at all are paid. Labour conditions are often slavery-like.

Like in other countries, campaigns of xenophobic hatred “help” to oppress and exploit those workers. If some vindictive boss steals your passport, then authorities may consider you an “illegal” human being, and may start to hunt you like wild animals are hunted.

In Greece, the “centre”-Right government has an anti-immigrant witch-hunt. Cynically, its name is “Xenios Zeus“; in ancient Greek mythology, the supreme god, and the god of hospitality toward strangers as well. With governmental crackdowns like that, it is not strange that the Greek nazi party Golden Dawn is in parliament.

Bahrain has a “parliament” as well. Boycotted by the anti-dictatorship opposition, with royal family stooges in it. Like in the Dutch parliament there is the xenophobe Geert Wilders, in the Bahraini parliament there is the sectarian religious fanatic “Geert Wilders of Bahrain”, Abdul Halim Murad, with his anti-immigrant hate speech. And the royal government is happy to oblige Murad.

From the Business Standard in India:

IANS | Manama

October 6, 2013 Last Updated at 20:50 IST

Bahrain deports over 5,000 illegal foreign workers

Bahrain has deported over 5,000 illegal foreign workers since the start of the current year as authorities have intensified inspection campaigns.

As many as 2,391 illegal workers have been deported from July till September 2013, Xinhua reported citing an official from the General Directorate of Nationality, Passports and Residence Affairs Sunday.

“The total number of expatriates who were deported in the nine months of 2013 reached 5,232 males and females,” the official said in a statement.

He added the department of exits, search and follow-up is working in tandem with different government bodies to intensify inspections in an effort to tackle the problem of illegal workers.

According to Bahrain‘s Labour Market Regulatory Authority (LMRA), which maintains a database of all foreign workers, there are 52,000 expatriates living in Bahrain without proper paperwork.

A 30-member squad is presently working with LMRA in cracking down on illegal foreign workers.

There are around 290,000 expatriate Indians in Bahrain and many of them work as blue collar workers.

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• Nepalese workers dying in Qatar (dearkitty1.wordpress.com)
• British PM Blasts Qatar After Report Estimates Thousands of World Cup Migrant Worker Deaths (thetower.org)
• Qatar under growing pressure over workers’ deaths as Fifa is urged to act (theguardian.com)
• World Cup construction in Qatar to reportedly cost lives of 4,000 migrant workers (tracking.si.com)
• FIFA ‘holds’ crunch talks – Qatar rights storm (arabtimesonline.com)
• Qatar workers dying, international trade union delegation visit (dearkitty1.wordpress.com)