Saudi dictatorship’s anti-immigrant worker witch-hunt

This video is called Saudi Arabia | Abuse of Migrant workers.

The government of Saudi Arabia is practising anti-immigrant policies similar to those of Dutch Islamophobe Geert Wilders … to “the Geert Wilders of Bahrain“, member of the royal puppet parliament Abdul Halim Murad … to the Greek Golden Dawn xenophobes … and to the Greek “center”-Right government applying a lot of Golden Dawn proposals.

From the BBC:

4 November 2013

Saudi Arabia rounds up migrant workers as amnesty ends

Saudi Arabia is rounding up thousands of illegal migrant workers, after an amnesty introducing new employment rules expired.

Nearly a million Bangladeshis, Indians, Filipinos, Nepalis, Pakistanis and Yemenis are estimated to have left the country in the last three months.

…

Some 3,000 Indonesian illegal workers in Jeddah are in detention, awaiting deportation, Indonesian officials say.

They had gathered under a flyover with all their belongings, giving themselves up to the authorities.

An estimated nine million migrant workers in Saudi Arabia – more than half the workforce – fill manual, clerical, and service jobs.

Saudi Arabia has the Arab world’s largest economy, but the authorities are trying to reduce the 12% unemployment rate among native Saudis.

That is the official propaganda. In reality, the absolute monarchy does not care about its native subjects either, and uses xenophobia as a “divide and rule” device.

The government is carrying out its threat that if any illegal migrants are left they will be punished by fines, prison or deportation.

…

Human Rights Watch has denounced the country’s labour system as “abusive”.

“The kafala, or sponsorship system ties migrant workers’ residency permits to sponsoring employers, whose written consent is required for workers to change employers or leave the country,” it has said.

“Employers often abuse this power in violation of Saudi law to confiscate passports, withhold wages and force migrants to work against their will or on exploitative terms.”

Dutch NOS TV says that during recent days, Saudi police arrested over 16,000 workers.

The report by Al Jazeera uncritically parrots the government propaganda about supposedly helping native Saudi unemployed workers, and claims ‘more than 4,000’ workers were arrested.

Is this low number and this repeating of regime rationalizations for xenophobia a sign of censorship of Al Jazeera by its owners, the princely family of Qatar, who don’t want trouble with their Saudi colleagues? Or is it self-censorship?

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