Abstract
Qatari activist
IT IS UNFORTUNATE, to say the least, that the 2022 Football World Cup is hosted by the oppressive dictatorial regime of my country, the State of Qatar.
The regime – led by the dictator Tamim bin Hamad Khalifa al-Thani, his terrorist gang and his immediate family – controls the judiciary, the legislative and the executive authorities as well as all print and audio-visual media, including the state-owned Al Jazeera satellite channel. It also controls the gas and oil resources of the Qatari people, prohibits peaceful freedom of expression and imposes harsh life sentences on those who criticise or oppose it.
This dictatorial regime has even gone so far as to demand the execution of peaceful Qatari activists because they exposed its human rights violations and spoke out against its corruption.
It is a disgrace to humanity that this dictatorial regime should be hosting the 2022 World Cup. Is it reasonable for the event to be hosted by those who violate the human rights of Qataris inside and outside of Qatar, as well as the rights of migrant workers in Qatar? Is it reasonable for the World Cup to be organised on the back of the regime’s support for terrorism and extremism, particularly in Libya and Syria?
The regime is deliberately keeping the Qatari people ignorant on the political, security and economic matters of the state and prevents them from monitoring its actions. In 2021, the regime tried to deceive the world with a parliament whose members were, they said, two-thirds elected by the people, and one-third appointed by Tamim. This is nothing but deception. The elected two-thirds are all civil servants, and the appointed one-third is equally made up of civil servants. The regime also prevented more than half the population from voting and from running for office on the pretext that they were second, third and fourth class citizens. This is the height of the farce.
Moreover, this parliament (the Shura Council) has no oversight on political, security and economic matters, according to the law decreed by Tamim in 2021.
All those who have criticised its backward, racist laws have been incarcerated, as have all those who assembled peacefully to protest against them.
This regime is trying to convince the world that it is civilised and that it respects human rights and spreads peace in the world. The truth is that it is deceitful, with no credibility. Any time it has intervened in another country it has brought about destruction and given rise to terrorism. The clearest evidence for this is the its interventions in Libya, Syria, Egypt, Lebanon, Sudan and Yemen, where it has caused humanitarian disasters and displacement.
It is a regime without the slightest sense of responsibility; a regime that thinks it can buy people and everything else with money. In 2011, for example, Qatar sent forces to Libya without the consent of the Qatari people, and those forces committed murder, terrorism and other crimes against men, women and children.
And it has turned against its own people, too. Qatar has been revoking citizenship of thousands of citizens from the al-Murrah tribe and others since 1996. This is a policy based on the practice of exclusion, marginalisation and punishment of the Qatari people. It went so far as to revoke citizenship of more than 6,000 Qatari citizens from the tribe between 2004 and 2005, expelling them from their homes and depriving them of electricity, water, healthcare and education.
ABOVE: Tamim bin Hamad Khalifa al-Thani pictured in Doha in February 2020
CREDIT: Ahmad Thamer Al Kuwari/Wikimedia Commons
Some were thrown over the Saudi border and those living abroad were denied entry to Qatar.
In 2003 the State Security Agency was established, which was granted extensive powers to do whatever it wanted inside and outside Qatar, thus becoming above the country’s law. It files lawsuits against Qatari activists and calls for their execution because they criticise the regime and demand respect for human rights and democracy in their country.
PICTURED: Workers walk past building work on the Khalifa International Stadium in Doha, Qatar. Migrant workers have faced awful conditions in the country
CREDIT: Jbdodane/Alamy
The regime categorically rejects all calls for democracy or the peaceful transfer of power. Anyone who makes such demands is considered its enemy – someone who deserves the death penalty or life imprisonment.
They work in tandem with Qatari embassies abroad, who refuse to renew the passports of liberal-minded Qatari citizens and human rights activists.
We are dealing with a regime that does not believe in peaceful coexistence with those of different opinions, as evidenced by the presence of Qatari citizens abroad who cannot return home out of fear for their safety because of their peaceful expression of opinions. Their inevitable fate would be life imprisonment or execution.
These sentences prove to the world the extent to which the politicised judiciary in Qatar is rotten and corrupt.
The ruling regime has imprisoned and banned from travel all Qatari human rights defenders who come under suspicion for their peaceful human rights activities, including, for example, leading Qatari human rights activist Muhammad bin Yousef al-Sulaiti, human rights activist and international coordinator Abdullah bin Ahmed Bumatar al-Muhannadi, international human rights lawyer Najib bin Muhammad al-Nuaimi, lawyers Hazza al-Marri and Rashed al-Marri, writer Abdullah al-Salem al-Marri, activists Muhammad bin Mahras al-Marri, Latifa Al-Mosefri and Nouf Al-Maadid, writer Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani, and citizens Turki bin Ali al-Arabid al-Shahwani, Saud bin Khalifa al-Thani and Issa bin Mardi al-Shammari.
On 21 July, Qatari State Security carried out a large-scale operation where they kidnapped Abdullah bin Ahmed Bumatar al-Muhannadi, as well as Issa bin Mardi al-Shammari and Saud bin Khalifa al-Thani.
Innocent people are murdered by the regime, including Fahd bin Ahmed al-Bohendi, killed in prison in 2020. An international investigation committee should be set up to look into this murder, because the investigations held here cannot be trusted.
In view of this, how can you not boycott the 2022 World Cup in Qatar? Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani and his father, Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, before him enacted laws that served their interests and allowed them to stay in power for life. Laws that give them powers to do what they want with the Qatari people and the expatriates, to seize the wealth of the Qatari people, and to practise, support and fund terrorism.
Tamim has planted fear and terror in the hearts and minds of the Qatari people. No one in our country can criticise the actions and words of the corrupt dictator, or those of his terrorist gang.
We would like to tell the world that the dictator’s hosting of the World Cup 2022 in our country is solely for the purpose of polishing and boosting the image of his precarious, corrupt, terrorist regime, and not for the sake of human civilisation or the development of football in our region and indeed in the world.
The football stadiums that were built in our country, the State of Qatar, were built on the corpses of migrant workers and the stolen wealth of the Qatari people, and on the suffering from human rights violations.
How can a decent, liberal person agree to attend the World Cup and accept that it is hosted by the State of Qatar, in the shadow of the crimes, terrorism, corruption and violations committed by the current dictatorial regime? A rejection of Qatar’s hosting of the 2022 World Cup would be an explicit rejection of these violations.
The state of Qatar cannot continue to deceive the people, or the countries of the world, with its fake and flashy slogans. The decent and free people of Qatar are determined to establish a pluralistic democratic system which is based on the protection, respect and defence of human rights. This noble goal will only be achieved when the regime is peacefully overthrown. This is a matter of time. We will never give up on our noble goal or take a single step back: in fact, we become more determined to achieve this goal every day.