Stop Hate Speech Now

Timothy Lenderking, the US deputy assistant secretary of state for Arabian Gulf affairs, says the US hopes to move forward with designating Qatar as a major non-NATO ally. This status provides a country with US benefits in defense trade and security cooperation. Specifically, “major non-NATO ally” (MNNA) status gives a country preferential access to US military equipment and technology, including free surplus materiel, expedited export processing and prioritized cooperation on training. Currently, 17 countries have MNNA status, including the Gulf Arab states Kuwait and Bahrain. US consideration of MNNA status for Qatar probably also reflects domestic and corporate interests: the desire to sell arms to one of the richest countries in the world. But this privileges domestic considerations over longer-term foreign policy considerations, namely the importance of bolstering allies against foes. A US decision to designate Qatar as an MNNA would not be wise. Although Qatar hosts t...

A brother of the Qatari emir repeatedly gave shocks to a migrant worker through an electronic dog collar, to intimidate his foreign labourers, a former employee claimed. According to a sworn statement, Sheikh Khalid bin Hamad Al Thani ran a human-trafficking operation and exploited overseas staff taken to Qatar to work at his car-racing operation in Doha. The claims of brutality were included in documents filed at a court in Boston, Massachusetts, by a group of US former employees. They accuse the Qatari royal of crimes including beating his wife’s Indian chauffeur to death. Sheikh Khalid, 34, is accused of offering lucrative contracts to foreign employees before forcing them to work long hours in harsh conditions, confiscating their passports and failing to pay them. In the court papers, some of the plaintiffs spoke of being traumatised and financially ruined after being forced to pay bills left by Sheikh Khalid and his entourage as they travelled between Doha, the US and ...

September 2020: American Fox News reported that concerns have been raised about the health of Sheikh Talal bin Abdulaziz Al-Thani, a Doha-based businessman and the grandson of Qatar’s founding ruler, Ahmad bin Ali. Asma Aryan, the wife of Al-Thani, has submitted petitions to UN bodies requiring interventions on her husband’s behalf. He was detained in 2013 and was initially given a five-year sentence but is presently serving 25 years. The American lawyer for Sheikh Talal, Mark Somos, said that his client is being detained for political motives and not financial as claimed by Doha. He added that Qatar’s arrest of Sheikh Talal Al-Thani contradicts Qatar’s claim of being a democracy, calling on the United Nations to pressure Doha to release Sheikh Talal Al-Thani, who is detained in its prisons. Al-Thani's lawyer also confirmed he would continue his defense to secure his release. According to the documents, Sheikh Talal was held for long periods in solitary confinement, was...

There is no shortage of compelling reasons to relocate the 2022 FIFA World Cup from the small Gulf country of Qatar to another host nation. The frequently cited arguments range from Qatar bribing members of the International Federation of Association Football’s executive committee to secure the prestigious competition, according to sources including the US Justice Department, to that nation’s oppressive heat that creates impossible playing conditions to the lack of control over COVID-19 in the Gulf state. The most pressing reason to pull the plug on the soccer World Cup in Qatar, however, is the Islamic regime’s lethal homophobic law targeting gay and lesbian sexual activity. Qatar’s statute also states that people can be incarcerated for “leading, instigating, or seducing a male in any way to commit sodomy.” It is long overdue for elite sports associations to cease rewarding nations that criminalize homosexuality. After all, the world of sports, including in the Olympic Ch...

US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Arabian Gulf Affairs Timothy Lenderking says the US hopes to move forward with designating Qatar as a major non-NATO ally. This status provides a country with US benefits in defense trade and security cooperation. Specifically, “Major Non-NATO Ally” or MNNA status gives a country preferential access to US military equipment and technology, including free surplus material, expedited export processing and prioritized cooperation on training. Currently, 17 countries have MNNA status, including the Gulf Arab states Kuwait and Bahrain. American consideration of MNNA status for Qatar probably also reflects domestic and corporate interests: the desire to sell arms to one of the richest countries in the world. But this privileges domestic considerations over longer-term foreign policy considerations, namely the importance of bolstering allies against foes. An American decision to designate Qatar as an MNNA would not be wise. Although Qatar...

Anti-Semitism has remained prevalent and is a central element of the school curriculum and education in Qatar, according to a report ‘’Understanding Qatari Ambition’’ released by IMPACT-se, the Jerusalem-based NGO Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education. ‘’For years, leaders have allowed their children to be exposed to one of the most radical jihadi curriculums in the world,’’ the report noted. The textbooks used in schools of the Gulf country regularly promote demeaning examples of Jews and Israel as well as call for “jihad” and violence towards “infidels,” the report said. The IMPACT-se reported examined over 238 Qatari textbooks used between 2016–20 and compared them to international standards based on UNESCO (the UN body for education and culture) and U.N. declarations. Qatari textbooks also often feed classic anti-Semitic tropes proposing that Jews control the world, manipulating governments and markets powers. Even though the Qatari e...

Swiss prosecutors on Tuesday called for Paris Saint-Germain president Nasser Al-Khelaifi and former FIFA number two Jerome Valcke to face prison for alleged corruption in the allocation of World Cup TV rights. The prosecution called for a 28-month sentence for Al-Khelaifi, who is also president of beIN Media, and three years for Valcke as their trial moved into its final days, the Swiss agency Keystone ATS reported. This is the first time prison sentences have been requested in a European court in trials relating to the multiple scandals in world football, although former officials from the Americas have received jail sentences in the United States. It will be the first judgement handed down in Switzerland, the seat of most international sports organisations, in the 20 or so proceedings opened in the last five years involving FIFA. The Swiss Federal Criminal Court of Bellinzona has been trying Valcke on two charges related to his quest for money to maintain what Federal Pro...

Qatar's children are being taught to hate Jews and Israel, to identify with the Palestinian cause and to engage in violent jihad, a new review of the Qatari curriculum has found. The Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se) examined 238 textbooks published within the calendar years 2016–20, used to teach grades 1-12, for its interim report: Understanding Qatari Ambition . The report, which found that Qatari education does not meet international standards, unveiled texts teaching children that Jews are evil and immoral, that they have manipulated world events including the First World War to their advantage, and that Zionism aims at achieving Jewish global dominance. "World War I helped the Zionist movement to enroll all the [warring] parties to its side, and offered promises in return for the support of Jewish Capitalism to this or that party. The movement worked in all directions to achieve its goals, whoever might win ...

Qatar is one of the world's richest countries, but around 100 laborers from Southeast Asia and Africa working on a prestigious stadium project have not been paid in seven months, Amnesty International claims. Migrant workers on a construction project for a FIFA World Cup stadium in Qatar were not paid for up to seven months, according to human rights organization Amnesty International. Around 100 workers of Qatari subcontractor, Qatar Meta Coats (QMC), are still waiting to be paid in full, Amnesty said Thursday. Some workers had received partial payment after the rights group reported the case to Qatar's authorities and  world football's governing body FIFA. The laborers, from countries including Ghana, Kenya, Nepal and the Philippines, were contracted by the Qatari company for facade work on the Al-Bayt stadium. "This case is the latest damning illustration of how easy it still is to exploit workers in Qatar, even when they are building one of the crown je...

Qatari textbooks often feed classic anti-Semitic tropes proposing that Jews control the world,  manipulating governments and markets powers. Even though the Qatari education system is heavily influenced by western educators and is the source of much pride for the government, the hate renders it unfit for the modern world. ‘’The Qataris have pumped over $1 billion into elite US universities since 2011, money that would be better spend deradicalizing their curriculum at home,’’ said Marcus Sheff, CEO of IMPACT-se. Anti-Semitism has remained prevalent and is a central element of the school curriculum and education in Qatar, according to a report ‘’Understanding Qatari Ambition’’ released by IMPACT-se, the Jerusalem-based NGO Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education.   ‘’For years, leaders have allowed their children to be exposed to one of the most radical jihadi curriculums in the world,’’ the report noted. The textbooks used in schoo...

There is no shortage of compelling reasons to relocate the 2022 FIFA World Cup from the small Gulf country of Qatar to another host nation. The frequently cited arguments range from Qatar bribing members of the International Federation of Association Football’s executive committee to secure the prestigious competition, according to  sources including the US Justice Department , to that nation’s oppressive heat that creates impossible playing conditions to the lack of control over COVID-19 in the Gulf state. The most pressing reason to pull the plug on the soccer World Cup in Qatar, however, is the Islamic regime’s lethal homophobic law targeting gay and lesbian sexual activity. Qatar’s statute also states that people can be incarcerated for “leading, instigating, or seducing a male in any way to commit sodomy.” It is long overdue for elite sports associations to cease rewarding nations that criminalize homosexuality. After all, the world of sports, including in the Olym...

Qatari authorities’ efforts to protect migrant workers’ right to accurate and timely wages have largely proven unsuccessful, Human Rights Watch said in a report and an accompanying video released today. Despite a handful of reforms in recent years, withheld and unpaid salaries, as well as other wage abuses, are persistent and widespread across at least 60 employers and companies in Qatar. The 78-page report, “‘ How Can We Work Without Wages?’: Salary Abuses Facing Migrant Workers Ahead of Qatar’s FIFA World Cup 2022 ” shows that employers across Qatar frequently violate workers’ right to wages and that Qatar has failed to meet its 2017 commitment to the International Labour Organization (ILO) to protect migrant workers from wage abuses and to abolish the kafala system, which ties migrant workers’ visas to their employers. Human Rights Watch found case after case of wage abuse across various occupations including security guards, servers, baristas, bouncers, cleaners, manage...

By Leander Schaerlaeckens Why is Qatar still getting to a host a World Cup? Why, after all that has happened, after all that is still happening , is there no momentum to strip the tiny petrostate of the privilege to put on the 2022 FIFA World Cup? Scroll to continue with content Don’t we know enough? What more is there to know before something is done? Because we know the human toll of all that construction. We know that hundreds of migrant workers have died building the stadiums and infrastructure for the World Cup. We know that they were sacrificed at the altar of good PR, the only good reason to host a World Cup. And since Qatar has no sporting culture to speak of but needed to look modern and shiny, that has meant the furious construction of modern and shiny stadiums, airports and hotels. Qatar was awarded the World Cup in 2010. By 2013, more than 1,200 migrant laborers had already died due to the deplorable working conditions, according to the International Trade U...

Qatar won’t join Gulf Arab neighbors in establishing diplomatic relations with Israel until its conflict with the Palestinians is resolved, the Qatari assistant foreign minister said. Lolwah Alkhater also suggested in an interview Monday that there may soon be progress toward ending a three-year-old boycott of her country by regional states. Alkhater spoke to Bloomberg a day before Israel and the United Arab Emirates are to sign the first treaty between a Gulf Arab nation and the majority-Jewish state. On Friday, Bahrain announced that it, too, would normalize relations with Israel, to the dismay of the Palestinians, who see the alliances with Israel as a betrayal of their statehood cause. “We don’t think that normalization was the core of this conflict and hence it can’t be the answer,” Alkhater said. “The core of this conflict is about the drastic conditions that the Palestinians are living under” as “people without a country, living under occupation.”

The former head of Qatar state-owned and funded Al Jazeera has called for a blacklist of journalists, writers, and analysts he considers supportive of the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain's decision to normalize ties with Israel, suggesting two Saudi and Emirati writers himself. “For the purposes of documentation, who are the journalists, writers, and politicians who supported the Emirati and Bahraini normalization normalizers_list ? I remember Turki al-Hamad from Saudi Arabia, Abdulkhaleq Abdulla from the UAE, and Zaid al-Obeidat from Jordan ... the rest of the list:” Yasser Abu Hilala, the former managing director of Al Jazeera Arabic from July 2014 to May 2018, tweeted on Friday. For all the latest headlines, follow our Google News channel online or via the app. Abu Hilala, whose tweet was seen as a direct attack on his colleagues from neighboring Arab countries, then followed up by asking his followers to provide evidence of those who appeared to support the histori...