Qatar’s World Cup sparks battle for legal, social and political reform
MEI Insight No. 159
25 January 2017
Middle
East Insights
Middle East Institute, National University of
Singapore
Rule of Law Series[1]
Qatar’s World Cup sparks
battle for legal, social and political reform
By James M Dorsey
Qatar’s successful bid for the right to host the 2022 World Cup has put
the Gulf state at the forefront of demands for legal changes to its labour
regime that potentially could change the very nature of its society and
politics and serve as a model for other countries in the region. The bid has
also sparked the beginnings of long overdue debate of taboo issues, including
rules governing citizenship and naturalization.
As a result, in a world in which mega
sporting events largely fail to leave the kind of legal, social and political
change that international sports associations like the International Olympic
Committee (IOC) and the Fédération Internationale de Football Association
(FIFA), the world soccer body, hope to spark, Qatar’s World Cup and more
generally its greater sporting ambitions hold out the potential of being a rare
success story.
In making taboo issues discussable, the awarding of the World Cup to
Qatar virtually a decade before the event is scheduled to take place has
already sparked change. It potentially initiated a process of change in a
country in which concerns that stem from a demographic deficit have long
prevented the country from confronting intractable issues head on and stalled
progress towards proper rule of law.
The proof will be in the pudding since
Qatar has so far talked the talk but failed to fully walk the walk. Tackling
fundamental legal, social and economic problems associated with its kafala, or sponsorship system, that puts employees at the
mercy of their employers has stalled despite the adoption of legal changes that
streamline rather than reform the system. Qatar’s reluctance to address issues
head on has led human rights and trade union activists to question Qatar’s
sincerity in a series of reports that argued that change in the Gulf state six
years after the awarding by FIFA of the 2022 hosting rights has been
excruciatingly slow and too little too late.[2]
Qatari officials, expecting that they would
be feted for their successful bid, were taken aback by the avalanche of
criticism that hit them almost immediately after FIFA announced in December
2010 that the Gulf state would become the first Middle Eastern nation to host
one of the world’s foremost sporting events.[3]
International and domestic Qatari debate
has since focused alongside questions about the integrity of the Qatari bid on
demands for legal reform enshrined in national legislation that would ensure
improved working and living conditions of migrant workers, many of whom work on
World Cup-related infrastructure projects.
The fallout of the debate has been felt
moreover beyond Qatar as other Gulf states were forced to tinker with their
own, equally onerous migrant worker and expatriate labour regimes. In some
countries, particularly the United Arab Emirates, the pressures to which Qatar
was exposed, sparked discussion on broader social issues related to the
demographic deficit in many of the region’s statelets where debate about
citizenship and naturalization of foreigners had long been taboo.
Breaking taboos
To field an Olympic team that would earn Qatar its first ever Olympic
medal, Qatar, a tiny state with a population of 2.3 million of which only
300,000 are citizens, granted 23 athletes from 17 countries citizenship in
advance of the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games. They constituted the majority
of the Gulf state’s 39-member team.
The athletes’ naturalization, their success
notwithstanding, sparked debate about the principle of granting citizenship and
who should be awarded the right in a country in which Qatari nationals account
for a mere 12 percent of the population.[4]
Naturalization was long a taboo subject given Qatari fear that it, like any
kind of social or political change, could cost the citizenry loss of control of
their state and society. Those fears were enhanced by the fact that Qataris
realized that there were no easy solutions to a demographic deficit that would
prove unsustainable in the long term.
The Qatari debate was echoed in the UAE
where Sultan Sooud al-Qassemi, an erudite intellectual, businessman, art
collector and member of the ruling family of Sharjah, provoked controversy in
articles that advocated a rethinking of restrictive citizenship policies that
were likely to exacerbate rather than alleviate long-term problems associated
with the demographic deficit. Echoing a sentiment that is gaining traction
among Internet-savvy youth who are exposed to a world beyond the confines of
the Gulf, Al-Qassemi noted that foreigners with no rights had, over decades,
contributed to the UAE’s success. “Perhaps it is time to consider a path to
citizenship for them that will open the door to entrepreneurs, scientists,
academics and other hardworking individuals who have come to support and care
for the country as though it was their own,” he argued. [5]
To be sure, debate about the Gulf‘s labour
regime and the demographic deficit in much of the Gulf has long preceded the
awarding of the World Cup to Qatar. Yet, it took the awarding to propel issues
of social, political and legal change to prominence on international and
domestic agendas. The awarding also forced Qatar to become the first, and so
far, only, Gulf state to engage rather than ignore its critics.
Despite the regular brief arrests of
foreign journalists visiting Qatar to report on migrant labour and greater
pressures on critics based in the Gulf state, Qatar has by and large sought to
engage human rights and trade union activists in shaping internationally
accepted living and working standards for migrant workers who account for a
majority of its populations.
Such standards have been adopted by at
least three major Qatari institutions: Qatar Foundation, the 2022 Supreme
Committee for Delivery & Legacy that is responsible for organizing the
World Cup, and Qatar Rail. Qatar’s engagement and the fact that it has allowed
activists to do independent research and launch their hard-hitting critical
reports at news conferences in Doha contrasts starkly with approaches in other
Gulf states that jail their domestic critics and bar entry to foreign detractors.
International criticism has focussed on
four areas: Qatar’s failure to enshrine in national legislation those standards
adopted by major organizations that are not yet part of the country’s legal
code; the need to expand reforms to include a worker’s right to free movement
from one employer to another and to travel in and out of the country; the
granting of more political rights such as free trade union organization and
collective bargaining; and effective implementation of reforms.
The pressure for legal reform, if not
abolishment of the kafala system, is steadily building. The International
Labour Organization (ILO) in March 2016 gave Qatar a year to implement labour
reform. The ILO warned
that it would establish a Commission of Inquiry if Qatar failed to
substantially reform its controversial labour regime.[6]
Such commissions are among the ILO’s most powerful tools to ensure
compliance with international treaties. The UN body has only established 13
such commissions in its century-long history. The last such commission was
created in 2010 to force Zimbabwe to live up to its obligations.[7]
At about the same time, FIFA created a
watchdog to monitor the living and working conditions of migrant labour
employed on World Cup 2022-related construction sites. The watchdog, which has
yet to make a pronouncement, constituted the first concrete follow-up to a
report by Harvard University professor John Ruggie, a renowned human rights
scholar, that called on FIFA to “consider suspending or terminating” its
relationship with World Cup hosts who fail to clean up their human rights
records.
Finally, this year’s annual report by the US State Department on human
trafficking provided Qatar with yet another roadmap to counter World
Cup-related international criticism of its labour regime. The report took Qatar
to task on three fronts: the implementation of existing legislation and
reforms, its failure to act on a host of issues that would bring the Gulf state
into compliance with international labour standards, and its spotty reporting.[8]
The report noted that many migrant workers,
despite a ban on forcing employees to pay for their recruitment and the
withdrawal of licenses of some recruitment agencies, continue to arrive in
Qatar owing exorbitant amounts to recruiters and at times have been issued
false employment contracts.
A ministerial committee moreover
recommended the establishment of a committee that would ensure regulation of
domestic workers, who in Qatar, like in most Gulf states, are viewed as the
most vulnerable segment of the workforce because labour laws and reforms do not
apply to them. The State Department report acknowledged that Qatar had
initiated its first prosecutions with the conviction of 11 people charged with
trafficking, including ones related to domestic workers.
An initial roadmap
The US agency said that many workers continued to complain of unpaid
wages even though Qatar introduced a wage protection system in November 2015
that obliges employers to pay their employees electronically in a bid to ensure
that they are paid on time and in full. The report further quoted a 2014 study
by Qatar University’s Social and Economic Survey Research Institute as saying
that 76 percent of expatriate workers’ passports remained in their employers’
possession, despite laws against passport confiscation.
Much of the roadmap distilled from the State Department’s criticisms
and recommendations involve measures that the government could take with
relative ease. They include:
n Creation of a lead agency for anti-trafficking
efforts to replace the Qatar Foundation for Protection and Social
Rehabilitation (QFPSR) that was removed as the government’s central address,
and expansion of the new agency’s responsibilities beyond the abuse of women
and children;
n extending labour law protection to domestic
workers and ensuring that any changes to the sponsorship system apply to all
workers;
n enforcing the law banning and criminalizing the
withholding of passports by employers;
n providing victims with adequate protection
services and ensuring that shelter staff speak the language of expatriate
workers;
n reporting of anti-trafficking law enforcement
data as well as data pertaining to the number of victims identified and the
services provided to them; and
n providing anti-trafficking training to
government officials.
The roadmap would allow Qatar to take significant steps in some areas
which would likely be domestically less sensitive. It would also allow Qatar to
demonstrate that it is serious about implementation.
To be sure, the roadmap fails to address core concerns about Qatar’s
reforms to date that have focused on improving physical living and working
conditions, ensuring timely payment of wages and salaries, and countering human
trafficking. Qatar sought to address demands for less restrictive contractual
terms by adopting a new law that comes into force in December.
Never missing an opportunity to miss an
opportunity, the new law replaces indefinite-term labour contracts with
five-year agreements. Workers, however, would not be allowed to break the
contract or change employers before the contract has expired. Workers would
also continue to need their employer’s permission to travel but the reforms
introduce a government appeal mechanism. The law abolishes the requirement that
employees leave the country for two years before seeking new employment in
Qatar if an employer refuses to grant a no objection certificate.
The law upholds the institution of an exit visa but inserts the state
into equation the by obliging employees to inform the interior ministry three
days before their planned departure. The ministry rather than the employee
would then obtain the employer’s consent. The law also grants employees the
right to appeal if the employer refuses permission.
Like the roadmap, there are various steps
that Qatar could have taken in the last six years that would have bought it a
degree of confidence in its sincerity and avoided at least some of the
reputational damage the Gulf state suffered. Three major steps that come to
mind are incorporation in national legislation of those elements of the
standards adopted by the Supreme Committee and others that are not yet part of
Qatari law; a drastic and rapid rather than a gradual increase of the number of
labour inspectors employed to ensure implementation of newly adopted standards;
and adoption of a system modelled on the United States’ Federal Deposit
Insurance Company (FDIC).
One reason Qatar has been reluctant to
abolish the exit visa is the fact that the Gulf state has few extradition
treaties with other countries. As a result, businessmen who hire foreigners to
operate their businesses and give senior managers access to company bank
accounts fear that a manager could empty an account and escape the country. Critics
suggest that the government could have addressed that concern by offering
businesses FDIC-type arrangements that guarantees bank deposits up to a certain
amount.
To be fair, employer-specific visas are not unique to the Gulf. H2-B in
the United States tie low-skilled seasonal workers to particular employers, and
do not allow immediate job-to-job transitions after a contract expires.[9]
Liberalizing the Qatari labour regime also
has economic and social consequences as is evident in the United Arab
Emirates. In 2011, the UAE abolished
exit visas and allowed employers to
renew a migrant’s visa upon contract expiration without written permission from
the initial employer. A study in 2014 concluded that the reforms raised
workers’ income on average by ten percent and perhaps more alarmingly to Qatari
and other Gulf nationals, reduced the number of foreigners that returned home
after their contracts had ended.[10]
Adoption of creative measures could have eased the Catch-22 situation
that Qatar appears to be gliding into. Spotlighted by its hosting of the World
Cup, Qatar’s international reputation has been marred by perceptions that it is
not doing enough to adopt globally accepted labour standards. Yet, at the same
time it is in many ways frozen by fear and unable to come up with solutions for
a demographic problem that can only be tackled with creative approaches that
inevitably will change the nature of its society.
“Qatar has the financial means to make the
real reforms, ensure safe work and decent wages, and the international
community is ready to help when the government finally shows that it is serious,”
said International Trade Union Confederation General Secretary Sharan Burrow.[11]
A double-edged sword
The international criticism is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it
leverages Qatar’s World Cup to move the Gulf state towards some degree of legal
and social reform. On the other, the activists’ demands fuel widespread fears
among Qatari nationals, shared by populations across the region, that they will
lose control of their culture, society and state if they open the Pandora’s Box
of greater rights for non-nationals.
Those fears were reflected by Qatar’s
largely foreign-born Olympic team whose naturalization and success sparked
questions among non-Qataris who have been resident in the Gulf state and whose
children were born there but who have no real path to citizenship even though
their skills and expertise are and will be needed as the country streamlines
and diversifies its economy. Qatari naturalization law stipulates that
foreigners who speak Arabic and have resided in the country (of which the
majority is non-Arabic speaking even though Arabic is the official language)
for 25 years can be considered for citizenship on a case-by-case basis.
Limited opportunity for citizenship puts
many of the country’s non-Qatari residents in an emotional bind. They do not
want to “rock the boat” for themselves and their families, yet their existence
remains precarious. “This is where I was born, this is my home. I accept things
as they are, but it does sting,” said a South Asian professional who was born
and grew up in Qatar.[12]
Ironically, one positive social and political fallout of Qatar’s sports
strategy is that the South Asian’s sentiment is beginning to be reflected among
some Qatari youth who are more willing to openly discuss sensitive issues.
Referring to Qatar’s 14-member Olympic
handball team, 11 of whom are naturalized citizens, public sector employee
Hamed Al-Khater asked on Twitter: "If these guys get naturalized then what
about doctors, scientists, engineers, academics and artists? Don't they add
more value to society?"[13]
In another taboo-breaking incident, Doha
News, against the backdrop of persistent questions in the Western soccer fan
community about how Qatar would deal with gays attending its World Cup,
published an article entitled: "What it's like to be gay and Qatari."
Written by a man using the pseudonym Majid Al-Qatari (Majid the
Qatari), the article asserted that gay Qataris disguised their sexuality by
being publicly homophobic, but travelled abroad to be themselves. Majid
suggested that gays often got married and raised families in what amounted to putting
“a Band-Aid on a wound. The wife will get conjugal visits and the men will just
go their own way."[14]
Al-Khater’s question and Al-Qatari’s expose
are noteworthy in a country where public discussion of these issues has long
been taboo even if they likely constitute a minority view. A majority of
Qataris see homosexuality as banned by Islam and question whether foreigners
can ever become true nationals. They also fear that it would jeopardize
national identity, conservative culture and deep-rooted tribal values.
Public sentiment was reflected in demands
in 2015 for greater segregation of migrant workers who largely leave their
families behind to seek employment in Qatar. Doha’s Central Municipal Council
(CMC) recently called on the government to enforce more strictly a five-year
old ban on blue-collar workers living in neighbourhoods populated primarily by
families.
Widespread nationalist sentiment among
Qataris largely opposes any legal reform involving issues that would tinker
with Qatar’s social, economic and political system. It is largely supportive of
its dynastic rule. As a result, it has sparked questions about the country’s
use of sports as a public diplomacy effort that also employs the arts,
commercial enterprises like Qatar Airways, and mediation of regional conflicts.
Those questions have been expanded to the financial and social cost of the
sports strategy at a time of reduced energy income, belt tightening and Qatar’s
first budget deficit in 15 years.
“With most Qataris subscribing to
Wahhabism, an ultra-conservative branch of Sunni Islam, the locals didn’t want
to exchange their religious beliefs for cheap tourism dollars… While Qatar
isn’t as religiously conservative as neighbouring Saudi Arabia, it’s also not
that far removed. All Qataris are expected to wear their ‘national uniform’
while in public (a black abaya for women, a white thobe for men). Workplaces
pause for daily prayers, and fraternizing between members of the opposite sex
is generally discouraged,” said Mikolai Napieralski, a former writer for the
Qatar Museums Authority.[15]
Cultural and political norms regularly cast
a shadow over Qatar’s public diplomacy that as it progressed, would inevitably
have led to legal reform. A five-metre high statue of French soccer player
Zinedine Zidane, created by Algerian-born French artist Adel Abdessemed, was
removed in 2013 from public view after conservative Qataris insisted that it
amounted to idol worship, a violation of the Wahhabi worldview.
Enlisting the clergy
In a bid to build grassroots support for legal reform of Qatar’s labour
regime, the government has enlisted the support of religious scholars. A panel
of religious scholars, officials of Qatar’s government-sponsored human rights
committee, and international labour activists called last year for a radical
overhaul of the country’s controversial labour policies.[16]
By justifying the call on theological grounds and drawing on a parable
of Omar Ibn al-Khattab, one of the 7th century’s first four successors of the
Prophet Mohammed, widely viewed by even the most conservative or militant
Muslims as the righteous caliphs, Sheikh Ali Al Qaradaghi made it more
difficult for Qatar and other Gulf states to justify evading radical labour
reforms.
Al Qaradaghi serves as secretary general of
the International Union of Muslim Scholars (IUMS), a group headed by Sheikh
Yusuf Qaradawi, one of the most popular religious leaders in the Muslim world.
Speaking at the Research Centre for Islamic
Legislation and Ethics (CILE) of Hamad Bin Khalifa University’s Qatar Faculty
of Islamic Studies, Al Qaradaghi said: “We see (migrants) working for us … But
there is no appreciation. There is no love dedicated to those people. The earth
was made for all creatures, all human beings, not one category of people… Arab
and Muslim countries ought to take care of those who provide long periods of
service and participate in the building of these countries. We need to take
care of these people.”
Al Qaradaghi called further for paying
migrant workers, who account for a majority of the Qatari population, a living
wage that was related to the cost of living in the Gulf. He said that a monthly
wage of “QR 1,000 (USD 275), for example, in this country cannot be good
enough,” according to Doha News.
Al Qaradaghi recounted an encounter between
Omar Ibn al-Khattab and an elderly Jew who was begging. In response to the
caliph’s question why he was begging, the man said that despite working for
half a century he was unable to make ends meet. The caliph instructed his aides
to give the man money on the grounds that he had not been treated fairly. Mr.
Qaradaghi said the caliph’s gesture should serve as an inspiration for Gulf
rulers and employers.
Rule of law vs common sense
Legal reform in Qatar is best served by pressure on the Gulf state that
is measured and geared toward avoiding pushing Qataris into a defensive mode in
which their backs stiffen and they are unwilling to engage or entertain
criticism. It is a lesson learnt by human rights groups in their dealings with
the International Olympic Committee and Saudi women’s sporting rights. The
groups concluded that they only had a window of opportunity to spark change in
the period immediate before an Olympics tournament and that their voice would
not be heard in much of the four years between tournaments.[17]
Qatar appeared to be reaching a point at
which it began to push back in the summer of last year when the country’s Shura
or Consultative Assembly that nominally serves as a legislature raised
objections to the law that introduced changes to the kafala system. The council
took issue with provisions that dealt with the entry, exit and residency of
migrant workers. Underlining Qatar’s refusal to be seen to be bullied, Al
Sharq, a Qatari news portal, quoted council chairman Mohammed bin Mubarak Al
Khulaifi as saying that there was no need to rush the draft law.[18]
The law that was ultimately adopted conformed with many but not all of the
council’s demands.
Qatar’s debates about labour, citizenship and art highlight the
sensitivities involved in legal reforms that have far-reaching social, economic
and political consequences. They also contextualize the role that the awarding
of the World Cup, alongside other public diplomacy tools, has had in putting
controversial issues in the public eye and initiating a process of change no
matter how tentative and how much it appears often to involve cosmetic rather
than real change. There is no guarantee what the outcome of those debates and
the process will be. It nonetheless creates a dynamic that needs to play out
and that potentially is the mechanism that will ultimately open the door to
substantial legal reform.
That is also true for debates about the rule of law and the integrity
of the Qatari World Cup bid that has been consistently questioned by the Gulf
state’s critics, credible media reporting, and that is being investigated by
Swiss judicial authorities and could become part of the US Justice Department’s
investigation into corruption in global soccer governance.
Qatar spent a multitude of money on its
World Cup bid in comparison to its competitors. Its decision to splash was not
one simply taken by a bunch of oil-rich Arabs dressed in pyjamas with tea
towels on their heads and dollars coming out of every pore in their bodies.
Like all other bids, it was the result of a rational cost/benefit analysis.
Unlike its competitors, Qatar’s reason for bidding was not simply soft power
but a key element of its foreign and defence policy that makes it far more
valuable.
Qatar recognizes that big ticket military
hardware purchases will not allow it to defend itself. Qatar, moreover, despite
closer relations with Saudi Arabia under Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, does
not want to have to be totally dependent for its defence on external powers
like the United States or regional powers like
Saudi Arabia and Iran, both of which it views as much as neighbours as
well as potential threats.
Qatar’s misfortune is that the integrity of
its bid is in question at a time when it is becoming evident that bribery and
corruption in World Cup bids was standard practice in FIFA. In fact, it was
controversy over the Qatari bid that exposed the pervasiveness of corruption in
global soccer governance.
The question is how one best extracts
positive change out of a bad situation. Depriving Qatar of its hosting rights,
as many of its critics have demanded, is unlikely but remains nonetheless a
distinct possibility, and is certain not to produce social or political change.
On the contrary, it would not only stiffen Qatari backs but also rally the
support of the Muslim world that would view penalizing the Gulf state as
another Islamophobic affront.
Moreover, the fact of the matter is that
most sporting mega-events leave a legacy of white elephants and debt. A recent
video clip on social media illustrated dilapidated, discarded facilities in
cities like Sarajevo and Athens that have hosted past Olympic Games.
The Qatar World Cup holds out the potential of change. It is a hope and
process with no guarantee of success that deserves to run its course. Giving
the process a chance of moving forward, would, if successful, provide far more
significant and long-lasting results than depriving Qatar of its hosting rights
on the grounds of justice having been done.
Dr. James M. Dorsey is
a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies,
co-director of the University of Würzburg’s Institute for Fan Culture, and the
author of The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer blog, a book
with the same title, Comparative Political Transitions between Southeast Asia and the Middle
East and North Africa, co-authored with Dr. Teresita Cruz-Del Rosario and
a forthcoming book, Shifting
Sands, Essays on Sports and Politics in the Middle East and North Africa.
[1] All the
contributions to this Insight are inspired by, and many of the individual
authors supported by, Qatar National Research Fund's National Priorities
Research Program Grant 6-459-5–050, the Rule of Law in Qatar and the Arab Gulf
Project. We acknowledge the invaluable assistance of Noha Aboueldahab, Sarah
Kofke-Egger, Susan Newton, Gwenn Okruhlik, Lubna Sharab, Sylvain Taouti and
RA’s at Qatar University and the University of Massachusetts-Amherst.
[2] Amnesty International, The Ugly Side of the Beautiful Game, 30 March
2016, https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/mde22/3548/2016/en/
/ International Labour Organization, Complaint concerning non-observance by
Qatar of the Forced Labour Convention, 1930 (No. 29), and the Labour Inspection
Convention, 1947 (No. 81), made by delegates to
the 103rd Session (2014) of the International Labour Conference under
article 26 of the ILO Constitution, 17 March 2016, http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---ed_norm/---relconf/documents/meetingdocument/wcms_459148.pdf
[3] James M. Dorsey, How Qatar is Its Own Worst Enemy, The International
Journal of History of Sport, Vol. 32:3, p. 422-439
[4] Tom Finn, Qatar's recruited athletes stir debate on citizenship,
Reuters, 25 August 2016, http://www.reuters.com/article/us-qatar-olympics-nationality-idUSKCN11015P
[5] Sultan Sooud Al Qassemi, Give expats an opportunity to earn UAE
citizenship, Gulf News, 11 October 2013, http://gulfnews.com/opinion/thinkers/give-expats-an-opportunity-to-earn-uae-citizenship-1.1234167
[6] International Labour Organization, Complaint concerning non-observance
by Qatar of the Forced Labour Convention, 1930 (No. 29), and the Labour
Inspection Convention, 1947 (No. 81), made by delegates to the 103rd Session
(2014) of the International Labour Conference under article 26 of the ILO
Constitution, 17 March 2016, http://www.ilo.org/gb/GBSessions/GB326/WCMS_459148/lang--en/index.htm
[7] International Labour Organization, Complaints/Commissions of Inquiry
(Art 26), Undated, http://www.ilo.org/dyn/normlex/en/f?p=NORMLEXPUB:50011:0::NO::P50011_ARTICLE_NO:26
[8] United States Department of State, Trafficking in Persons Report, June
2016, https://www.state.gov/documents/organization/258876.pdf
[9] Daniel Costa, H-2B employers and their congressional allies are
fighting hard to keep wages low for immigrant and American workers, Economic
Policy Institute, 6 October 2011, http://www.epi.org/publication/2b-employers-congressional-allies-fighting/
[10] Suresh Naidu, Yaw Nyako and Shing-Yi Wang, Worker Mobility in a Global
Labor Market: Evidence from the United Arab Emirates, The National Bureau of
Economic Research, March 2014, http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/intranet/calendar/suresh_naidu.pdf
[11] James M Dorsey, ILO to Qatar: Put your money where your mouth is or
else, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer, 28 March 2016, https://mideastsoccer.blogspot.sg/2016/03/ilo-to-qatar-put-your-money-where-your.html
[12] Interview with the author, 18 March 2016
[13] Hamed al-Khater, Twitter, 10 August 2016, https://twitter.com/HamadK7/status/763351422167556097
[14] Majid Al-Qatari, What it’s like to be gay and Qatari, Doha News, 5
August 2016, http://dohanews.co/what-its-like-to-be-gay-and-qatari/
[15] Mikolai Napieralski, Qatar’s oil boom created the world’s most
extravagant art scene—and also led to its demise, Quartz, 24 August 2016, http://qz.com/764975/qatars-oil-boom-created-the-worlds-most-extravagant-art-scene-and-also-led-to-its-demise/
[16] James M Dorsey, Religious support for Qatari labour reforms puts Gulf
states on the spot, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer, 15 September
2015, https://mideastsoccer.blogspot.sg/2015/09/religious-support-for-qatari-labour.html
[17] Interviews with the author in April and July 2016
[18] James M. Dorsey, Advisory Council rejects labour reform as Qatar
stiffens its back, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer, 24 June 2015, https://mideastsoccer.blogspot.sg/2015/06/advisory-council-rejects-labour-reform.html
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