Lockdown at labor camp in Qatar described as coronavirus prison

Migrant workers in Qatar have described being trapped in a coronavirus prison at the country’s largest labor camp. (File/Shutterstock)
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Updated 20 March 2020
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Lockdown at labor camp in Qatar described as coronavirus prison

  • The area is guarded by police, and workers who live there, many of whom had been working on Fifa World Cup 2022 infrastructure projects, cannot leave
  • Some workers have been told to go on unpaid leave until further notice, with only food and accommodation covered

LONDON: Migrant workers in Qatar have described being trapped in a coronavirus prison at the country’s largest labor camp.
The camp was locked down after hundreds of construction workers became sick with Covid-19.
Thousands of workers are trapped in filthy, over-crowded camps within the “Industrial Area” in Doha where the virus can spread rapidly, The Guardian reported.
The area is guarded by police, and workers who live there, many of whom had been working on Fifa World Cup 2022 infrastructure projects, cannot leave.
Qatari authorities on Tuesday announced the closure of several square kilometers of the Industrial Area.
Workers are fearful and there is an atmosphere of uncertainty.
Some workers have been told to go on unpaid leave until further notice, with only food and accommodation covered, sources at the camp told The Guardian.
“The situation is getting worse each day. Workers from camp 1 to camp 32 are in lockdown. My friends who live there are in extreme panic,” a Bangladeshi worker told The Guardian.
“We are not allowed to walk in groups or eat in a tea shop. But you can still buy food and take it home. I’m worried about my family back home. There won’t be anyone to take care of them if anything happens to me,” a Nepali worker said. He added that no one is allowed to leave the area.
On Mar. 11, authorities said 238 people under quarantine in a residential compound had tested positive for coronavirus. Subsequent announcements have linked most reported cases to migrant workers without mentioning nationalities.
Terrified workers are doing everything they can to prevent the spread of the disease. “We are doing everything to keep ourselves safe. The camp was a little dirty, so we cleaned everything, changed the bed sheets, and used spray to kill the germs,” a worker told The Guardian.
Although the country is on lockdown and has shut down almost all public spaces in the face of the outbreak, some construction workers who have not tested positive for Covid-19 say they are being forced to work after having just their temperatures checked before they begin.

Amnesty International said migrant workers trapped in camps such as those in Qatar are at particular risk of exposure to the virus.

“The Qatari government must ensure that human rights remain central to all attempts at prevention and containment of the COVID-19 virus, and also that all people have access to health care, including preventive care and treatment for everyone affected, without discrimination,” said Steve Cockburn, Amnesty International’s Deputy Director of Global Issues.

Doha’s Industrial Area is made up of warehouses, factories and workers’ accommodation. It is home to hundreds of thousands of men who live in cramped and dirty conditions. Kitchens and toilets are communal, making it very easy for virus to be transmitted.
Expats make up the majority of the population in Qatar, and the government on Thursday said there were 460 cases in the country — the highest number among the six Gulf Arab states that have reported a total of more than 1,300 coronavirus cases.


Netanyahu assails media as he testifies for first time in his corruption trial

Updated 33 sec ago
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Netanyahu assails media as he testifies for first time in his corruption trial

“I have been waiting for eight years for this moment to tell the truth,” Netanyahu told the three-judge court
“But I am also a prime minister … I am leading the country through a seven-front war. And I think the two can be done in parallel”

TEL AVIV: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took the witness stand for the first time on Tuesday in his long-running corruption trial, saying he was being hounded for his hawkish security policies.
Netanyahu, 75, is Israel’s first sitting prime minister to be charged with a crime. He is testifying at the same time Israel is engaged in a war in Gaza and facing possible new threats posed by regional turmoil, including in Syria.
Last week judges ruled that Netanyahu, indicted in 2019, must testify three times a week, forcing the longtime Israeli leader to juggle between the courtroom and the war room at Israel’s Defense Ministry, minutes away from the courthouse.
The leader of the right-wing Likud party, Netanyahu assailed the Israeli media for what he called its leftist stance and accused journalists of having hounded him for years because his policies did not align with a push for a Palestinian state.
“I have been waiting for eight years for this moment to tell the truth,” Netanyahu told the three-judge court. “But I am also a prime minister … I am leading the country through a seven-front war. And I think the two can be done in parallel.”
Prosecutors accuse Netanyahu of granting regulatory favors worth around 1.8 billion shekels (about $500 million) to Bezeq Telecom Israel (BEZQ.TA) in return for positive coverage of himself and his wife Sara on a news website controlled by the company’s former chairman.
He is also accused of negotiating a deal with the owner of Israel’s Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper for better coverage in return for legislation to slow the growth of a rival paper.
Netanyahu denies the allegations against him and has pleaded not guilty. He stood rather than sat in the witness box throughout his morning testimony.
“Had I wanted good coverage all I would have had to have done would be to signal toward a two-state solution. ... Had I moved two steps to the left I would have been hailed,” he said.
In lengthy replies, he portrayed himself as a staunch defender of Israel’s security, withstanding pressures from international powers and a hostile domestic media.

TRIAL IN UNDERGROUND COURTROOM
Netanyahu smiled confidently when he entered the Tel Aviv District Court around 10 a.m. (0800 GMT). The trial was moved from Jerusalem for undisclosed security reasons and convened in an underground courtroom.
Before Netanyahu took the stand, his lawyer Amit Hadad laid out for the judges what the defense maintains are fundamental flaws in the investigation. Prosecutors, Hadad said, “weren’t investigating a crime, they were going after a person.”
A few dozen protesters gathered outside the courthouse, some of them supporters and others demanding he do more to negotiate the release of some 100 hostages still held by Hamas in Gaza.
Israel has been waging war in Gaza against the Palestinian militant group for more than a year, during which Netanyahu had been granted a delay for the start of his court appearances. But last Thursday, judges ruled that he must start testifying.
Charged with bribery, fraud and breach of trust, Netanyahu will testify three times a week, the court said, despite the Gaza war and possible new threats posed by wider Middle East turmoil.
Netanyahu was indicted in three cases involving gifts from millionaire friends and for allegedly seeking regulatory favors for media tycoons in return for favorable coverage. He denies any wrongdoing.
In the run-up to his court date, Netanyahu revived familiar pre-war rhetoric against law enforcement, describing investigations against him as a witch hunt. He denies the charges and has pleaded not guilty.

DIVISIONS AMONG THE ISRAELI PUBLIC
Before the war, Netanyahu’s legal troubles bitterly divided Israelis and shook Israeli politics through five rounds of elections. His government’s bid last year to curb the powers of the judiciary further polarized Israelis.
The shock Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and the ensuing Gaza war swept Netanyahu’s trial off the public agenda as Israelis came together in grief and trauma. But as the war dragged on, political unity crumbled.
In recent weeks, while fighting abated on one front after Israel reached a ceasefire with Hamas’ Lebanese ally Hezbollah, members of Netanyahu’s cabinet, including his justice and police ministers, have clashed with the judiciary.
His domestic legal woes were compounded last month when the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for him and his former defense chief Yoav Gallant along with a Hamas leader, for alleged war crimes in the Gaza conflict.

Qatar urges open dialogue on Syria’s future

Updated 36 min 2 sec ago
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Qatar urges open dialogue on Syria’s future

DUBAI: Qatar’s Foreign Ministry has reiterated its commitment to engaging with all parties in Syria to shape the country’s future.

In a statement issued on Tuesday, spokesperson Majed Al-Ansari emphasized that “all doors and channels of communication” are open, highlighting the importance of collaborative efforts to achieve progress.

Al-Ansari described the situation as “historic days for the region,” and that it was a “ray of hope” for the Syrian people to fulfill their aspirations amid ongoing challenges.

He criticized Israel’s actions in Syria, stating it was unacceptable for Tel Aviv to “exploit” the current circumstances and violate that nation’s sovereignty.


Mohamed Al-Bashir named Caretaker PM of Syrian transitional government

Updated 55 min 33 sec ago
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Mohamed Al-Bashir named Caretaker PM of Syrian transitional government

In a televised statement, Mohamed Al-Bashir announced on Tuesday his appointment as the Caretaker Prime Minister of Syria’s transitional government.

Bashir will hold the position until March 1, 2025.

Al-Bashir's leadership comes during a critical period for Syria as efforts continue to navigate the country’s complex political and humanitarian challenges.

Further details about his plans for the transitional period are expected in the coming days.


Jordanian man returns home after 38 years in Syria’s prisons

Updated 10 December 2024
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Jordanian man returns home after 38 years in Syria’s prisons

  • Kodat said the man’s relatives reported his disappearance in 1986, when he was just 18, and that he had been in jail ever since

AMMAN: A Jordanian man has returned to his home country after spending 38 years in Syrian jails, an official said on Tuesday, after the fall of president Bashar Assad ended an agonizing wait for his family.
The man, named as Osama Bashir Hassan Al-Bataynah, was found in Syria “unconscious and suffering from memory loss,” Jordanian Foreign Ministry Soufian Al-Kodat told AFP.
Kodat said the man’s relatives reported his disappearance in 1986, when he was just 18, and that he had been in jail ever since.
“He was transferred from Damascus to the Jaber border crossing (with Jordan) where he was handed over to border guards,” added Kodat, saying the man had been reunited with his family on Tuesday morning.
The oposition forces who swept Assad from power on Sunday also opened the prisons and released thousands of detainees.
Civil society groups had long accused Assad of presiding over a brutal regime of arbitrary arrests, torture and murder in prisons.
Many foreigners were being held, including Suheil Hamawi from Lebanon who returned to his country on Monday after being locked up for 33 years.
The Arab Organization for Human Rights in Jordan said Tuesday there were still 236 Jordanians detained in Syria.
Amnesty International has documented thousands of killings at Saydnaya prison, whose name has become synonymous with the worst atrocities of Assad’s rule, and dubbed it a “human slaughterhouse.”
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights estimated in 2022 that more than 100,000 people had died in the jails since the start of an uprising in 2011 that led to the civil war.


Asma Assad: From ‘rose in the desert’ to international pariah

Updated 10 December 2024
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Asma Assad: From ‘rose in the desert’ to international pariah

  • Vogue published gushing profile of Syria’s ex-first lady weeks before Arab Spring
  • She and her husband now in exile in Moscow after fall of regime in Damascus

LONDON: The transformation of Asma Assad from a vaunted English “rose in the desert” to international pariah is the subject of fresh media scrutiny after the fall of the Assad regime in Syria.

A gushing March 2011 Vogue profile of former President Bashar Assad’s wife, published weeks before the Arab Spring and later deleted, highlights the destruction of her reputation, the Daily Mail reported.

The “Power Issue” profile described the London-born computer science graduate as “on a mission to create a beacon of culture and secularism” in the Middle East.

“The first impression of Asma Assad is movement: A determined swath cut through space with a flash of red soles,” it said.

The “thin, long-limbed beauty with a trained analytic mind who dresses with cunning understatement” reportedly wanted Syria’s youth to spearhead modernization by becoming “active citizens.”

But soon after the profile was published, she and her husband became the public face of a brutal crackdown on popular protests that culminated in Syria’s 13-year civil war, leading to more than 600,000 deaths and the displacement of millions.

Asma Assad turned to London law firm Carter Ruck as the civil war broke out. Newspapers who covered the family’s affairs received threatening letters, but nothing could prevent her and her husband from becoming international pariahs after regime forces carried out a series of chemical weapons attacks against civilians.

Vogue removed the “rose in the desert” profile as a WikiLeaks email hack revealed that she had spent $318,000 on luxury furniture during the first year of the civil war. US estimates put the Assad family’s wealth at $2 billion.

Asma Assad was placed under US sanctions in 2020 and described as one of Syria’s “most notorious war profiteers.”

The former first lady owns at least 18 luxury apartments in Moscow’s skyscraper district, where she is set to begin a new life in exile with her husband.