Qatar: Isolation Causing Rights Abuses | WPN World People News

The isolation of Qatar by Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is precipitating serious human rights violations, Human Rights Watch said on Jul 12. It is infringing on the right to free expression, separating families, interrupting medical care – in one case forcing a child to miss a scheduled brain surgery, interrupting education, and stranding migrant workers without food or water. Travel to and from Qatar is restricted, and the land border with Saudi Arabia is closed.

On June 5, 2017, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and the UAE cut off diplomatic relations with Qatar and ordered the expulsion of Qatari citizens and the return of their citizens from Qatar within 14 days. The three countries applied the travel restrictions suddenly, collectively, and without taking individual situations into account. On June 23, the three countries and Egypt issued a list of 13 demands to Qatar for ending the crisis that included shutting down Al Jazeera and other media they claim are funded by Qatar; downgrading diplomatic ties with Iran; severing ties with “terrorist organizations,” including the Muslim Brotherhood; and paying reparations to other Gulf countries for “loss of life” and “other financial losses” resulting from Qatar’s policies.

“Gulf autocrats’ political disputes are violating the rights of peaceful Gulf residents who were living their lives and caring for their families,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “Hundreds of Saudis, Bahrainis, and Emiratis have been forced into the impossible situation of either disregarding their countries’ orders or leaving behind their families and jobs.”

Human Rights Watch researchers interviewed and documented the cases of 50 citizens of Qatar, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia, as well as 70 foreign migrant workers living in Qatar, many of whose rights have been violated by restrictive policies imposed since June 5. More than 11,327 Gulf nationals were living in Qatar and nearly 1,927 Qataris in other Gulf countries, Qatar’s national human rights body reported on July 1.

Gulf nationals told Human Rights Watch that parents had been forcibly separated from their young children and husbands from their wives, and that family members were prevented from visiting sick or elderly parents. Qatari media reported that family members of a Saudi man who died in Qatar on June 8 could not enter to retrieve his body, and authorities eventually buried him in Qatar. Article 26 of the Arab Charter on Human Rights, which Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and the UAE have ratified, prohibits arbitrary expulsion of foreigners and any collective expulsion.

One Qatari man said he is cut off from his pregnant Saudi wife, who was visiting family members in Saudi Arabia when the restrictions were imposed. A Qatari woman said that she left her ailing 70-year-old Bahraini husband in Bahrain because her embassy advised her to return to Qatar. A Bahraini woman virtually went into hiding to keep her government from discovering she had remained with her Qatari husband and 2-month-old daughter, who is a Qatari citizen.

Some Gulf states have threatened citizens who remain in Qatar with specific punishments. Saudi Arabia’s General Directorate of Passports placed Qatar on its list of countries to which Saudi citizens are not allowed to travel under penalty of a three-year travel ban and a fine of 10,000 Saudi Riyals (US$2,600). On June 13, Bahrain’s Interior Ministry issued an order stating that “anyone who violates the ban … shall have his personal passport withdrawn and his request to renew it shall be denied.”

On June 12, in response to reports of family separations, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and the UAE announced that they would grant exceptions for “humanitarian cases of mixed families” for travel back and forth from Qatar and each country established hotlines. Yet, of the 12 Gulf nationals who said they tried to contact these hotlines, only two managed to get permission to go back and forth. Others said that they did not call because they worried that the three countries would use the hotlines to discover the identities of citizens who remained in Qatar.

Other Gulf nationals said that the travel restrictions had interrupted ongoing medical treatment or studies. Two Qatari parents said that their children missed scheduled surgeries in Saudi hospitals, including one girl whose mother said if she does not receive specialist treatment she could end up paralyzed, and a 67-year-old Saudi man who had to end ongoing heart and kidney treatment in Qatar. The exceptions Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Bahrain announced made no reference to medical treatment.

A Qatari woman who had been in her third year at a UAE university showed Human Rights Watch a screenshot of an email from a university administrator on June 7, informing her that the university had withdrawn her from her summer and fall courses, wishing her “success in your educational journey.” Another Qatari woman in the final year of her medical degree in the UAE also was abruptly withdrawn from her studies. All Qatari students interviewed said that the travel restrictions forced them to return to Qatar.

Four Qataris said that migrant workers they sponsor are stranded in Saudi Arabia without adequate food or water. Human Rights Watch also interviewed 70 migrant workers at various locations in Doha, nearly all of whom complained about the rise in food prices in Qatar because of increasing import costs due to the land border closure. The border closure also exacerbates existing abuses that workers said they faced, including non-payment of salaries.

Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and the UAE have sought to use their political measures against Qatar to shutter critical media outlets in their countries, especially Al Jazeera, which Gulf leaders have accused of fomenting terrorism and unrest across the region. Bahrain and the UAE have threatened to punish their own citizens for “expressing sympathy” for Qatar online.

"Gulf countries need to take a step back and see the harm they are doing to their own citizens,” Whitson said. "Gulf countries should put people’s well-being before their harmful power games.”

Source:Human Rights Watch