The Qatari whistleblower Abdullah Ibhais, who had criticized the inhumane treatment of migrant workers in the desert state in the past and was sentenced to three years in prison, was apparently tortured the evening before the start of the World Cup. His family raises serious allegations in an open letter published by the human rights organization "Fairsquare".
The organization is now calling on the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention to intervene - in the hope that Ibhais will be released from prison.
Ibhais was ex-communications director of the Qatar World Cup Organizing Committee. According to his own statement, he was arrested after raising concerns that the Supreme Committee wanted to deny the involvement of World Cup construction workers in a strike in Doha. Between 4,000 and 6,000 workers took part in the protest.
Ibhais had published that during the construction of the World Cup stadiums, he found 200 workers at Education City Stadium and Al Bayt Stadium who had no drinking water and had not been paid for four months.
Qatari authorities insist he was impeached and convicted in 2019 for fraud related to a contract to produce social media content for the World Cup. However, Fairsquare disagrees, claiming that Ibhais was coerced into confessing and was denied a fair trial.
In the letter that his family has now published, she describes how Ibhais was physically attacked in prison shortly before the start of the World Cup because he was working on the documentary "Qatar: State of Fear?" have contributed. He was then transferred to solitary confinement. He spent four days "in total darkness in solitary confinement." The officers used the air conditioning in his cell as an instrument of torture. "He was in a two-by-one cell with a hole in the floor for a toilet and in near-freezing temperatures." Ibhais reported it himself. He also explained to his family: "I already had several bruises from the assaults of the prison guards and was shaking all the time because the cold air that was directed at me never stopped. I hardly slept in those four days."
Fairsquare's Nicholas McGeehan said Ibhais approached Fifa before his arrest. The British "Guardian" reports. "He spoke directly to members of FIFA's human rights team," McGeehan said. "At some point, however, they just disappeared. They kind of ghosted him because they didn't know what to say anymore." After that he had no more contact with them.
Ibhais' family also directly criticizes FIFA in their letter. "Fifa is complicit in Abdullah's imprisonment and Fifa's silence is tearing our family apart. We reject Fifa's callous indifference, we refuse to back down."
According to the "Guardian", FIFA confirmed on request that it had knowledge of the letter and its contents.
Sources: The Guardian, Fairsquare, Der Spiegel
