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A soccer game.....at the cost of lives and human rights

Not for the first time has the Qatari government been the subject of trenchant criticism for the way workers on the stadiums for the 2022 FIFA World Cup have been treated.  

 truthdig reports on the latest news - and yet another critical report - on that front....

"According to the report, migrant workers have endured major human rights violations while building stadiums for the 2022 FIFA World Cup.

The BBC reports:

Amnesty said every migrant it had interviewed had reported abuses of one kind or another, including being:

required to pay fees of up to $4,300 to recruiters in their home country to get a job in Qatar

deceived over the type of work and the pay on offer, which was sometimes half as much as they were promised

threatened for complaining about their conditions

One metal worker from India who worked on the Khalifa stadium refurbishment told Amnesty he was threatened by his employer when he complained about not being paid for several months.

“He just shouted abuse at me and said that if I complained again I’d never leave the country,” the worker said.

“Ever since I have been careful not to complain about my salary or anything else. Of course, if I could I would change jobs or leave Qatar.”

Another metal worker from Nepal said his life was “like a prison”.

Some of the Nepali workers told Amnesty they were not allowed to visit their families after the earthquake last April that killed thousands and left millions displaced."

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