The case of Abdullah Ibhais, a former World Cup employee who raised concerns over the treatment of migrant workers in Qatar and was later jailed in what Amnesty have described as an “unfair trial”, has been referred to the United Nations.
A UN expert group on arbitrary detention is investigating now that Ibhais has exhausted all legal avenues in Qatar, having lost his final appeal on 7 November. His family, who consider him a “political prisoner”, have made an urgent appeal to the UN as they say he has been subjected to torture and physical assault in the days leading up to the World Cup in November.
A statement by the Ibhais family said: “Abdullah spent four of those days in complete darkness in solitary confinement, after being physically assaulted by the prison guards.
“He was in a cell of two by one meters, with a hole in the ground as a bathroom, and with temperatures near freezing as the prison’s central air-conditioning was used as a torture device.”
In 2019, Ibhais was working as a media manager for the Supreme Committee, the body responsible for organising the Qatar World Cup. In messages seen by i, he brought attention to the working conditions of 200 World Cup workers who had been involved in the construction of the Educational City Stadium and the Al Bayt Stadium, finding that they had not been paid for four months and had worked long hours in the heat with no drinking water.
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Ibhais is serving a three-year sentence after being accused of leaking information to a Turkish company – which was applying to run the World Cup’s Arabic social media channels – in return for Turkish citizenship. His legal representatives say the tender was never even awarded and that supposedly incriminating messages, recordings and videos were never seen in court; he says a confession used in evidence was obtained by coercion and he was told prison guards would break his legs if he did not sign it.
As reported by i last month, he has been considering another hunger strike from the prison just a few kilometers away from the stadia where the World Cup is being played, a proximity the family say “will forever torture us”.
“Abdullah is a father of two children, four and six years old, who keep asking their mother every day ‘why has dad stopped loving us?'” the Ibhais family added.
“We, the family of Abdullah Ibhais, are calling out Fifa and its president, Gianni Infantino, who once said the World Cup is he voice of the marginalised. Your deeds haven’t lived up to your words. Fifa is complicit in Abdullah’s imprisonment and Fifa’s silence is tearing apart our family. We refuse Fifa’s callous indifference… we’re calling today on FIFA to take responsibility and finally own up to this human rights travesty.”
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Mr Ibhais recently told his brothers he was being punished because guards had accused him of trying to smuggle a letter to his wife.
“I think the temperature reached four Celsius at some points,” he said.
“I was already suffering from several bruises after the prison guards’ assault, and I was shivering all the time, as the cold air directed to me never stopped. I hardly slept during those four days.”
His latest appeal hearing took place without prior notice and neither Ibhais nor his lawyers were present. Qatar’s Court of Cassation, a court with a similar status to the UK’s Supreme Court, ruled against him but not did publish their decision for more than three weeks after the hearing.
When legal proceedings were first brought against him, he was initially able to communicate with Fifa, but his family say their Human Rights department stopped responding to messages. That accusation was put to Fifa last month by i, to which a spokesperson said: “Fifa has been following this matter closely. It is Fifa’s position that any person deserves a trial that is fair and where due process is observed and respected.”
Human Rights Watch and Fair Square, another human rights group, are advocating on his behalf.
The UN group will now investigate whether they deem that Ibhais has been unfairly detained, in which case the Qatari state would come under renewed pressure to release him.
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