Report Shows Sixty Percent Of Qatar’s Population Lives In Labor Camps

Israel continues to exist under a media microscope, with every move its government makes subjected to extensive handwringing by the American press. Meanwhile, in Qatar, the government released results of its 2015 census, showing that nearly 60% of its population lives in what it calls “labor camps.” The AFP report, printed in the Lebanon Daily Star, tells us,

The figures from the Ministry of Development Planning and Statistics (MDPS) revealed that 1.4 million people live in what the department officially designates as “labor camps.”

At the time of the survey, the official population was 2.4 million.

That works out at just over 58 per cent of the country’s population. . . .

Since the census, Qatar’s population has grown further to just over 2.5 million.

The accommodation of migrant laborers working on Qatar’s numerous infrastructure projects has long been a contentious issue.

Qatar, which will host the football World Cup in 2022, has been condemned by human rights groups, including Amnesty International, for providing “squalid and cramped accommodation” for its large migrant workforce.

Last week, 11 people were killed and 12 injured when a fire ripped through a camp housing laborers working on a tourism project in the southwest of the country.

Qatar campus of Northwestern U
Qatar campus of Northwestern University

Six American universities currently have campuses in Qatar, all of them receiving substantial grants from the Qatari government. Yet, the only American news outlets that seem to have reported on the new findings are Breitbart, Town Hall, and The Tower. The New York Times and the Washington Post both ran an AP story highlighting the visit of Indian Prime Minister Narenda Modi to Qatar. The AP story mentions that Amnesty termed conditions for foreign workers “forced labor” only in the last paragraph, and did not mention the new findings. I doubt there will be any editorial board comment from either the Times or the Post on the fact that Qatar, one of the richest countries in the world, is essentially practicing slavery — they need to save up their moral indignation for Israel.

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