The UN's Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has considered the case of Abdullah Ibhais and their conclusions are clear: There was never any wrongdoing on Ibhais’ part. The state of Qatar and the Supreme Committee, the World Cup organisers, are to blame for the trumped up charges and his imprisonment.
By Håvard Melnæs
In March, the UN’s Working Group had its 99th session and one of the cases they dug into was the trial of Abdullah Ibhais, the former media manager of the Supreme Committee who was sentenced first to five years in prison, which in a later court hearing was reduced to three years.
The Working Group found that the detention of Abdullah Ibhais falls under three categories of arbitrary detention; detention lacking any legal basis, detention resulting from the exercise of peaceful expression of opinion and non-observance of the international norms relating to the right to a fair trial.
Abdullah Ibhais was punished by his employer for standing up for thousands of starving and desperate migrant workers. The workers hadn’t received their salaries for up to six months, and hundreds of them were working on World Cup stadiums.
Abdullah Ibhais had denied to do what his boss, the secretary general of the Supreme Committee, Hassan Al Thawadi insisted he should do:
“We need to get our social media people to clarify that it’s not 2022 related.”
But Abdullah Ibhais, who had visited and talked to the striking migrant workers, interfered and told Al Thawadi that it was indeed very much related to the World Cup.
Hassan A...