Qatar charges Kenyan guard who wrote on plight of workers
DOHA - A Kenyan security guard detained by Qatar has been charged with receiving money from a “foreign agent” to spread disinformation within the Gulf state, officials said on Saturday.
The announcement follows a demand by five international rights groups on Friday that Qatari authorities disclose the whereabouts of and “immediately” release Malcolm Bidali, saying he had been “forcibly disappeared” after he wrote a blog criticising migrants’ working conditions.
The government’s communications office said Bidali “has been formally charged with offences related to payments received by a foreign agent for the creation and distribution of disinformation” in Qatar.
His case was referred to the public prosecution “following a thorough investigation by the authorities,” it said in a statement received by AFP.
“Mr Bidali is receiving legal advice and representation ahead of the court date, which has not yet been set,” it added.
Bidali, under his pen name Noah, published a series of articles on the plight of foreigners who labour in the gas-rich host of the 2022 World Cup, including on vast construction projects for the football tournament.
A Qatari government official confirmed that Bidali was taken into custody early this month.
On Friday the five rights groups - Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, MigrantRights.org, FairSquare and the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre - called for his immediate release.
“More than three weeks after Mr Bidali was forcibly disappeared by state security services, authorities are still refusing to reveal his whereabouts or explain why he has been detained,” the groups said in a joint statement.
The rights groups said he “appears to have been detained for the peaceful exercise of his human rights”, adding that he was seized from his home on 4 May by state security forces.
The gas-rich nation is frequently criticised by international organisations over the treatment of its hundreds of thousands of foreign workers, mostly from Africa and Asia.
Doha, however, has made a series of reforms to its employment regulations since it was selected to host the World Cup.
FIFPRO, the global footballers’ union, said last week it was “concerned” by the detention of Bidali, who “a week before his arrest spoke to trade union officials about his experiences of working in the country”.