• Footballer trapped in Qatar ‘on brink of suicide’
    9 replies, posted
[QUOTE]Qatar’s troubled hosting of the 2022 World Cup has drawn criticism for all manner of reasons, from widespread fears over players' safety in blazing heat which have forced a gradual acceptance that the tournament will be moved to winter, to protests and campaigns to highlight the awful fate of many of the migrant workers that are building the infrastructure to help hold the FIFA extravaganza. But the extraordinary suffering of footballer Zahir Belounis may be the most devastating expose to hit the Gulf State as it tries to project an image of a modern, compassionate country deserving of the right to host the World Cup finals. Because Belounis has been stranded in a particularly pernicious form of limbo in Qatar ever since becoming involved in a pay dispute with his club, El Jaish. As documented by CNN reporter James Masters, Belounis has tried to stave off thoughts of suicide as well as threatening a hunger strike after two years in which he has been unable to procure an exit visa to leave the country. "I feel like a hostage," Belounis told CNN in October. "Life has become a nightmare for me, my wife and my two small daughters. I try to be the best daddy I can but after I tuck them in at night, I go to bed and cry like a baby. They killed me inside. I hated myself. I had very dark thoughts." Belounis, who is French, is trapped in the country as Qatar has refused to issue him with an exit permit while he maintains in a legal dispute that he is owned two years’ wages from El Jaish. French president Francois Hollande even tried to intervene in June, to no avail.[/QUOTE] [url]http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/blogs/pitchside-europe/footballer-trapped-qatar-brink-suicide-040939061.html[/url]
Would you people just pay the man and allow him to leave the country, since he clearly has no wish to stay here anymore? I'll never understand why people can be so tight-fisted.
wow, even the french president tried to help? isn't this a big matter of international relations cracking at this point
[QUOTE=Zonesylvania;42861674]Would you people just pay the man and allow him to leave the country, since he clearly has no wish to stay here anymore? I'll never understand why people can be so tight-fisted.[/QUOTE] Nothing is easy when there is money involved.
[QUOTE=Zonesylvania;42861674]Would you people just pay the man and allow him to leave the country, since he clearly has no wish to stay here anymore? I'll never understand why people can be so tight-fisted.[/QUOTE] This is Qatar. Don't [b]ever[/b] go and work there (unless the company you work for is based elsewhere and needs you there for a week or 2) because you'll effectively be imprisoned.
[QUOTE=Zonesylvania;42861674]Would you people just pay the man and allow him to leave the country, since he clearly has no wish to stay here anymore? I'll never understand why people can be so tight-fisted.[/QUOTE] He is owned some money, not owed. He owes people money.
I'm an alt of a user here, I'm not so active but I wanted to remain anonymous to share this story similar to the one in the OP. I used to live in Kuwait where my father worked for a company that was going to deploy a state-wide wireless cloud. He was the CEO of the company which was unusual because my father is Lebanese (with dual French nationality) and the board of directors and higher ups are usually comprised of Kuwaiti or Arabian Gulf nationals (there are a few exceptions: Wataniya, one of the main carriers in Kuwait has an American CEO but I digress). My father got into a disagreement with the board of directors over their delaying of the deployment of the network. He was worried that if they did not deploy soon, the momentum that they had gathered would dwindle and the company would be a failure. Someone in the board of directors didn't take kindly to the fact my father was attempting to sway the decisions of the board of directors and took it as a personal note. Now there is something important to understand about society in Gulf countries. Usually there are some very influential families in these countries who have big ties in the government and such. Kuwait has 5/6 such families and to no surprise, most of the board of directors was comprised of members of these families. This guy went to his buddies at the ministries and put my father on the no-fly list for 'absconding' for his work but didn't request his arrest or anything like that. As such, my dad was oblivious to the 'hit' on him so to say. A few weeks after this happened, we were at the airport on our way to Lebanon for a family holiday. When my dad presented his passport he was refused passage through the border because of his 'absconding'. The fact that we were leaving the country as a family made things even worse and gave the wrong light, it made it look like he was actually leaving the country for good. They arrested him in the middle of the airport and escorted him out. Before leaving, my dad forced us to go to Lebanon by ourselves and said everything would be alright, it was just a mistake. (a little side-note, my mother is English and I lived in the UK for a large portion of my life. As such, I don't speak Arabic and my mother has only very basic skills in Arabic. Without my dad, we were essentially going to a foreign country with no idea what to do). While I was on a flight out of the country wondering what the fuck was going to happen to him, my dad was thrown in jail in a police station that he described as being "run by the buddies of the guy who put me there". The conditions were terrible. As many of you know, the Gulf has many foreign workers from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and others. 20 people from these countries were stuck in one cell that my father was also put in. He talked to one of them whose story was atrocious. The guy presented his documents to one customs officer who okay'ed them and he went to the next. The second guy thought the traveler was lying about seeing the first guy and as a result ripped up his documents and arrested him. My dad spent 3 days in the jail and ate but one banana: no toilet paper, people were using their hands, you can guess why he didn't want to eat. He was eventually freed by the cousin of the man who had him listed as absconded. The cousin was actually a close friend of my dad's and he had no idea what happened to him. We contacted the French embassy to help my father get out and they tried their best but they couldn't do anything. Why? Because my father is Lebanese. There is an inherent racism (of course not throughout the general population, I am thankful to know more kind and friendly Kuwaitis than not) throughout the Gulf concerning Arabs from the west of the Middle East. Egyptians, Lebanese, Syrian, Palestinian etc are very much seen as untermensch alongside Indians, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis by some. I can guarantee you that if my father was a white French male who didn't speak Arabic, he wouldn't even have entered the prison. I wanted to share this story with you guys because it has the same ring to the OPs. The guy is of Algerian descent and most likely speaks at least some Arabic. This is probably the reason why the French embassy couldn't help him. The Gulf is full of nice people and I loved living in Kuwait. I have many great memories there. However the place is rife with corruption and an underlying racist tone which everyone must be careful of if they want to work and live there.
Did your dad ever get out?
Qatar should had never gotten the position for the World Cup in the first place.
Happened to me about 7 months ago after my Dad's company messed up the exit visas. Went to the immigration office just outside the airport and got it sorted then flew out. Exit visas are not always provided by the company you work for, but your sponsor (although in some cases this can be the company you're with). It just depends on who you work for, but the Western companies over there are pretty good with these things. It's an incredibly stupid system with no self-moderation, but I'm not sure I agree with the "never go and work there" - it's fine, but make sure you have the proper redundancies in place.
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