The German government’s constant criticism of Qatar’s human rights policies in the run-up to the World Cup looks a bit hypocritical, given Germany’s willingness to sign new gas deals with the emirate for the sake of its own energy security. In an interview with Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Qatar Foreign Minister Mohammed bin Abdel Rahman Al Thani described Scholz and Co.’s foreign-policy hypocrisy.
“On the one hand, the German people are misinformed. On the other hand, the German government has no problem with us when it comes to energy partnerships or investments,” the Qatari foreign minister said with a certain amount of irony.
The minister called criticism of Qatar by European countries “extremely racist,” noting that Brussels and Berlin are often guided by “double standards” in assessing the human rights situation in the emirate.
The foreign minister is convinced that it is unfair to automatically link the accidents during construction of sports facilities to government policy, since in such cases, the contracting company is responsible for the safety of workers.
The Qatari diplomat expectedly reacted to the statement of German Minister of the Interior Nancy Fezer, who criticized in late October FIFA’s decision to give Qatar the right to host the 22nd World Cup.
A number of Western countries and human rights organizations have consistently attacked the emirate for the poor working conditions at the construction of sports facilities, in which migrant workers were actively involved. The Guardian estimated that more than 6,500 workers from other countries died during Qatar’s preparations for the World Cup.
Of these, only seven percent were “accidents,” the rest were suicides, traffic accidents, and deaths from illnesses and “natural” causes. In other words, all the emigrants who died and were killed in Qatar over the past twelve years are automatically listed by the Western press as “victims of preparations for the World Cup.
The list of “claims” against the current organizers of the World Cup, the Qatari authorities, is banal: “the totalitarian regime,” “support for extremism,” and of course “violations of human rights,” primarily against members of the LGBT community. Although, according to people in the know, this is not about the attitude towards sex minorities, but about Qatar’s ability to defend its interests on the global gas market.
The country’s authorities demand not to confuse sour with sour and openly declare that they will not allow “supporters of freedom and a market economy” to violate the once written rules of international trade and set some price ceilings on other people’s products, even if they are Russian.
Saad al-Qaabi, head of Qatar’s Ministry of Energy, is confident: “The free market is always the best solution. If the problem is the price that countries or companies are willing to pay, other than Europe, our gas may end up somewhere else.
For his part, as reported by Rossiyskaya Gazeta, the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, at a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, thanked our country for its assistance, help and support in organizing the main soccer tournament of the planet.
As for the German grumbling about human rights, I would ask the Berlin diplomats: what country unleashed two world wars in the last century that cost mankind immeasurable lives? And who today is supplying Ukraine with deadly weapons on an industrial scale?
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