Torture by Police, Forced Disappearance & Other Ill Treatment In the early years of the 21st Century, 2000 to
2025 gvnet.com/torture/Qatar.htm
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CAUTION: The following links
have been culled from the web to illuminate the situation in Qatar. Some of these links may lead to websites
that present allegations that are unsubstantiated or even false. No
attempt has been made to validate their authenticity or to verify their content. HOW TO USE THIS WEBPAGE Students If you are looking
for material to use in a term-paper, you are advised to scan the postings on
this page and others to see which aspects of Torture by Authorities are of
particular interest to you. You might
be interested in exploring the moral justification for inflicting pain or
inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment in order to obtain critical
information that may save countless lives, or to elicit a confession for a
criminal act, or to punish someone to teach him a lesson outside of the
courtroom. Perhaps your paper might
focus on some of the methods of torture, like fear, extreme temperatures,
starvation, thirst, sleep deprivation, suffocation, or immersion in freezing
water. On the other hand, you might
choose to write about the people acting in an official capacity who
perpetrate such cruelty. There is a
lot to the subject of Torture by Authorities.
Scan other countries as well as this one. Draw comparisons between activity in adjacent
countries and/or regions. Meanwhile,
check out some of the Term-Paper
resources that are available on-line. ***
ARCHIVES *** 2020 Country
Reports on Human Rights Practices: Qatar U.S. Dept of State Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and
Labor, 30 March 2021 www.state.gov/reports/2020-country-reports-on-human-rights-practices/qatar/
[accessed 4 August
2021] TORTURE AND OTHER
CRUEL, INHUMAN, OR DEGRADING TREATMENT OR PUNISHMENT The constitution
and law prohibit torture and other inhuman or degrading treatment and
punishment. The government
interprets sharia as allowing corporal punishment for certain criminal
offenses, including court-ordered flogging in cases of alcohol consumption
and extramarital sex by Muslims. Courts typically reduced sentences to
imprisonment or a fine. The Ministry of Interior reported 375 sentences that
resulted in flogging as a punishment in 2019. In May authorities executed a
death sentence by a firing squad against a Nepalese expatriate who was
accused of murdering a Qatari citizen in 2017. The court upheld the sentence
after the family of the victim had refused the blood money in return for
degrading the sentence. ARREST PROCEDURES
AND TREATMENT OF DETAINEES In October, Amnesty
International published a report detailing the 2018 arrest and detention for
five months without charge of Mohamed al-Sulaiti
and also posted on Twitter comments that criticized the government for
imposing a travel ban on al-Sulaiti. In August,
Amnesty International published a report regarding four persons, including
al-Sulaiti, who were put under a travel ban without
trial. Amnesty International alleged that in all of these cases authorities’
actions were conducted purely administratively, without affording any legal
recourse by which the affected individuals could contest or appeal the
decisions or present their claims to an independent reviewer. Journalist dies in
prison in Qatar after alleged torture Tommy Hilton, Saudi
Gazette, Dubai, 29 April 2020 [accessed 1 May
2020] “According to a
statement by human rights organizations, the detainee #Fahad_Bohendi,
a #Qatari_journalist opposed to the regime, was
arbitrarily imprisoned for three years, deprived of the most basic human
right inside the prison, and then killed under torture,” wrote GAFHAR on
Twitter. Bohendi, a Qatari who had
a degree from the UK’s Teesside University, was reportedly arrested three
years ago due to his work as a social media activist. According to
GAFHAR, Bohendi had recently joined a group of
fellow prisoners and rebelled against prison guards because they were scared
of the spread of coronavirus in the prison. He was transferred to a solitary
cell, where he went on hunger strike and was then moved to the Abu Hamour prison. In Abu Hamour, Bohendi was “beaten,
injured, and then died because of torture,” said GAFHAR, adding that
authorities buried him in an unknown location without allowing his family to
see the body. Freedom House
Country Report 2018 Edition freedomhouse.org/country/qatar/freedom-world/2018 [accessed 18 May
2020] F3. IS THERE
PROTECTION FROM THE ILLEGITIMATE USE OF PHYSICAL FORCE AND FREEDOM FROM WAR
AND INSURGENCIES? There have been
some allegations of torture and other mistreatment of detainees in recent
years, but legal bans on such abuse are generally respected. Prison
conditions reportedly meet international standards. Corporal punishment in
the form of flogging can be imposed on Muslim defendants for certain offenses
under Sharia (Islamic law), including alcohol consumption and extramarital
sex. Qatar: Investigate
torture allegations of Filipino man convicted on basis of forced
‘confessions’ Amnesty
International AI, 6 March 2015 [accessed 6 April
2015] Torture in
pre-trial detention - Ronaldo Lopez Ulep was arrested
in Doha in April 2010. According to information received by Amnesty
International, he endured repeated bouts of physical and psychological
torture and other ill-treatment for the first eight months of his detention
in the state security prison. During two interrogation sessions he was burned
with cigarettes on his back and legs, stripped naked and forced to crawl
around on the floor until his knees bled, and was frequently punched and
slapped. He was then forced to sign a document in Arabic, which he could not
read, that was later presented in court as a “confession”. Following his
arrest, he spent four years in solitary confinement and was only allowed out
of his cell two or three times a week for 15 minutes at a time. He was not
permitted to go outdoors. After three years, he was given permission to leave
the cell once a day after a doctor’s recommendation due to high blood
pressure. During his time in
detention he was also held for prolonged periods with his hands bound behind
his back and deprived of sleep by guards who taunted him with claims that his
family were dead. The state of the
world's human rights Amnesty
International AI, Annual Report 2013 www.amnesty.org/en/region/qatar/report-2013 [accessed 6 Feb
2014] TORTURE AND OTHER
ILL-TREATMENT
- New cases of torture and other ill-treatment emerged. Following their
release, Abdullah al-Khawar and Salem al-Kawari alleged that while detained without
charge or trial as security suspects in 2011, they were beaten, suspended by
their limbs and made to remain standing for hours at a time, deprived of
sleep, held in solitary confinement in tiny cells, and subjected to cold
temperatures for long periods while interrogators sought to obtain
“confessions” from them. The authorities took no steps to investigate their
allegations or bring the perpetrators to justice. In November,
following its review of Qatar’s implementation of the UN Convention against
Torture, the UN Committee against Torture urged the government to ensure that
the fundamental safeguards required by the Convention were applied in
practice to all persons deprived of their liberty, including by ensuring that
complaints of abuse were promptly and impartially examined and that detainees
could challenge the legality of their detention or treatment. Conclusions and
recommendations of the Committee against Torture U.N. Convention
against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or
Punishment -- Doc. CAT/C/QAT/CO/1
(2006) www1.umn.edu/humanrts/cat/observations/qatar2006.html [accessed 5 March
2013] C. Subjects of concern and recommendations 14. There are
different regimes applicable, in law and in practice, to nationals and
foreigners in relation to their legal right to be free from conduct that
violates the provisions of the Convention, including their human right to
complain of such conduct. The State party
should ensure that the Convention and its protections are applicable to all
acts that are in violation of the Convention and that occur within its
jurisdiction, from which it follows that all persons are entitled, in equal
measure and without discrimination, to the rights contained therein. 16 Some detainees
are subject to limitations on the right to have access to a lawyer, an
independent doctor, and/or to notify one’s family. For example, despite the provisions in the
Criminal Procedure Code requiring persons to be charged or released within 48
hours, detentions for periods of up to six months, and in certain cases, up
to two years, may be imposed for persons detained under the Protection of
Society Law, which does not provide the right to have access to an attorney
or one’s relatives during this extended period. In addition, reported unequal treatment of
non-citizens in the arrest and detention process raises concern in this
regard. The State party
should ensure in law and practice that all persons detained or in custody
have prompt access to a lawyer and to an independent doctor, as well as the
means to notify a relative when detained, all important safeguards against
torture and ill-treatment. ***
EARLIER EDITIONS OF SOME OF THE ABOVE *** Human Rights
Reports » 2005 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices U.S. Dept of State Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and
Labor, March 8, 2006 www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/61697.htm [accessed 11
February 2013] 2009-2017.state.gov/j/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/61697.htm [accessed 4 July
2019] TORTURE
AND OTHER CRUEL, INHUMAN, OR DEGRADING TREATMENT OR PUNISHMENT – The law
prohibits torture, and there were no reports that government officials
employed torture. However, the government administered most corporal
punishment prescribed by its interpretation of Islamic law. Amputation was
not allowed. Punishments were not administered publicly. Freedom House
Country Report - Political Rights: 6 Civil Liberties: 5 Status: Not Free 2009 Edition www.freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2009/qatar [accessed 11
February 2013] LONG
URL ç 2009 Country Reports begin on Page 21 [accessed 13 May
2020] Despite
constitutional guarantees, the judiciary is not independent in practice. The
majority of Qatar’s judges are foreign nationals who are appointed and
removed by the emir. The judicial system consists of Sharia (Islamic law)
courts, which have jurisdiction over a narrow range of issues including
family law, and civil law courts, which have jurisdiction over criminal cases
as well as commercial and civil suits. The Supreme Judiciary Council
regulates the judiciary. The constitution protects individuals from arbitrary
arrest and detention and bans torture. However, Law 17, issued in 2002,
allows the suspension of these guarantees for the “protection of society.” All
material used herein reproduced under the fair use exception of 17 USC § 107
for noncommercial, nonprofit, and educational use. PLEASE RESPECT COPYRIGHTS OF COMPONENT
ARTICLES. Cite this
webpage as: Patt, Prof. Martin, "Torture by Police, Forced Disappearance
& Other Ill Treatment in the early years of the 21st Century-
Qatar", http://gvnet.com/torture/Qatar.htm, [accessed <date>] |
