“Death is a natural part of life, whether at work or during sleep. Of course, an employee died, we send our condolences to his family,” Nasser Al Khater told Reuters on Thursday.
Al Khater was offended by a reporter’s question about a Filipino contract worker who was hired to repair lighting at a Saudi football team training center, The Athletic reported on Wednesday.
According to reporters, the Filipino died in a forklift accident after falling off a ramp and hitting his head on the concrete floor.
Al Khater said he found it “strange” that Reuters asked him about the employee’s death at the start of the interview.
“We are in the middle of the World Cup,” said the director. – Besides, it’s a successful World Cup, and you want to talk about it now?
“Worker fatalities were a significant issue during the World Cup,” Al Khater told the BBC. – All statements and reflections on the death of these workers are, however, absolutely false.
FIFA confirmed the death of the worker on Thursday, saying it was “deeply saddened by this tragedy”, but did not give further details of his death.
Qatar’s World Cup organizer Supreme Implementation and Heritage Committee told Reuters the deceased employee was a contractor and “responsibility for him is beyond the jurisdiction of the committee” .
Human rights groups criticized Al Khater’s comments
Human rights groups strongly condemned Al Khater’s comments on Thursday.
“The responses of FIFA and the Qatari authorities are an example of their entities’ long-standing disregard for the lives of migrant workers, the repeated suppression of essential facts and the unwillingness to take responsibility for the safety of migrant workers” , said representatives of Human Rights Watch. written on their organization’s website.
Activists accused Qatar of frequently attributing migrant worker deaths to “natural causes” or “cardiac arrest” without proper investigation, and said the deaths were preventable in the first place.
Ella Knight, migrant workers’ rights researcher for Amnesty International, told the BBC: “We, along with many other organisations, have been calling on the Qatari authorities for years to investigate the deaths of workers, without success.
“They, on the other hand, continue to simply dismiss the large number of deaths, claiming they were caused by ‘natural causes,’ despite the obvious health risks associated with working in extreme temperatures,” added Knight.
This year’s World Cup tournament and Qatar continue to face controversy over the living conditions of migrant workers and the rights of LGBTQ+ people.
FIFA President Gianni Infantino defended Qatar and its human rights in November, saying criticism of the country was a manifestation of Western hypocrisy.
Hassan Al Thawadi, general secretary of the Qatar organizing committee, has admitted that 400-500 workers have died in preparation for the tournament, while The Guardian estimates in a report that 6,500 workers have died since the decision to host the Cup of the world in Qatar.
For comparison, according to Reuters, during the preparations for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, eight people died, while according to Human Rights Watch, 17 workers died during the construction of the facilities for the 2018 World Cup in Russia. .
Al Khater and Qatari SC did not immediately respond to Insider’s requests for comment.
Author: Matthew Loh/initiated; Translation: Dorothy Salus
Above is a translation of the article from the US edition of Insider.
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