Qatar's PR efforts on labour scandal backfire with BBC team's detention
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Version 0 of 1. Professional public relations advice doesn’t come cheap and it is a tribute to Qatar that it has invested in one of the best providers in the business, London-based Portland Communications, which began working for the Doha government a year ago for what is widely rumoured to be an eye-watering amount of money. In per capita terms the Gulf state is the wealthiest country in the world, with vast natural gas reserves, a tiny native population far outstripped by an army of migrant workers and ambitions crowned by its controversial bid to host the 2022 World Cup. Its eye-catching global investments – from Harrods to Paris St Germain football club – have been matched by an effort to punch above its weight politically in the Middle East, backing Islamist movements in particular. Related: Fifa to investigate arrest of BBC news team in Qatar Yet its recent experience has disproved the old maxim that there is no such thing as bad publicity. The World Cup bid has drawn attention to the appalling conditions in which Asian labourers live and work, while the turmoil of the Arab spring has exposed Qatar to charges of supporting extremist groups fighting in Syria. Neither, to put it mildly, have helped burnish the emirate’s modern image. News of the arrest of a BBC team invited to see improvements for foreign workers is damaging too – and will doubtless have the Portland PR team grinding their teeth in frustration. It is ironic that an effort to show that Qatar is responding to complaints from trade unions, the International Labour Organisation and human rights watchdogs such as Amnesty International has backfired so badly. Qatari officials acknowledge that Guardian coverage of the migrant labour story has been an important spur to change. Abdullah al-Khulaifi, labour minister, told me he had had nightmares as a result and felt unfairly criticised, but was still keen to highlight positive reforms – improved standards of workers’ accommodation, wage-payment methods and the enforcement of other rules. The downside is that there is still no timetable for the promised abolition of the controversial kafala (sponsorship) system – which prevents workers from changing jobs for five years and leaves them open to abuse – and doubts about whether the proposed changes amount to much more than cosmetic tinkering or rebranding. The detention of the BBC journalist Mark Lobel is doubly embarrassing because he had been invited on a press trip that was designed to showcase progress. The Guardian was able to undertake a similar officially arranged tour with Portland’s help, but I also managed to visit workers’ housing in Doha’s grim industrial zone without an escort and, happily, without being detained by security personnel. The story illustrates a wider problem. Under the emir, Sheikh Tamim, who took over after his father’s abdication two years ago, powerful elements of the Qatari government are committed to reform and to a more transparent communications strategy. Others, clearly, are not. It is no coincidence that the kafala system remains the responsibility of the interior ministry, not Khulaifi’s more image-conscious ministry of labour. Qatar is no democracy but it does not feel like a police state. Yet following reporters, covertly photographing them and throwing them into prison are not normally used to prevent trespassing – as the government claimed in a professional-looking press release that bore the imprint of Portland’s expertise. PR has its uses, up to a point, but it cannot be a substitute for genuine openness. |