I worked for 3 years in sports logistics in Qatar from 2004-2007.

They refuse to say, because they don't know. Because most 20yo migrant worker deaths are either unrecorded, or recorded as "spontaneous heart attack". https://twitter.com/MiguelDelaney/status/1296036043762827264

The level of cultural apartheid in Qatar is not like anything I've seen elsewhere.

300k Qatari citizens

2.3m imported labour of different levels of perceived expendibility.

At the top- European/US expats, allowed to earn large tax free salaries and live expansive lifestyles. But I've equally seen an Irish colleague arrested purely for fun, badly beaten, narrowly fighting off rape, and released with a shrug.

in the middle, educated indian and levant arabs, administrators, foremen, contract managers, good life, entitled to lower salaries because skin, policy of wives entitled to max 25% of salary grade if on husband's visa, deportable on retirement even if born in Qatar.

At the bottom, Nepalese and Sri Lankan rural youths, imported in their 000s to work in the highly dangerous gas and construction industries at summer temperatures at times exceeding 50 degs Celsius.

The vast maj of the population has zero interaction more than one level below themselves. The higher levels move from one air conditioned bubble to another.

As I worked in logistics and oversaw about 1200 low skilled contractors, I unusually saw far more than most of my peers.

Standard conditions were fairly horrific.

Sleeping arrangements consisted largely of converted shipping containers only theoretically w/ functioning a/c with 10-20 (unwashed) men in bunks to a container.

Diet consisted of curried fish heads and offal.

Workers stay in compounds with only theoretically adequate sewerage or running water facilities, and are bussed to/from work daily. Only permitted time out was between 4-9pm on a Fri.

Obviously no worker would ever be permitted into a Qatari/westerner a/c mall.

During my time in Qatar, workers in the northern gas refinery went on (obviously unlawful) strike. Their demand? Access to running drinking water for an hour a day.

During one Athlete's Village site construction meeting, an apology was made by our main elec contractor that they were 1/2 day behind schedule. Why we enquired?

Oh 4 workers had hidden in substation (from 50deg heat) and fried themselves. Shrug, move on.

Across road from my offices, a hotel was building an extension. One day the wooden scaffolding collapsed - about 10 workers fell to their death and several into the still wet foundations pit, were concreted over and never recovered. Their deaths weren't even reported in paper.

Qataris don't oversee these abuses. They hire complicit contractors in Nepal, Sri Lanka, India, Qatar and, libertarian style, and allow them an almost utterly unregulated framework in which to deliver.

When you float between Lexus landcruiser, A/c mall and a/c mansion, there is little or no visibility of the extent of abuses. Virtually nothing reported in papers.

Some regs do exist, to which the Sheikhs can point to if there is a flare up, but failure to enforce is unpunished.

When I arrived in Qatar in 2003, Doha was a flat desert with 1 skyscraper. Now Doha glitters like Manhattan. That's a whole lot of patriotic pork to look the other way. Complete plausible deniability.

Qatar exists because the ruling Taoiseach, only 2-3 generations separate removed from wandering desert tribes have been able to keep the other tribes under the same flag of convenience, through raw tribalistic exhibitionism.

Sports events, skyscrapers, universities, green golf courses at 50 degs, and now international buying sprees are all part of the same exhibitionist drive. (Sound like a US president anyone?)

Any discussion of values is purely utilitarian.