"Qatar: Rights groups denounce decision to hold 2019 athletics championship in Qatar", 20 Nov 2014

Human rights groups on Wednesday slammed the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), the athletics governing body, for awarding the 2019 world championships to Qatar.

The Qatari capital Doha was named host of the 2019 Athletics World Championships on Tuesday, just days after the Gulf state’s football officials were cleared of corruption charges by FIFA in their successful bid for the 2022 World Cup.

“We’re stunned and still in shock, our impression is that our pleas are going unheard,” Regina Spoettl, Amnesty International’s Gulf states expert, told SID, an AFP subsidiary.

“We expect that sports events aren’t carried on the backs of millions of exploited workers,” Spoettl added. “We are concerned that because of the IAAF world championships, even more migrant workers will have to work in inhuman conditions.”

Qatar spent an unprecedented hundreds of millions of dollars campaigning for the 2022 World Cup, and when allegations of migrant laborers being exploited came out, the country hired a global law firm to probe the media claims...