Qatar: All you need to know about the country before the 2022 FIFA World Cup
euronews.comQatar: Rise to Power and Influence, claims “there was not any real push [by Qatar's leaders] for the British to leave …[who] appreciated their military protection”.Large numbers of protests by the public against the British and the ruling family took place before independence.Qatar's emir, Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad al-Thani personally appoints ministers – usually family members – and one-third of the Shura Council, a law-making council, though the others are elected.Although a lot of consulting goes on behind closed doors, power is largely in the hands of the Emir, who ultimately controls political decisions, law-making and the judiciary.Political parties are banned.“The problem [in Qatar],” says Rothna Begum, a researcher at Human Rights Watch, “is that their laws limit freedom of expression, association and assembling … making it really difficult for anyone who wants to do work on women's rights or anything like that.”This leaves politics to play out on Twitter, where progressive voices, such as the LGBTQ+ community or women's rights are subjected to online abuse and death threats, she says.Freedom House, an NGO monitoring political rights and civil liberties, ranks Qatar as “not free”.Qatar is the third richest country in the world, measured by GDP per capita.Much of this is due to its vast oil and gas reserves, which are also the third largest in the world.A large exporter of Liquified Natural Gas, Fromherz says fallout from the Ukraine war has strengthened Qatar’s economic hand by causing energy prices to spike.“Along with the United States, Qatar is one of the major suppliers and alternatives to Russia,” he told Euronews. “It is in the vital strategic interests now of Europe, which needs to make sure that petrol gas.
