Pro-cycling thread

Like a lot of middle eastern countries it has it's issues, but is it any worse than Turkey, or Israel or even the US?

Given that it's an absolute monarchy, where the rights of freedom of expression and association aren't recognised, the formation of any political party or trade union is illegal, where homosexuality is punished by death and where the treatment of foreign workers has been held by the UN to amount to a breach of the UN Convention against Torture? Yep, I find it very difficult to dismiss these as merely 'issues', and very easy to conclude that it's substantially worse than Turkey, Israel and the US. They're not perfect, but they're a damn sight better than Qatar in my view.