From Angry Arab's Bahrain correspondent: "Thirteen migrant workers have died from a fire in their apartment building. Its
is absolutely ridiculous. Their employers basically forced 100 workers to live
together in only 25 rooms. The building was overcrowded and dangerous to live
in. Since these conditions are "illegal" (illegal only on paper since most
migrant workers live under these conditions) the public prosecution decided to
open an investigation over the cause of the fire. Of course, most of Bahrain's
migrant workers live in these horrible conditions and these fires occur all the
time. The government never cared. These investigations are usually announced
with much fanfare (especially this time since Bahrain is under the media
spotlight - well not really - and the regime wants to look like it is the
protector of migrant workers) and never amount to anything. The only
investigation that amounted to something was an investigation of a docked boat
that completely capsized while a party was being hosted in it. The owner
obviously didn't follow any safety standards and let more people on the boat
that it could handle. On top of that he was cheap - so all the windows in the
boat was made of plastic. So when the boat capsized many people weren't able to
escape and died - I think the death toll was seventy. Now since there were a
lot of westerners on the boat (if the boat was full of indians no one would have
cared) the public prosecution launched an investigation. The captain of the
boat, who was Indian, was jailed. Of course he didn't even move the boat and
had nothing to do with anything. Nothing happened to the Bahraini owner, a rich
businessman.
Here's an article on the fire and the supposed investigation that will take
place. Watch it get buried
By the way, many of Bahrain's construction companies are notorious for
placing migrant workers in horrible living conditions , refusing to pay their
wages, and taking their passports away from them so that they can never leave.
The corporation with the worst reputation is the Nass Contracting Company
belonging to the wealthy Nass family. I keep hearing of workers working there
who commit suicide. The suicide rate of migrant workers in alarmingly high in
general. Did no one think.. hmm.. why do they keep killing themselves??? Maybe
there is something seriously wrong????? Of course it doesn't take a genius to
figure out what's wrong. Their lives are hell."
