A TV crew "was arrested, interrogated and had its equipment deleted and destroyed by Qatari authorities while filming a documentary about the 2022 World Cup," according to Ben Rumsby of the London TELEGRAPH. A reporter, cameraman, camera assistant and driver "were denied permission" to leave the Gulf state for five days after capturing footage of labor camps there for a program called "The Selling of Football: Sepp Blatter and the Power of Fifa." ARD journalist Florian Bauer and his team "were investigating the squalid living and employment conditions of construction workers a year on from the Qatari government’s pledge to tackle what has been denounced by human rights organisations as modern-day slavery." Bauer admitted traveling to Doha without permission "to film after his requests to do so were either ignored or denied by several government agencies." Bauer and his team "were arrested on March 27" and were held for 14 hours. Admitting he was "scared," Bauer said, "There were interrogations by people from the intelligence service who said if I didn’t cooperate with them, it would work badly for me." The crew "was physically unharmed, which could not be said for its equipment." Bauer added, "Everything was deleted: phone, hard drives. A laptop got destroyed, got opened by I don’t know who" (TELEGRAPH, 5/5).
