I don't know the facts on David Proctor, and it is true that being wrongfully detained without charge goes against fundamental human rights. That being said, I do recall a few years back how a Canadian girl who was successful passing off fraudulent checks in Canada decided to come to Qatar to practice her art, she got caught on her first attempt, convicted and imprisoned. What did she get out of this? A book deal from a publishing company (Most Western countries usually prevent one from benefiting from their criminal activities in this way), where she spoke of how her experience was horrible and she would hear people "begging for their lives".
At that time Ontario was having serious issues with their overcrowded prisons (and I am sure they still do today), and in a lot of cases they were forced to put up to four people into cells designed to occupy two, aside from the obvious issues with such arrangements, this also put prisoners at serious risk of becoming victims of violence. I wonder if anyone would have been as interested in offering a publishing deal to someone who may have witnessed/suffered serious injuries/death in one of these two man cells holding four?
The news article that reported her 'freedom' from Qatar focused more on the 'horrifying' experience rather than the fact that her sole purpose for traveling to Qatar was to commit fraud. I also doubt that in that case that Qatar would have been more transparent then they were with David's case. Of course it would be more appropriate to publish all the facts and alleged criminal activities they suspected were going on, but just because they didn't does not mean the suspicions were baseless. As the same could be applied to the case of that Canadian crook, where the testimony of her Qatar experience was deemed to be worthy of a publishing deal, irrespective of her credibility considering she is a criminal.
I don't know the facts on David Proctor, and it is true that being wrongfully detained without charge goes against fundamental human rights. That being said, I do recall a few years back how a Canadian girl who was successful passing off fraudulent checks in Canada decided to come to Qatar to practice her art, she got caught on her first attempt, convicted and imprisoned. What did she get out of this? A book deal from a publishing company (Most Western countries usually prevent one from benefiting from their criminal activities in this way), where she spoke of how her experience was horrible and she would hear people "begging for their lives".
At that time Ontario was having serious issues with their overcrowded prisons (and I am sure they still do today), and in a lot of cases they were forced to put up to four people into cells designed to occupy two, aside from the obvious issues with such arrangements, this also put prisoners at serious risk of becoming victims of violence. I wonder if anyone would have been as interested in offering a publishing deal to someone who may have witnessed/suffered serious injuries/death in one of these two man cells holding four?
The news article that reported her 'freedom' from Qatar focused more on the 'horrifying' experience rather than the fact that her sole purpose for traveling to Qatar was to commit fraud. I also doubt that in that case that Qatar would have been more transparent then they were with David's case. Of course it would be more appropriate to publish all the facts and alleged criminal activities they suspected were going on, but just because they didn't does not mean the suspicions were baseless. As the same could be applied to the case of that Canadian crook, where the testimony of her Qatar experience was deemed to be worthy of a publishing deal, irrespective of her credibility considering she is a criminal.