Qatari authorities continue to exercise arbitrary executive power by placing administrative sanctions on individuals without any judicial process or disclosed legal basis, in some cases seemingly as punishment for political opinions. Amnesty International has interviewed and reviewed documents from three Qatari citizens, whose positions range from businessmen to a former Minister of Justice, who have been held under travel ban for years without legal process or judicial recourse. One of the three has additionally been placed under financial sanctions, including freezing of his bank accounts, that have forced him to close his businesses and damaged his livelihood. In each of the cases the authorities’ actions were taken at a purely administrative level, without affording any legal procedure by which the affected individuals could meaningfully contest or appeal the decisions or present their claims to an independent reviewer of fact or law. (Note: Some information in this public statement was removed in November 2026 at the request of one of the sources.)
