Qatar and Saudi Arabia, which is even named after the royal family (who does that anyway?) are countries that offer us a glimpse of neo feudalism (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neo-feudalism" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neo-feudalism</a>).<p>This is a potential problem for every country. While western governments are considered much different than both Qatar and Saudi Arabia, the trajectory is leaning towards the paradigm those two countries occupy. This is of course, inequality, which is the measure that slavery falls onto one side at the end.<p>We can look at this policy as a policy, or we can have an intellectual argument on the merit of this type of governance. GOVERNMENT is literally what society as a whole, consents to being legitimate use of force. Military, Law, and Order.<p>No obviously we can assert that the power of the Sauds and the Thani is illegitimate today in the western world, because we ourselves have in our past moved away from the concentrated and hereditary control of power, into the hands of the super rich (the other end of the inequal spectrum).<p>So while I applaud hrw.org for pointing attention to this horrible policy, and more intellectually honest headline could read, "Qatar's People: Overthrow your illegitimate rulers.".<p>Any westerners who are reading this article and are upset or angry, need to fight against neo-feudalism in the US and European countries. The only way we can <i>truly</i> help the people of Qatar and Saudi Arabia is by stronghand political means. Not seeing anything from the US regarding these matters speaks volumes of their slide into neo-feudalism in my opinion. This is something seen both by anti-authoritarian leftists AND rightists(is this a word?).
This is related to a broader international anti-slavery campaign, as the exit visa system is essentially the instrument for enforcing wage slavery in Qatar. cf. recent Guardian articles related to the world cup construction:<p><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/video/2013/sep/25/qatar-migrant-workers-world-cup-host-video" rel="nofollow">http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/video/2013/sep...</a><p><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/25/revealed-qatars-world-cup-slaves" rel="nofollow">http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/25/revealed-qatars...</a>
"Qatar and Saudi Arabia are the only Gulf Cooperative Council states with an exit visa system"<p>They're in a good company. Only other countries to have exit visa are North Korea and Uzbekistan. (In the latter, you can still travel to most former USSR neighbors without exit visa)
For a migrant worker, it won't be surprising if the passport is deposited with the Employer at the time of joining work. I don't speak from personal experience, but from anecdotes I heard from friends and extended family. So even if there isn't an exit visa required, they don't have the passport, which means they can only travel with permission of their employer. A modern form of slavery.
>The onus is on the expatriate either to find another exit sponsor, who must be a Qatari national, or to provide a certificate that there are no outstanding legal claims against the person trying to leave 15 days after publishing a notice in two daily newspapers.<p>This seems to be doable workaround. This could be possibly even automated, perhaps start-up idea?<p>I do not think this could be changed politically, US and those states are best buddies and any serious political pressure would be vetoed.
Yet two other countries on my personal No Fly List.<p>...<p>[x] UK (can force people to hand over passwords)<p>[x] US (probability that they reject people at the border/airport for ridiculous reasons)<p>[x] Qatar (exit visa required)<p>[x] Saudi Arabia (exit visa required)<p>...<p>Even if I'm not sure if those exit visas also apply to short term visitors. Better safe than sorry.