You cannot beat a good P.R. campaign

Is Qatar taking advice from FIFA as well as the NFL?

Krishna Upadhyaya and Gundev Ghimire, the two British human rights researchers detained in Qatar for almost nine days, have reportedly been released from custody, but have not yet left the country.

There have been myriad reports on the virtual slave conditions foreign workers have suffered as blood money for the wealthy crooken financiers and FIFA officials (redundant?) behind the 2022 World Cup. So you know where this is going.

Upadhyaya and Ghimire went missing in Qatar on 31 August. After almost a week without any official statement on the men's whereabouts, the ministry of foreign affairs in Qatar announced on Sunday that the men had been arrested and were "being interrogated for having violated the provisions of the laws of the state of Qatar". According to their employer, the Global Network for Rights and Development (GNRD), the men were in Qatar researching a forthcoming report on the working and living conditions of Nepalese migrant labourers.

If there's video of their findings, Sepp Blatter has as strong an interest in not knowing about it as his American counterpart Roger Goodell. [cross-posted at Firedoglake]