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Qatar ended its 20-year de facto moratorium on executions in April 2020. It is estimated that there are currently twenty-one individuals under sentence of death.

The Government of Qatar has refused to impose a formal moratorium on death sentences and executions. Further, the laws of Qatar do not limit the death penalty to the most serious crimes. It is reported that eighteen of the twenty-one individuals sentenced to death in Qatar are foreign nationals.[4] It is also reported that some of those individuals may be women.

 The Government of Qatar has failed to address overcrowding and unsanitary living conditions in prisons, directly violating the rights of people in detention to an adequate standard of living.

The Government of Qatar has also failed to propose solutions to mitigate the negative effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on people in detention, including people under sentence of death, the majority of whom are reported to be non-Qatari migrant workers.

Recent research shows that the majority of individuals on death row in Qatar are migrant workers and foreign nationals, raising heightened concerns regarding human rights violations and the potential targeting of specific groups. These reports suggest that Qatar is violating the rights of people to work and to enjoy just and favorable conditions of work without discrimination based on race, ethnicity, or nationality.