Bin Laden group refuses to pay 50,000 sacked foreign workers their salaries, as if they're slaves

Saudi builder Binladin reportedly cuts 50,000 jobs as government cuts hit their purse. Reuters.

Construction company Saudi Binladin Group has laid off 50,000 staff, a newspaper reported on Friday, as pressure on the industry rises amid government spending cuts to survive an era of cheap oil.

The total workforce at Binladin, one of Saudi Arabia's biggest firms and among the Middle East's largest builders, is around 200,000, according to its LinkedIn page.

Saudi newspaper al-Watan, citing unnamed sources, reported that the group has terminated the contracts of 50,000 workers - apparently all foreigners - and given them permanent exit visa to leave the kingdom.

The paper said the workers refused to leave the country without getting paid and some had not received wages for more than four months. They were protesting in front of the Binladin's offices in the country almost daily, the paper added.

Binladin did not immediately reply to an email seeking comment on Friday, a day off in the Gulf region.

The company has had a series of pay disputes with workers this year. In March, scores of workers gathered outside one of the company's office in Saudi Arabia to demand unpaid wages. Read the full story here.

yesterday, employee of Bin Laden group had burn some buses as a protest for not receiving their salaries for 6months pic.twitter.com/KRJ96jH08P

— محمد النمرm. alnemer (@mbanalnemer) May 2, 2016

British-Pakistani man in Great Britain jailed for keeping wife as slave.

British-Pakistani man jailed for keeping wife as slave. (ET).

A man was handed a two year jail sentence Friday after becoming the first in England to be convicted of keeping his wife “in domestic servitude“.

In what the Crown Prosecution Service said was the first case of its kind in England, London’s Woolwich Crown Court heard that Safraz Ahmed, 34, imprisoned and beat his wife after an arranged marriage in Pakistan.

The mechanic from Charlton in southeast London forced his wife, Sumara Iram, to cook, clean and look after his mother from 5am to midnight every day after she moved to Britain in 2012.

He also slapped her in the face when she asked him to consummate their marriage, throwing tins of cat food at her head and covering her face with a cushion in other attacks.

Iram, 28, who had a master’s degree in Islamic Studies, was forbidden from leaving the house alone and took an overdose before eventually calling the emergency services in 2014, the court heard.

Sentencing Ahmed to two years in prison for holding a person in domestic servitude, Judge Christopher Hehir told him: “She was bullied and controlled by you, given little money and expected to cook, clean and look after your family as if she was a skivvy.

“She described your behaviour as physical and mental torture and in my judgement, she was right.”


Damaris Lakin, a Crown Prosecution Service lawyer who worked on the trial, said it was a “ground-breaking case which demonstrates how far we have come in tackling modern-day slavery”.
The couple are now divorced. Hmmm......Two years? That's it? Injustice has been done towards the victim.

Safraz Ahmed has been jailed today for imprisoning his wife as a domestic slave in... https://t.co/kR8W6yOQK7 pic.twitter.com/palU3jEQBj

— Metropolitan Police (@metpoliceuk) April 1, 2016

Video - Yazidi Teen Who Escaped from ISIS Captivity Recounts Her Harrowing Experiences.