Swiss journalists arrested in Abu Dhabi for filming migrant workers' conditions during Louvre opening

Swiss journalists Serge Enderlin and Jon Bjorgvinsson, reporters for RTS's Mise au Point program, were arrested in Abu Dhabi just hours before their return flight to Switzerland. They had been covering the Louvre Abu Dhabi opening but were detained for over 50 hours on charges of unauthorized filming in peripheral neighborhoods where migrant workers live in precarious conditions. The journalists were blindfolded, transferred to a secret location, interrogated for over ten hours, and had all their video and photo material destroyed. Their detention came amid controversy over worker exploitation at the museum construction site, following a Human Rights Watch report denouncing labor conditions. Louvre Abu Dhabi director Manuel Rabaté had claimed all Western standards were met for the over 5,000 workers, mostly from India, Pakistan, and the Philippines, who built the museum over nearly a decade. RTS issued a strong condemnation of the detention and attack on press freedom.