In the months leading up to hosting soccer’s World Cup, which has brought attention to human rights problems in the Gulf Arab state, security personnel in Qatar arbitrarily detained and mistreated LGBT Qataris, Human Rights Watch (HRW) warned on Monday. Since homosexuality is outlawed in the conservative Muslim nation, some soccer stars have expressed worry over the rights of spectators travelling to the game, particularly LGBT+ people and women, who rights organisations claim are subjected to discrimination under Qatari legislation.
Without going into detail, a Qatari official said that HRW’s claims ‘contain material that is completely and utterly incorrect’. Everyone, regardless of sexual orientation or ethnicity, is welcome at the World Cup, which begins on November 20 and is the first to be hosted in a Middle Eastern country, according to the organisers, who also caution against public displays of affection.
In a statement, HRW said that all Qataris, not only visitors coming for the World Cup, should have permanent access to freedom of expression and protection from discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Six LGBT Qataris, including four transgender women, one bisexual woman, and one homosexual man, were reportedly subjected to verbal and physical abuse, including punching and kicking, while being jailed between 2019 and 2022, according to the organisation.
According to HRW, one of them was held for two months in solitary confinement while the others were imprisoned without charges in a jail under Doha. The report said that detained transgender women were required to attend conversion therapy sessions at a government-sponsored facility. ‘All six reported that police compelled them to sign agreements stating that they would ‘stop immoral activities. The official from Qatar stated that the country neither licences nor operates conversion centres’.
Under the condition of anonymity, a transgender Qatari woman who was interviewed by HRW told Reuters that she had been arrested multiple times, most recently last summer when she was detained for several weeks. The woman said that she had been stopped by authorities because of how she looked or because she was carrying makeup. She also claimed that she had been severely abused and had her head shaved. The woman was accused of having a gender identity issue and being transgender in order to gain ‘sympathy from others’ by the behaviour centre she was required to attend.
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