Qatar abuse claims
LGBT people targeted
QATAR’S security services have arrested and beaten lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in the run-up to next month’s World Cup, according to a human rights group.
The arrests continued as recently as last month, even as Qatar tries to show a modern face before at least one million football fans arrive for the tournament.
Homosexuality and transvestism are illegal in Qatar, although the authorities have indicated there will be no attempts to control what foreign fans do in private.
Human Rights Watch documented six cases of severe and repeated beatings and five cases of sexual harassment in police custody between 2019 and this year, with those arrested made to attend conversion therapy.
The campaign group, which has also revealed the abuse of migrant workers in Qatar, claims that prisoners were detained in an underground jail in Al Dafna in the capital, Doha, some in solitary confinement.
The six people claimed they were subjected to verbal and physical abuse and said they were forced to sign confessions, while being denied access to their families or legal and medical care.
All the complainants – four transgender women, a bisexual woman and a gay man – were Qataris.
Rasha Younes, LGBT rights researcher at the organisation, said: “The Qatari government should call an immediate halt to this abuse and FIFA (the world governing body for football) should push the Qatari government to ensure longterm reform that protects LGBT people from discrimination and violence.”
One transgender woman claimed to have been arrested on the charge of “imitating women”.
She claimed police beat her in a car before detaining her for three weeks without charge.
The bisexual woman who was interviewed by the rights group said she was beaten unconscious.
“An officer took me blindfolded by car to another place that felt like a private home from the inside and forced me to watch restrained people getting beaten as an intimidation tactic,” she said.
Qatar’s penal code punishes extramarital sex, including same-sex relations, with up to seven years in prison.
However, in 2020, Qatar said it would welcome LGBT visitors to the World Cup, which is scheduled to begin on November 20.
It will be the first time the event is held in a Middle Eastern nation.
Responding to the allegations, a Qatari official said: “The claims were not brought to our attention until they were first reported in the media. If Human Rights Watch had contacted us, we would have been able to disprove the allegations.”