As this year’s World Cup in Qatar fast approaches, Nasser Al Khater, the CEO of the tournament’s organizing committee, has assured the world that, “Nobody feels threatened [in Qatar], nobody feels unsafe.” Try telling that to the six LGBTQ people interviewed in a new report from Human Rights Watch.
The research and advocacy organization reported Monday that “LGBT people interviewed said that their mistreatment took place as recently as September 2022, as Qatar prepared to host the 2022 FIFA Men’s World Cup in November and even as the government came under intense scrutiny for its treatment of LGBT people.”
Related: David Beckham gushes over Qatar in cringey new video and the responses are brutal
Long known to be hostile towards LGBTQ people, Qatar has been positioning itself on the world stage as a welcoming place for all players and fans. In stark contrast, the interviewees in the report paint a heartbreaking picture of how the country actually treats queer people.
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Human Rights Watch said it has “documented six cases of severe and repeated beatings and five cases of sexual harassment in police custody between 2019 and 2022.
“Security forces arrested people in public places based solely on their gender expression and unlawfully searched their phones,” the report added. “As a requirement for their release, security forces mandated that transgender women detainees attend conversion therapy sessions at a government-sponsored ‘behavioral healthcare’ center.”
Related: Top soccer ref Igor Benevenuto comes out ahead of World Cup in anti-LGBTQ Qatar
As part of the phone searches, all six interviewees “described security officials forcing them to unlock their phones.” They said the officials then, “took screenshots of private pictures and chats from their devices, as well as contact information of other LGBTQ+ people.”
A transgender interviewee also described being beaten in police custody and accused of “imitating women.” She said police told her, “You gays are immoral, so we will be the same to you.”
“I saw many other LGBT people detained there: two Moroccan lesbians, four Filipino gay men, and one Nepalese gay man,” she added. “I was detained for three weeks without charge, and officers repeatedly sexually harassed me. Part of the release requirement was attending sessions with a psychologist who ‘would make me a man again.’”
Unsurprisingly, a Qatari official has called the organization’s report “unequivocally false,” according to The Independent.
Some are speaking out, and more may follow
Josh Cavallo, who last year became the only current top-tier male professional soccer player in the world to come out, has been a vocal critic of this year’s host city decision.
“I know personally, if I go there, I will be protected because I’m in the public eye,” Cavallo told CNN last week.
“But it’s not me that I’m worried about. It’s those ones that are messaging me. It’s those people that aren’t in the public eye that are scared to even be themselves and walk the streets.”
“To see that we’re heading to a country that’s criminalizing people like myself … It’s quite concerning,” he added.
A representative of Germany's association of fan and ultra groups went on stage to speak to the DFB's conference on human rights in Qatar ahead of the World Cup.
Here's his personal speech on LGBT rights in the country, addressed directly at Qatar's ambassador to Germany. pic.twitter.com/ODYZrsYWyq
— DW Sports (@dw_sports) September 19, 2022
Related: Journalists pose as gay couple, try to book hotel in Qatar ahead of World Cup
At a human rights conference in Frankfurt, Germany, hosted by the German Football Association in September, soccer fan Darion Minden spoke directly to Qatar’s ambassador.
“I’m a man and I love men. I do — please don’t be shocked — have sex with other men. This is normal,” Minden told Abdulla bin Mohammed bin Saud Al Thani. “So, please get used to it, or stay out of football. Because the most important rule in football is, football is for everyone. It doesn’t matter if you’re lesbian, if you’re gay. It’s for everyone. For the boys. For the girls. And for everyone in between.”
Oliver Bierhoff, a former soccer player and national team director of the German Football Federation, said in June that Qatar’s laws against same-sex relations are “completely unacceptable.”
He criticized FIFA for awarding the competition to the country without first addressing its rampant human rights abuses.
“What award criteria for a World Cup does FIFA actually apply?” he asked. “Because awarding a tournament is the sharpest sword to push for the necessary change.
“This has to happen before the award and not after, otherwise you have no leverage left to enforce it.”
Additionally, teams from the Netherlands, Germany and Norway have worn shirts with a pro-human rights message to protest the host nation. And England Captain Harry Kane has pledged to wear a “OneLove” captain’s armband while playing in Qatar.
The World Cup begins on November 20.
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Gadfeal
The outrageous wealth of the Gulf States and Saudi Arabia, through no effort of their populations has made the obscene excesses of ultramodern skyscrapers in a desert with no shortage of land. None of this was by the native populations. Architects, managers, bankers and laborers are all “imported”, and those from the Indic subcontinent are treated with no more consideration than slaves of two centuries ago.
A place like Dubai is probably 80% occupied, serviced and run by “expatriates” – an imported gaudy superstructure paid for by a Medieval style monarchy.
When there are 6 million displaced Syrians, most of whom are placing enormous burden on Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey, there has been scant charity shown to them by this oil-rich kingdoms.
Shame on anyone who patronizes these intensely obscene displays of wealth for which reason?
Jim
FIFA should be ashamed of itself