People from the LGTBI community are detained and mistreated by the Qatari police, despite the pressure exerted on the Arab country to respect the rights of these people, a few weeks before the Qatar 2022 World Cup.
This was stated on Monday Human Rights Watch (HRW) in a statement in which he demanded that the Qatari authorities stop violence against LGBTI people and repeal regulations and laws that criminalize their activities or even their presence in the country.
The note explains the case of several Qatari LGBTI people interviewed by HRW, who They claimed to have been subjected to mistreatment last September in Qatar, just two months before the most important sporting event on the planet.
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HRW documented six cases of severe and repeated beatings, Y five of sexual harassment in police custody between 2019 and 2022, says the note, and highlights that members of the Department of Preventive Security, of the Ministry of the Interior, detained people in public places for their gender expression and illegally searched their phones.
For your release, Qatari police forced trans women to attend conversion therapy sessions at a government-sponsored “behavioral support” centeror, he added.
“Security forces are detaining and abusing LGBTI people simply because of who they are, seemingly confident that the abuses will go unreported and unchecked,” said Rasha Younes, LGBTI rights researcher at HRW, according to the note.
The Qatari authorities, he warned, “must put an end to impunity for violence against LGBTI people. The world is watching.”
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Those interviewed by the NGO said they were detained in an underground prison in the Al Dafneh district of Doha, where police verbally harassed them and subjected them to physical abuse that “ranged from slapping to kicking and punching until they bled.”
“All of them were detained without charge, in one case for two months in solitary confinement, without access to legal assistance. None received any record of having been detained. These acts could be arbitrary detention under international human rights law,” the note said.
HRW recalled that the Qatari authorities stated in 2020 that they would welcome LGBTI people who wished to attend the World Cup, and that fans would be free to put up or hoist the rainbow flag during their presence in the Arab country.
The NGO stressed, however, that article 28 of the Qatari Penal Code punishes extramarital relations, including relations between people of the same sex, with up to seven years in prison.
It also highlights the “Law 17 of 2002 on Community Protection” that allows provisional detention without charge or trial for up to six months, “if there are well-founded reasons to believe that the accused may have committed a crime”, including the “violation of public morality”.
The Qatari authorities say that LGBTI people will be welcome during the World Cup, as long as they respect Qatari culture.
“Suggestions by officials that Qatar would make an exception to its abusive laws and practices for foreigners are implicit reminders that Qatari authorities do not believe that its LGBTI citizens and residents deserve basic rights,” HRW said.
