HRW: Qatar Arbitrarily Arrested LGBT People, Subjected Them To Ill-treatment In Custody

The Human Rights Watch (HRW) assures that Department of Preventive Security forces in Qatar arbitrarily arrested lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) peopleand subjected to ill-treatment in custody.

LGBT people interviewed by HRW said their mistreatment took place last September, amid Qatar’s preparations to host the 2022 FIFA Men’s World Cupnext November.

The observatory documented six cases of severe and repeated beatings, in addition to five cases of sexual harassment in police custody, between 2019 and 2022. It added that security forces arrested people in public places solely for their gender expression and illegally searched their phones.

As a requirement for their release, security forces ordered detained transgender women to attend conversion therapy sessions at a government-sponsored “behavioral health care” facility.

“As Qatar prepares to host the World Cup, security forces are detaining and abusing LGBT people simply because of who they areapparently confident that security force abuses will go unreported and unchecked,” said Rasha Younes, LGBT rights researcher at HRW.

“The Qatari authorities must end impunity for violence against LGBT people. The world is watching,” she added.

Human Rights Watch interviewed six LGBT Qataris, including four transgender women, a bisexual woman and a gay man.

Dr. Nasser Mohamed, an openly gay Qatari activist, helped connect HRW with five of the interviewees.

They all said that officers from the Department of Preventive Security detained them in an underground prison in Al Dafneh, Doha, where detainees were verbally harassed and physically abused, from slapping to kicking and punching until they bled.

One woman said she lost consciousness.

Security agents also inflicted verbal abuse, extracted forced confessions, and denied detainees access to legal counsel, family, and medical care. All six said police forced them to sign pledges stating that they would “cease immoral activity.”

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The report indicates that all were detained without charge, in one case for two months in solitary confinement, without access to legal counsel. None received any record of having been detained.

A transgender Qatari woman said that after she was arrested on the street by security forces in Doha, Preventive Security officers accused her of “imitating women” because of her gender expression.

In the patrol car, she was beaten until her lips and nose bled and she was kicked in the stomach, she said. “You homosexuals are immoral, so we will be the same with you”, he said an officer told him.

“I saw many other LGBT people detained there: two Moroccan lesbians, four Filipino gay men and a Nepali gay man,” he said. “I was detained for three weeks without charge and the agents I was repeatedly sexually harassed. Part of the release requirement was to attend sessions with a psychologist who “would make me a man again”.

Another Qatari transgender woman said she was arrested in public by Preventive Security Department forces because she was wearing makeup. “They gave me baby wipes for my hands and made me take my makeup off my face,” she said.

“They used the makeup stained wipes as evidence against me and took a photo of me with the wipes in my hand. They also shaved my hair, ”added the transgender woman, who pointed out that the security forces made her sign a promise that she would not wear makeup again as a condition for her release.

A Qatari bisexual woman said: “[Los agentes de Seguridad Preventiva] I was beaten several times until I lost consciousness. An officer took me blindfolded by car to another location that looked like a private house from the inside and forced me to watch immobilized people being beaten as an intimidation tactic.”

The Qatar Penal Code, under article 285, punishes extramarital sexual relations, including same-sex relations, with up to seven years in prison.

None of those interviewed said they had faced charges. and it appears that his arbitrary arrest and detention are based on Law No. 17 of 2002 on Community Protectionwhich allows provisional detention without charge or trial for up to six months, if “there are serious reasons to believe that the accused may have committed a crime”, including the “violation of public morality”.

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Collectives asked the International Football Federation (FIFA) in December 2021 that Qatar not organize the next World Cup in 2022 after the words about homosexuals by the general director of this sporting event, Nasser al Khater.

In an interview at the CNNthe general director of the Qatar 2022 World Cup had said that LGTBI people who attend this sporting event should not feel insecure or threatened, but he hoped that “do not show affection in public and respect the local culture”.

Qatar denies abuses

The Government of Qatar denied the allegations in the HRW report.

A Qatari government spokesman told the news agency EFE that the observatory report contains information “categorically and unequivocally false”, since Qatar’s policies “are underpinned by a commitment to human rights for all”.

The spokesman assured that the country “does not tolerate discrimination against anyone” and also criticized HRW for not contacting the country’s authorities to be able to “refute the accusations”. (YO)