HORRIFIC

LGBTQ Residents in World Cup Host Qatar Say They’re Simply Not Safe

LGBT residents and visitors say they’ve been beaten, tortured and even raped by Qatar state authorities for their sexuality and gender expression.

With three weeks to the World Cup, LGBTQ residents who say they typically live silent and afraid in the tournament’s 2022 host nation are speaking out. In a series of anonymous interviews with i, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Qatar locals claim the state is quick to arrest, deport, and in some cases, torture and rape them, for their sexuality and gender expression. “Even this year. They kidnap people and put them in solitary confinement and then take turns beating them,” Dr. Nasser Mohamed, a Qatar expat who now lives in San Francisco, told the outlet. “And some of them stay there for months. They have a tower with underground dungeons. And they keep them in solitary confinement, and they beat them physically, daily.” One anonymous, gay source described being catfished by Qatar law enforcement on a dating app, asking him to meet up at a hotel for the equivalent of roughly $80, luring him to a hotel room where six officials would rape him in turn. Both residents and foreigners are vulnerable, according to Mohamed, though wealth, race, class and nationality can impact individual treatment.