World Cup: Peter Tatchell arrested in Qatar after staging LGBTQ+ protest
Prominent human rights activist Peter Tatchell was arrested in Qatar after staging a one-man protest against the criminalisation of LGBTQ+ people there.
Standing outside the National Museum of Qatar in Doha on 25 October, he held a placard which read: “Qatar arrests, jails & subjects LGBTs to ‘conversion’.” Tatchell was on the street with his sign for 35 minutes before security forces arrived, followed by police.
He was then reportedly arrested and detained on the kerbside for 49 minutes. “There were a total of nine officers surrounding and interrogating me about where I was from, who was helping me, where I was staying and when I was leaving Qatar,” he said in a statement after the incident. “Officers also arrested my colleague, Simon Harris, from the Peter Tatchell Foundation, who was filming and photographing me. “The police took Simon’s phone and deleted all his photos and videos – but only after he had already sent them to London.” It marks the “first” public LGBTQ+ protest in Qatar or any Gulf state, Tatchell’s team said.
It comes after the Human Rights Watch reported cases of LGBTQ+ people being detained and subjected to “ill-treatment in detention” in Qatar as recently as last month.
