Gay people livg unr radar Qatar prepare warily for World Cup | Rters

Contents:

• WHAT ’S LIKE TO BE GAY AND QATARI
• DOHA - GAY LIFE - DOHA FOM
• GAY PEOPLE LIVG UNR RADAR QATAR PREPARE WARILY FOR WORLD CUP
• GAY QATARIS PHYSILLY ABED THEN RECED AS AGENTS, MPAIGNER SAYS
• GAY MAN BERT ARCHER TELLS OF WHAT 'S LIKE TO E SAME-SEX HOOK-UP APPS QATAR
• STTO’S LATT: TUCKER, GAY, SUMNER, NOEL
• GAY UNSELOR'S FIRG BY INDIANAPOLIS CATHOLIC SCHOOL PERMTED BY FERAL APPEALS URT
• JAGUARS ASSOCIATE STRENGTH ACH OUT AS GAY A FIRST FOR US-BASED PRO LEAGU

WHAT ’S LIKE TO BE GAY AND QATARI

As the first and currently only Qatari to publicly e out as gay, Mohamed­—a doctor who has lived the U.S. But given homosexualy is crimalized Qatar, he is likely to rema s only member for the foreeable future. In the months sce, Mohamed lnched the non-prof Alwan Foundatn to advance LGBTQ+ rights across the Middle East and pecially Qatar, where he says that secury operativ filtrate gay muni orr to torture and erce members to rm on others.

TIME: As a gay Qatari, do you feel that hostg the World Cup n brg change? Is there an unrground gay scene or is that too dangero? There are some people om really affluent fai that are gay and ’s almost public knowledge—but they’re really wealthy, affluent, and very nnected, so people jt don’t say anythg.

DOHA - GAY LIFE - DOHA FOM

But even the most powerful gay [person] Qatar is powerls some ways. They uld gaybash and get away wh wh no nsequenc at all. And if such an attack happens on a gay fan, I don’t know of the [secury] rourc to help them.

Bee you uld be harmed, you n be gay bashed, you n be beaten, and people may not be able to help you. Doha - Gay Life.

GAY PEOPLE LIVG UNR RADAR QATAR PREPARE WARILY FOR WORLD CUP

I am a gay male planng on visg Doha around the end of the year for 2 weeks. I was hopg to get some on where I n fd iends to hang out wh that are gay. Not necsarily a bar bee i know Qatar don't have gay bars, but jt a place that is unofficially a gay hang out place.

Re: Doha - Gay Life.

REUTERS/Fabriz Bensch/ Acquire Licensg RightsDOHA, Nov 19 (Rters) - A group of Arab iends livg Qatar's pal Doha met up over cktails and snacks last week, exchangg opns as they flicked through profil of gay men on datg apps Tr and phone of one flashed wh a msage om a suor around the rner. The man his 20s leapt up om the table, leavg to meet his date iends, who met up days before the soccer World Cup kicks off Qatar on Sunday, are part of a Doha gay scene that's managg to fly unr the radar a natn where same-sex relatns are illegal and punishable by up to three years of jail-time.

GAY QATARIS PHYSILLY ABED THEN RECED AS AGENTS, MPAIGNER SAYS

We go to the beach, " said another gay man, om the Wt, who has lived the wealthy untry for over a . "Rters spoke to four gay men Doha - the Wterner, two Qataris pl an Arab om elsewhere the regn - who said they lived the untry, a mag for foreign workers, bee they had well-paid jobs, pl iends or fay four spoke on ndn of anonymy due to ncern over possible punishment om thori.

GAY MAN BERT ARCHER TELLS OF WHAT 'S LIKE TO E SAME-SEX HOOK-UP APPS QATAR

"It's not all sufferg, " said a 30-year-old gay Arab man who has lived and worked Doha for nearly 10 fact, the four exprsed worri about the wave of ternatnal cricism about gay rights Qatar brought by the World Cup, fearg they uld lose the eedoms they do enjoy should the opprobrium lead to a public backlash agast the LGBT+ muny once global attentn mov on. "The men prent jt one snapshot of life for gay people the Gulf natn - and the four regnise their relative eedoms are a product of privilege; they n afford to live alone, host parti and meet partners high-end rtrants or nightclubs, where the strict l of Qatari society are often more 's not like that for members of Qatar's LGBT muny have reported beg taed, some as recently as September, Human Rights Watch (HRW) has said. A Qatari official cricised the HRW report as ntag false rmatn and said the untry do not license or operate nversn Mohamed, a gay Qatari physician who has lived the Uned Stat for about a , weled the attentn the tournament has drawn to Qatar's rights rerd, sayg prompted him to speak out wily about his sexualy.

9 ln populatn, wh the rt foreign workers, rangg om low-e nstctn workers to high-powered four men terviewed by Rters said that there were strong fancial and reer centiv to ridg the untry, addg that life for gay people there was better than some other plac the Middle ced Sdi Arabia and Iran, where men have been sentenced to ath for beg gay.. I know gay men workers' mps wouldn't be able to live the same way.

"Qatari anisers of the World Cup have warned visors agast public displays of affectn but say that everyone, no matter their sexual orientatn or background, is wele at the the tournament, medil practners will not ask patients about their extramaral sex, relign or any other stat, acrdg to the Yoef Al Maslamani, the healthre spokperson for the FIFA World the 12 years sce Qatar was named host of the 2022 tournament, the untry has faced tensifyg cricism over s rights rerd on laborers, women and the LGBT furore has been fuelled by ments om public figur cludg former Qatar player and World Cup ambassador Khalid Salman who told a German broadster that homosexualy was "damage the md". Gay Qataris have been promised safety om physil torture exchange for helpg the thori to track down other LGBTQ+ people the untry, a proment Qatari doctor and gay rights mpaigner has told the Nasser Mohamed, who liv the US but retas ntact wh hundreds of gay Qataris, said that some secret works had been promised after arrts by Qatar’s preventive secury partment.

STTO’S LATT: TUCKER, GAY, SUMNER, NOEL

“A lot [of gay Qataris] don’t know about each other, ” Mohamed said. “Now there are agents the gay muny that were promised safety om physil torture exchange for workg for the preventive secury partment and helpg them fd groups of LGBTQ+ people.

”Mohamed told the Guardian that foreign gay fans Qatar would not be persecuted while at the World Cup fals tournament. ”Last month Human Rights Watch reported that Qatar’s preventive secury partment forc had arbrarily arrted lbian, gay, bisexual and transgenr people and subjected them to ill‑treatment tentn. A gay wrer who vised the nservative Mlim untry of Qatar has revealed what is really like to seek out partners who are terted sexual trysts as a place where beg ught dulgg same-sex partnerships uld mean the ath Archer, 47, a Canadian wrer was on a vis to Doha when he cid he wanted to check out the gay sgl scene - not least bee he heard that, spe Qatar beg a tradnally Mlim untry and outlawg homosexualy, thgs were looseng up as the 2022 World Cup approach.

Wrg about his experience an article for Vice, Bert says he ma sure he 'looked to the laws about such thgs, as I always do before travelg to a new place' and found that the maximum penalty for gay sex was ath - somethg, he noted, would 'put a damper on the hook-up scene'. On the road: Canadian travel wrer Bert Archer, 47, has revealed what 's like to be a gay men lookg for other gay men the nservative Mlim untry of Qatar, where gay sex is punishable by ath Tellg all: Bert was travelg for work Doha when he cid to log on to a gay hook-up app to experience the same-sex sceneWhout namg the specific app or apps he ed, Bert logged on and immediately received several eager msag om potential partners – jt as he says he would have done, were he any other untry.

GAY UNSELOR'S FIRG BY INDIANAPOLIS CATHOLIC SCHOOL PERMTED BY FERAL APPEALS URT

'Ined, what Bert disvered as he ntued to lve eper to Qatar’s admtedly discreet gay scene is that the realy go agast many of the mon perceptns wterners may have of the cizens of non-secular untri like Qatar. Out on the street: As a non-Mlim and non-Qatari, Bert himself would not be subject to the ath penalty if ught engagg same sex activy, but did risk imprisonment and portatnWh that md, Bert himself ma a pot of beg vigilant about his meet-ups, askg plenty of qutns and havg prospective hook-ups take 'an crimatg picture posed jt like I say so I know 's you and not some be-robed p g stolen porn to reel the unwtg unholy' men he did meet up wh provid some sight to life as a gay man the area durg their postal nversatns, wh some beg surprisgly blase about the suatn.

He lghed a lgh I've grown acctomed to on the road, the oh-you-stupid-llow-foreigner lgh When asked if 's tough beg gay Doha, one man, who Bert refers to as a bodybuilr who works for a large Qatari rporatn, simply lghed.

Rather, he explaed, the men went about wh their liftyle by knowg their an effort to experience an offle gay datg scene, one of Bert's hook-ups remend a certa hotel bar that, while clearly not a gay bar, did have 'sgle, young, brown men who orred drks they didn't drk and stood at the bar makg the same kd of anx, hungry, hant eye ntact I've read about novels and memoirs that scribe the North Amerin scene five and six s ago. Open doors: Dpe the laws Qatar, Bert reported receivg plenty of msag on gay hook-up appsThe only possible risk that Bert enuntered was on his fal night Doha, when a man approached him on the street, walked wh him and eventually proposned him for sex.

JAGUARS ASSOCIATE STRENGTH ACH OUT AS GAY A FIRST FOR US-BASED PRO LEAGU

'The first three rults told me that police ocsnally pick up foreign workers ught promisg same-sex suatns and, exchange for not arrtg and portg them, turn them to ba, ' wrote Bert, whose spicns proved strong enough for him to send the man all, Bert scribed the gay datg scene as 'secret but not secretive' and 'un-dramatic' and pared to what he heard om a iend about Washgton DC four to five s prevly, where men would be able to meet the woods.