In its 2023 Human Rights Report on Qatar, the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor reported significant human rights issues in Qatar, including credible reports of restrictions on free expression; substantial interference with the freedom of peaceful assembly and freedom of association; lack of investigation and accountability for gender-based violence; and existence of laws criminalizing consensual same-sex sexual conduct.

The same report stated that 

“LGBTQI+ persons faced discrimination under the law and in practice. There were no government efforts to address potential discrimination, nor are there anti discrimination laws to protect LGBTQI+ people on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity or expression… Due to social and religious conventions, there were no LGBTQI+ organisations, pride marches, or LGBTQI+ rights advocacy events.”

There is insufficient published information to determine whether there is widespread official or private discrimination in employment, occupation, housing or access to education or health care based on sexual orientation or gender identity.

According to the 2022 edition of The F&M Global Barometers LGBTQI+ Perception Index, Qatar has an overall score of “F”, being the lowest grade available, indicating that survey respondents did not consider Qatar to be a country where LGBTQI+ people are perceived to be protected, accepted or safe from discrimination or violence. 

In 2013 it was reported that a proposal was made to the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) to introduce a “medical test” that would be used to prevent homosexual and transgender travellers from entering GCC states, including Qatar. Amnesty International argued that the proposal “will only further stigmatise people who already suffer extremely high levels of discrimination and abuse on the grounds of their real or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity”. These tests were      ultimately not implemented.

In August 2021, The Independent newspaper interviewed a number of LGBTQI+ people living in Qatar and stated that 

“they tell of an anxious existence, one dominated by the need to keep something as natural as their sexuality hidden for fear of shaming, reprisal, sexual assault or imprisonment from a combination of family members, friends, work colleagues and, ultimately, the police. They speak of an unjustness that sees homosexuality perceived as something “worse” than other societal transgressions including drinking alcohol, or adultery”.

Human Rights Watch reported in October 2022 that Qatar’s security forces had been carrying out arbitrary arrests of LGBTQI+ people and subjecting them to poor detention conditions involving officers carrying out verbal, physical and sexual abuse as well as forcing confessions whilst denying access to legal counsel and medical attention. Details of recent examples of reported enforcement action taken by the Qatari security forces can be found below in the Case Law section.

Censorship of LGBTQI+ related matters in the media is common in Qatar. For example, Human Rights Watch reported in August 2018 that “the private publishing partner of The New York Times, Dar Al Sharq, has repeatedly removed articles in the international print edition of The New York Times published in Qatar related to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights.”

Asylum Claims from Qatar 

X (Re), 2020 (Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada) 

A Nigerian national, with a residency permit in Qatar, applied for asylum in Canada on the basis that he feared prosecution in both Nigeria and Qatar based on his sexual orientation as a bisexual. The Refugee Protection Division (the RPD) rejected the applicant’s claims for refugee protection on the basis that his claims were not credible. The RPD did not accept that he was bisexual on the basis that he did not have a same sex partner in Canada and was in a committed marriage to a woman, among other things. The applicant appealed the decision of the RPD to the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada (IRB). On appeal, the IRB found that the applicant had established on the balance of probabilities that he was a bisexual, and that he faced a serious possibility or reasonable chance of persecution in Nigeria and Qatar on this basis. The IRB granted the applicant refugee protection in Canada and overturned the decision of the RPD.

Swain v UK Immigration Asylum Chamber Appeal (2018) 

A Kenyan national, working full time in Qatar, travelled to the United Kingdom in January 2018 on a visitor’s visa and in April 2018 claimed protection on the basis that he would be at risk if he was returned to Kenya because of his sexual orientation as a gay man. The applicant’s original claim for protection was refused by the First-Tier Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber) (the First-Tier Tribunal) on the basis that he had not established that he was gay, and that the applicant lacked credibility, among other things. The applicant appealed the decision and it was heard before The Upper Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber) (the Upper Tribunal). The Upper Tribunal upheld the decision of the First-Tier Tribunal, and in doing so: 

• noted that the applicant had a work visa for Qatar and therefore was able to travel to Qatar to avoid persecution in Kenya and did not need to travel to the U.K.;
• noted that the applicant had no homosexual relationships while living in Qatar; and
• questioned why, if the applicant was genuinely in fear, he did not return to Qatar rather than waiting for a U.K. visa.

Neither the First-Tier Tribunal, nor the Upper Tribunal appear to have considered that homosexuality is a crime in Qatar and the applicant may have been at risk had he returned to Qatar.

Dr. Nasser Mohamed’s Asylum Claim      

In 2015 Dr. Nasser (Nas) Mohamed, a Qatari national who had been studying medicine in the U.S., applied for and was granted asylum based on fears of persecution in Qatar because of his sexual orientation. Details with respect to his asylum claim are not publicly available, but he has spoken openly about his status as the “first” Qatari to publicly come out as gay.

Examples of Enforcement in Qatar

There is very limited published case law relating to LGBTQI+ rights in Qatar. However, the below are some examples of recent enforcement of the Penal Code and other national laws in Qatar which criminalise same-sex sexual acts and expression of gender identity. The below examples have been reported by organisations outside of Qatar.

• In February 2024 Manuel Guerrero Aviña, a British-Mexican national, was sentenced to a suspended six-month prison term following a trial before the Al Sadd Criminal Court in the capital, Doha. Security forces in plain clothes arrested Mr. Guerrero Aviña in February 2024 shortly after he had agreed to meet another man through an online dating app. The authorities subsequently charged him with possession of drugs and other drug-related offences, charges that he denies. Mr. Guerrero Aviña was provisionally released from detention on 18 March 2024 under a travel ban. 
• In its 2023 Human Rights Report on Qatar, the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor stated that in July 2023 the Qatari Ministry of Interior released an extension of its Metrash2 app, permitting anonymous reporting of perceived violations of “public morals, negative phenomena, being threatened, violations in tourist places, administrative corruption”. Social media users publicly interpreted this announcement as a means for them to report gender-nonconforming individuals.
• In November 2022, a young gay man from the Philippines had arranged to meet a potential partner at a hotel, but was instead met by six Qatari police officers. They arrested him immediately and allegedly raped him. They also confiscated his phone, taking screenshots of his chats with other men before being sent to spend the night in jail. He was later taken to the immigration office before being deported back to the Philippines.     
• In October 2022, Human Rights Watch published the accounts of six individuals who were arbitrarily arrested by Preventive Security Department forces between 2019 and September 2022. All six said that the security forces detained them in an underground prison in Al Dafneh, where they were denied access to legal counsel, family, and medical care. All detainees reported that the security forces forced them to unlock their phones and took screenshots of their private photos and chats, as well as contact information of other LGBT people. It was reported that they were all subject to verbal harassment, physical abuse and it was reported that some were even sexually abused by security officers.