My heart was racing as I stopped outside Qatar’s National Museum and prepared to stage the first protest the Gulf state had ever seen.As planned, I removed my top to reveal a T-shirt emblazoned with the hashtag ‘QatarAntiGay’ before unfurling a placard denouncing Qatar’s persecution of its LGBT+ citizens with the words: ‘Qatar arrests, jails & subjects LGBTs to “conversion”.’I admit I was scared. Homosexuality, and all forms of protest, are illegal in Qatar, and though I have a lifelong record of campaigning for LGBT+ rights — sometimes in very dangerous places — Qatar is a police state. I was fearful of being arrested, jailed and perhaps beaten up.
Load More
Load More