Video: Qatar's World Cup hosting questioned again as Queen launches anti-gay charity

Source theproscreen


This is a video produced by a Qatari media house for a local charity, the Social Rehabilitation Center (al-Aween). It's title? 'Abnormality'.

The charity's patron is Sheikha Moza bint Nasser, glamorous wife of the Emir (King) of the fabulously rich Gulf state of Qatar, host of the 2022 football World Cup.

She is founder and chair of the Arab Democracy Foundation, she has served as a special envoy for Unesco, and she sits on the Board of Overseers for Weill Cornell Medical College in the United States. She is also an Honorary Dame of the British Empire, a member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in France and holder of the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic.

But that's not all she is.

Brian Whittaker on the al-bab blog says.

I began to have doubts about Sheikha Moza's enlightenment a few years ago, when she hosted a conference in Qatar which brought together some of the world's most reactionary religious elements – Mormons and Catholics as well as Muslims – to "defend the family". The family is in peril, she warned in her opening speech, because of attempts to "redefine the concept of family in a manner contrary to religious precepts".

Her new charity al-Aween, which she established, is billed as Qatar's first centre to combat "deviation from acceptable social behaviour" and "provide specialised treatment for all kinds of behavioural deviation that require thorough intervention and treatment by specialists".

This includes "treatment" for homosexuality.

Their 'experts' include Dr Dalia al-Moumen, a psychiatric consultant whose lectures, Whittaker reports, for al-Aween have dealt with the "problem" of men with long hair and girls wearing trousers – and the "negative impacts" of that on mental health, society, religion and the family.

Another is Dr Abdul Alim Ibrahim, a senior consultant in psychiatry, who asks: "How much do Homosexuals impact on society?" – and answers the question with a gay-conspiracy theory. 

Zimbabwe's president, Robert Mugabe, "went too far" in describing homosexuals as lower than pigs and dogs, the doctor says, but the development of gay rights in some countries was "not based on scientific studies". Rather, it was the result of "tension made by powerful homosexuals which affected many civil organisations, human rights organisations, decisions and law makers".

Dr Ibrahim is also worried about the effect of this on future generations. "What will be the sexual direction for the next generation," he wonders, "when they will have the right to choose" and "where inconvenient circumstances will lead them to be homosexual"?

Homosexuality is criminalised in Qatar but both the President of World Cup organisers FIFA Seph Blatter and the Qatari organising committee have shrugged off concerns about the treatment of gay fans and players during the tournament - as well as the ethics of awarding the event to the country in the first place.

Writing for Gay Middle East, 'Gay Qatar' said:

"The issue is clear. Locking people up for 5 years because they are gay is a slap in the face of human rights. Allowing for gays and lesbians to be forced into hormone therapy in an attempt to cure them of their homosexuality is a slap in the face of human rights.  Trying to entrap gays in [Qatar's capital] Doha’s malls, streets and on gay chat rooms and websites by Qatari agents is a slap in the face of human rights."

"There are still absolutely no answers as to what will happen to gays and lesbians if and when they decide to go to the 2022 World Cup, not to mention removing the horrible legislation against LGBT Qataris."