LGBTQ+ Community Can Visit, But Don't Try To Change Us, Says Qatar Minister

In an interview with Germany's Bild newspaper, Qatar's energy minister said members of the LGBTQ+ community can go to the World Cup in Qatar but the West cannot “dictate” to Qataris what they should believe.

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“If they want to visit Qatar, we have no problem with it,” Minister of State for Energy Affairs Saad Sherida Al-Kaabi said of the LGBTQ+ community, speaking to Bild in comments published on Wednesday.

But he said the West wants to “dictate what it wants” to Qatar, where homosexuality is illegal.

“If you want to change me so that I will say that I believe in LGBTQ, that my family should be LGBTQ, that I accept LGBTQ in my country, that I change my laws and the Islamic laws in order to satisfy the West – then this is not acceptable,” he added.

German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser sported the OneLove armband at the national team's match against Japan last week and has criticized Qatar's human rights, but this week Germany sealed a deal to import liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Qatar, according to Reuters.

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