“The regime has queer blood on its hands”: Peter Tatchell

Peter Tatchell is a legendary Human Rights activist who was once described as being ‘Christ-like’ by a former archbishop of Canterbury. Now, he turns his attention to the struggles for social reforms in Qatar, against the backdrop of a widely condemned men’s football World Cup set to take place over the next two months. 

Last week we had a chance to discuss Qatar’s human rights record, FIFA’s accountability, a controversial protest and what stakeholders in football can do ahead of the international tournament. 

It has been 4,353 days since Qatar was awarded the FIFA Men’s World Cup in a decision that received criticism across the globe. The grand plan, according to Sepp Blatter, was to introduce the world’s game to the Middle East. Now, of course, you’d hate to want to question the former FIFA chief’s honour …  

But the promise at the time of introducing the footballing world to a new culture – whilst also using the sport as a means of social development – appears so broken that you wonder whether it was even intact as it left his lips. 

“Why on Earth would FIFA give the World Cup to Qatar?” 

Speaking with Tatchell over video call he wastes no time in painting the grim picture in which the football world has decided to frame itself.  

“I find it astonishing that given Qatar’s extreme abuses of human rights that FIFA ever granted them permission to hold this enormously important and significant international sporting event”  

Indeed, there are widespread reports of deaths of 6,500 migrant workers in the country and a Human Rights Watch investigation, released on Monday 24th October, documents the many considerable social failings in the gulf state. 

Tatchell also tells an incredibly moving story of a young, gay, Qatari man he’d known who was subjected to inhumane conversion therapy at one the country’s alleged secret centres. His treatment was so tormenting that he went on to take his own life.  

“The regime has queer blood on its hands”  Tatchell emphatically declares. 

The verdict around the world is almost unanimous, the Qatari regime’s record is simply not befitting of a country that was awarded the right to hold such a prestigious event 12 years ago. The fact that so little progress has been made in that time says everything you need to know; there was simply never any intention to modernise the State. 

A White Saviour Complex? 

On Tuesday, Peter Tatchell went to Doha and protested against the regime. He stood outside the National Museum of Qatar and held up a placard stating #QatarAntiGay, the same message displayed on his t-shirt as we spoke over Zoom.  

He confirms to me that he stood there for 35 minutes holding the message aloft before state security and police officers detained him, deleted all content of his protest from his and his co-worker’s phones, and interrogated them about all details of their visit, before advising them to get on their connecting flight to Australia. 

However, the protest has been met with considerable criticism.  

Firstly, there were a number of mixed messages released by Tatchell’s team during the confrontation. Tatchell’s whereabouts were declared to be unknown which led to genuine and sincere concern for his welfare, yet it is clear from his comments that he was never removed from his kerbside protest. 

This has led to accusations of having falsely inflated the nature of the incident to exploit people’s empathy and get more attention. In addition, some critics consider this to be in clear disrespect of the fact that his treatment was considerably lighter than it would have been if he were a Qatari citizen. 

Furthermore, and perhaps most pertinently, it has been raised that his decision to head to Qatar had been against the wills of communities living in the state. We confront this issue and Tatchell tells me: “I was asked whether I intended to protest during the world cup and I said no.” 

Frankly, it is hard to ignore that he justifies his actions via a linguistic technicality. 

In the same vein of thought, many Arab commenters have declared this move to have been a PR stunt from start to finish and, in conjunction with being against the wishes of the majority of the Qatari LGBTQ+ population, that it’s a manifestation of Tatchell’s White Saviour Complex and that it will only serve to put more Qataris in danger than to force any meaningful changes to life in the state. 

When pressed on this Tatchell is clear that he is aware of the criticism, but that he felt obliged to act following requests from local communities. He says “I was acting in solidarity with Qatari people who contacted me and wanted me to take action. I am not in any way seeking to save anybody from anything. I was there in solidarity with their struggle.” 

At the crux of the issue is the fact that Qataris have no opportunity to denounce the regime themselves without fearing severe repercussions. They are being silenced by an oppressive, authoritarian regime and Tatchell believed he could use his fame to speak for them without fearing the same consequences. 

However, it is widely claimed that there are as many Qataris, if not more, who fear the backlash post-World Cup so much, that they would rather people like Peter Tatchell did not make these protests at this time. This means, he has decided to ignore this group’s concerns entirely and go ahead with it anyway, which is ignorant at best. 

At worst, this is a case of being selective over which group of voices to listen to, ignoring people’s concerns for their own safety, in order to place himself at the centre of the conversation. 

In the end, the truth is it’s likely a combination of a genuine desire to help suffering communities with a tendency (conscious or subconscious) to use the news cycle to further his own activism. 

And Where To Now For Football 

Nonetheless one thing remains certain, the spectre of the World Cup looms ominously on the horizon with the Qatari regime feverishly making final preparations and deflecting criticisms with every waking minute. Whilst investigations as to how we ended up here continue, the most pertinent question now lies in the near future – what can the football community do? 

Peter Tatchell dismisses the One Love armband – arguably the biggest statement made by nations so far – as a minor gesture. He suggests that the only way to have any true impact is for the national teams to use their press conferences to dedicate 30 seconds to discuss the issues in the country. 

As for supporters, he adds: “I would urge football fans to boycott the World Cup because by going to Qatar they’re colluding with the tyranny of the regime. They’re helping Qatar secure a PR victory.”  

Expecting all supporters to boycott a World Cup is a big ask.  

Everyone will feel differently about Qatar 2022, but for the sake of those living under the oppressive regime, out of respect for the innocents’ blood that has been spilled in the country, let’s not just forget everything at 4PM on the 20th of November.

Let’s not let sports-washing win like we did with Russia 2018.