28/11/2022
Ninety people, including football fans from Arsenal’s LGBT+ fan group, joined a colourful noisy protest outside Qatar’s London embassy today - the day before the start of the FIFA World Cup in Qatar. They chanted slogans including “2-4-6-8 Qatar must legislate, 3-5-7-9 Equality for all every time” Protest coordinator, Peter Tatchell, told reporters “We called out the homophobic, sexist and racist regime in Qatar. We also sent a message of love and solidarity with victims of the dictatorship: Qatari LGBTs, women and migrant workers. Our aim was to keep the pressure on the Qatari regime and its backers in FIFA, the football governing body that shamefully gave Qatar the WorldCup”. Mr Tatchell concluded by saying “We want to End the criminalisation, jailing, online entrapment, ‘honour’ killing and forced conversion of LGBTs. Abolish the male guardian system, whereby women have to get male permission to marry, work, study and travel abroad. Compensate the families of dead migrant workers, pay unpaid wages, close overcrowded slum hostels and give workers the right to join a trade union”.
