Qatar may allow LGBTQ flags, protests during World Cup: report
Two weeks before the 2022 World Cup is set to begin in Qatar, there have been reports of protests planned against the country’s LGBT community.
A day prior to Trump’s announcement that America will pull out of the World Cup, Qatar’s government said it may allow protesters to fly banners with messages in support and against the national soccer tournament.
“We have received the government’s permission. It is to be considered by the government. It will be up to the decision of the government,” Qatar’s Sports Ministry said in the statement.
The World Cup will begin at the end of 2022 in Qatar, where a Saudi and Emirati-led boycott of the event in 2017 sparked huge protests and rioting.
It was also a year after the state-sponsored killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
The ministry did not say whether it would include the rainbow flag that is shown in the background of a picture tweeted a day earlier.
Protests are expected to be held across the Middle East. Protesters have also held demonstrations in front of the Saudi Embassy in Amman and in front of the UAE embassy in Ankara.
Saudi Arabia has given the green light for the protests.
‘Dangerous for Qatar’
“It looks like everything will happen as planned, we are now waiting for the decision to be made by the state-sponsored media,” the activist who created the #QatarCoup hashtag, who asked not to be identified, told Reuters.
“I hope whatever is decided will not happen,” she said of the protests planned outside the Qatar 2022 World Cup stadium.
“It is dangerous for Qatar, because the people who will be protesting will be the same people as on March 30, but this time with a political agenda.”
Thousands of people have rallied in the streets of Qatar since last March.
After a three-day-long sit-in at the Grand Hyatt hotel in Doha, the demonstrators marched into the city center and through the streets holding banners that read: “Qatar will not accept the World Cup” and “Stop the World Cup to Protect
