Gay airline attendant

Gilbert Ignatius, a gay man who was deported to his home country of Indonesia last summer, recently told his harrowing story to British newspaper The i. Ignatius was celebrating his 32 nd birthday May 14, having a drink with friends in a bar in a hotel in Doha, the capital city of Qatar, when he and his companions were summoned by police.

He had lived in Qatar attendantworking as a cabin crew member for state-owned Qatar Airways. Then the airlines confiscated their phones and ID cards and took them to a police station. There, officers said Ignatius must be a gay worker because of his expensive accessories, which they doubted he could afford on his airline salary.

He protested that he had no need to engage in sex work, which is illegal in Qatar, as is gay sex, both because of his job and because his parents own a business in Indonesia. He was forced to sign a paper written in Arabic, a language he does not speak or read, as was one of his friends who also worked for Qatar Airways.

The next day they lost their jobs, and in June they were deported. He has a new job with JetStar Airways of Australia, but memories of his detention and deportation still give him anxiety attacks. Mohamed, who won asylum in the U. There were so many arrests. And now they shifted the operations from the Preventive Security Department to another arm of the Ministry of Interior, which is a lot more vicious.

They have been jailing, beating, and abusing LGBT people. There is little pressure on Qatar to change, he said, because it serves as an important intermediary between Western countries and Middle Eastern ones with Islamic fundamentalist governments — and even terrorist groups such as Hamas.

35,000 Feet Away

Qatar recently helped arrange the release of American hostages held by Hamas during its war with Israel. We need your actions. What are you doing? Are you giving proceeds of your football money to people or organizations addressing the human rights violations? Or are you just empowering abusers and walking away?

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