Qatar's Secret Gay Conversion Center Minutes From World Cup Final Stadium

One of Qatar's secret alleged conversion therapy centers for members of the LGBTQ community is only minutes from where the FIFA World Cup final will be played.

Funded by the Qatari government, the Wifaq Family Consulting Center is located in the city of Lusail, just a five minute drive from Lusail Stadium where Argentina will take on France for the coveted World Cup trophy on Sunday.

While the center advertises itself as offering "spiritual guidance" based on Islamic principles and counselling for family issues, activists say that it also houses secret conversion therapy services.

"According to Qataris, LGBT+ people can be detained there against their will and subjected to abusive so-called treatments in a bid to turn them straight," said Peter Tatchell, director of the human rights organization, the Peter Tatchell Foundation.

Qatar outlaws "sexual acts against nature," which includes same-sex relations and is punishable with up to five years in prison. Members within the LGBTQ community face much legal and societal discrimination in Qatar.

The country banned any displays of the rainbow Pride flag at World Cup matches. FIFA even threatened disciplinary action for players who planned to wear the "OneLove" armband in solidarity with the LGBTQ community during the month-long tournament.

Tatchell, who has a wide network of LGBTQ and human rights advocate contacts in Qatar, told Newsweek how "one young gay Qatari told me he had been put though a gay conversion program."

"He described it as a form of 'psychological and religious brainwashing.' He was so traumatized by the experience, and the pervasive homophobia that he had experienced in Qatar, that he later died by suicide," Tatchell added.

Conversion therapy is a widely condemned practice that seeks to change a person's sexual and/or gender identity. Some organizations to slam the practice include the American Psychiatric Association, the United Nations (U.N.) and Britain's National Health Service (NHS). The NHS describes the widely discredited practice as "unethical and potentially harmful."

Often led by religious groups, some methods of conversion therapy have included electric shock, deprivation of food, psychotherapy and hypnosis.

Funded by the Qatari government through the Qatar Foundation, Wifaq says it offers "spiritual guidance" and counselling for family related issues such as divorce, child custody and family mediation. Individuals can be referred to Wifaq for treatment by their family, schools, religious leaders and courts.

"But I am told that hidden within its many services are conversion programs designed to reform LGBTs by changing their sexual orientation or gender identity," Tatchell told Newsweek.

The conversion therapies allegedly run by Wifaq fall under its "guidance and counselling service," "parental care service" and "community awareness service."

One of Wifaq's objectives is to "mitigate the effects of rapid changes in the family in Qatar and raise the efficiency of family members to manage a stable and cohesive family life," according to its website.

Tatchell said this statement was code for "what they do to LGBT+ Qataris: Ensure conformity to traditional Islamic family values."

"Most LGBT+ conversion treatments result from family referrals in a bid to convert family members who are LGBT+. However, there is also a reference on the Wifaq website to family court cases—and this can include court referrals for compulsory conversion treatment," he explained.

Newsweek reached out to the Qatari government and Wifaq Family Consulting Center for comment, but did not receive a reply.

Some people are forced into full-time residential treatment for months at a time and while they're not officially incarcerated, they are under the watch of guards and need permission to leave. Individuals are also required to attend weekly counselling sessions, which allegedly include psychological pressure and religious persuasion.

That was the experience for Saif* who sought medical help when he came out as a transgendered man in his early 20s.

Saif said he tried to access support at private and state run medical facilities, but when he couldn't get any help with his transition, he was sent to a behavioral center.

"If you're under the umbrella of LGBTQ+ you have to go to the behavioral center because here in Qatar, they consider this as a behavioral issue," he told Newsweek. "It's considered unnatural."

But while undergoing psychological treatment for childhood trauma, Saif said he realized that health care staff had no concept of being transgender, with many telling him he was "going to hell" for who he was.

He said he was then forced to go for invasive examinations on his reproductive organs.

"They sent me to a gynecologist. They thought, if I'm saying I'm trans, is it my genitalia? Is it normal or not? They made me take a chromosome test as well," Saif added.

Saif said he was then referred to a social worker and that's when things got really bad, leaving him with years of trauma that he's still trying to undo. He said the social worker once suggested he was only acting trans in order to attract women.

"She forced this idea on me that I'm 'chopping myself up to be with girls'," he said.

The horrifying experience with medical staff in Qatar led Saif to attempt suicide, but he said local police intervened, and when they realized the gender marker on his ID was female, issued him with a stern warning.

Rather than turning him in to Qatar's Preventive Security Department forces—who have a history of violence against LGBTQ people—Saif said police instead warned him "they will put you in jail."

"They said to me, 'they will put you somewhere, and you will have a bad record. It's not worth it'," Saif explained.

While Saif considers himself to be lucky that his psychologists and police did not report him to the security forces, he said other LGBTQ people, especially gay men and trans women, have fared much worse.

"They take them, they beat them, they shave their heads," Saif said, who said one of his friends who is effeminate was targeted for his gender expression and detained for a month until delivered an ultimatum.

"They told him, 'we will let you out, but you have to bring us other people like you,'" Saif said.

These accounts of arbitrary detention and violence were corroborated by the advocacy organization, Human Rights Watch (HRW), which released a report on the matter just days before the start of the World Cup.

It detailed how security forces arrested people in public places and unlawfully searched their phones. They were detained without charge and one person was even kept in solitary confinement for two months.

The report said that once in detention people described being verbally harassed and subjected to physical abuse such as slapping, kicking and punching until they bled, with one woman saying she lost consciousness.

Security officers also demanded forced confessions, and denied access to legal counsel, family, and medical care. The officers forced them to sign pledges saying they would "cease immoral activity," according to the report.

The arrested transgender women interviewed by HRW were allegedly forced to attend conversion therapy sessions at a government-sponsored "behavioral healthcare" center—such as the one Saif attended—as a condition of their release.

"While Qatar prepares to host the World Cup, security forces are detaining and abusing LGBT people simply for who they are, apparently confident that the security force abuses will go unreported and unchecked," said Rasha Younes, LGBT rights researcher at HRW, in a statement last month. "Qatari authorities need to end impunity for violence against LGBT people. The world is watching."

Hosting the World Cup has brought increased scrutiny to Qatar including over its treatment of migrant workers, members of the LGBTQ community, women, and its human rights record.

But for Saif, the solution for people like him in Qatar is simple.

"Always choose to leave...I don't see a life here. If I said 'there is a brighter future', I'd only be lying to myself," he said.

He hopes to have saved enough money to leave Qatar within the next six months and recommended others ensure they are in a strong financial position before moving.

"Because when you leave, there's no coming back," Saif said.

*Names have been changed to protect individual's safety.