Tinted Moisturizer Gets Gay Man Deported From Qatar

A gay man was deported from Qatar earlier this year for apparently wearing tinted moisturizer. Before his eviction, he suffered humiliating mistreatment at the hands of investigative officers.

Gilbert Ignatius, who had moved from Indonesia in 2016 to work as a flight attendant with Qatar Airways, was celebrating his 32nd birthday when he and his friends were accosted by Qatar’s Criminal Investigation Department (CID). He says that they were taken to a security room where officers took a wet wipe to their faces to reveal they were wearing tinted moisturizer.

Under threat of imprisonment, Ignatius and his friends were brought to a police station for interrogation. According to Ignatius, the CID officers accused him of being a sex worker, claiming that his designer clothing was too extravagant for his reported income: “He said, ‘You think I don’t know how much you earn every month, and you think you can buy Hermès?'” When he denied the accusations, he was slapped on the cheek.

The following day, Ignatius was permitted to return to his room at Qatar Airways. However, he says that his passport was confiscated by the airline and he was not permitted to leave the living quarters. Just weeks later, he got fired from his job and driven to the border of Qatar, where he and his friend were told, “You are deported.”

Civil and human rights stand on shaky, even nonexistent ground in Qatar. Under the nation’s penal code, homosexuality is illegal, and men who have sex with men could even face the death penalty. This discrimination was highlighted in 2022’s World Cup, when FIFA censored athletes who tried to express queer solidarity, and some individuals wearing rainbow designs were even detained.

Ignatius has since moved back to Indonesia, where he has received counseling to recover from the trauma of the incident.