Online betting, LGBT dating sites … If you want to avoid ending up in prison in Qatar, you will have to sort through your phones, according to BFMTV.
By ThePoint.fr
© MARTIN BUREAU / AFP
Published on
De prison for an application on a phone: this is what the fans who go to Qatar risk for the Football World Cup which begins this Sunday, November 20. The Middle Eastern country indeed has very strict laws regarding, for example, online betting and gambling, which are strictly prohibited. If you are surprised on such an application, you incur three months of imprisonment and up to the equivalent of 800 euros in fines according to BFM TV, Friday, November 18.
Other apps to remove: LGBT dating apps. Homosexuality is illegal and repressed in Qatar. Homosexual people can be imprisoned for seven years, and the NGO Human Rights Watch has recorded 11 cases of physical or moral violence against people from the LGBTQ community in the country. The National Commission for Computing and Liberties (CNIL) even pushed supporters to adopt a rather radical attitude and to buy a blank or even disposable phone to go to the World Cup.
READ ALSOWorld Cup – Our selection of books for the competition
Spyware?
If the prohibited applications must be deleted, two others must imperatively be installed when arriving in Qatari territory: Hayya, the official application of the World Cup which will allow tickets to be checked at the stadium, and Ehteraz, a monitoring application for Covid-19. .
Except that these last two would be pirate software, which would give access to supporters’ data to the Qatari authorities, reports BFMTV. These could even read, modify and delete messages, or even make calls. In this way, the photos and videos taken must remain within the local legal framework, otherwise they will also be arrested. Fans will also not have the right to a beer near the stadium, the authorities having suddenly changed their minds, as reported on Friday.