A British-Mexican man who was honey trapped by police on the gay dating app Grindr has been convicted of drug charges in Qatar.
Human rights groups are demanding the conviction and travel ban imposed on Manuel Guerrero Aviña, 45, be overturned, claiming he was unfairly targeted by the authorities because of his homosexuality.
Guerrero Aviña was found guilty of possessing an illegal substance at a hearing in Doha on Wednesday – a charge that he and his family have denied.
On Wednesday, the airline worker received a six-month suspended sentence and will be deported from Qatar after a “grossly unfair trial” as described by three organisations, including Amnesty International, a human rights group.
“There are serious fears that Guerrero Aviña was targeted for his sexual orientation and was coerced into providing the authorities with information that they could use to pursue a wider crackdown on LGBTI individuals in Qatar,” said Aya Majzoub, Amnesty’s deputy regional director for the Middle East and North Africa.
In early February, Guerrero Aviña arranged to meet a man who called himself “Gio” over Grindr, the gay dating app.
But instead of meeting “Gio”, he was arrested by Qatari police on drug charges, and held for 42 days in a detention centre.
During his detention, Qatari authorities “interrogated him about his sexual relations and subjected him to ill-treatment on the basis of his sexual orientation and his HIV-positive status,” according to a statement from Amnesty.
His family says he was forced to thumbprint a “confession” in Arabic, which he did not understand. The Qatari authorities also “threatened to whip him” if he didn’t unlock his phone to identify other LGBT people, including previous sexual partners.
Denied access to food and water
Guerrero Aviña was put in solitary confinement and denied access to food and water for 15 hours a day, forcing him to beg for something to eat, his relatives told Amnesty. The authorities also refused to provide him with necessary HIV medication for a month.
“The Qatari authorities are using this case to stigmatise and criminalise LGBTI people,” said Amnesty.
In March, the UN human rights office issued an urgent action requesting Qatar justify his detention.
Guerrero Aviña was released from detention after agreeing to hand over his passport.
“The British government has a responsibility to make urgent representations to the Qatari government about the deeply unfair and discriminatory process their citizen has been subjected to,” said James Lynch, co-director of FairSquare, an organisation that focus on human rights in the Gulf.
“They must also press the Qatari authorities to stop the persecution of people based on their sexual orientation or gender identity.”
In Qatar, a range of same-sex consensual activities are banned, and those found guilty can be jailed for up to seven years.
Guerrero Aviña, who has lived in Qatar for seven years, could not be reached directly for comment. The Qatari embassy in London did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
It’s unclear when the Qatari authorities will implement the deportation of Guerrero Aviña.