BERLIN (AP) — An ambassador for the World Cup in Qatar has described homosexuality as a “damage in the mind” in an interview with German public broadcaster ZDF only two weeks before the opening of the soccer tournament in the Gulf state, highlighting concerns about the conservative country’s...
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BERLIN (AP) — An ambassador for the World Cup in Qatar has described homosexuality as a “damage in the mind” in an interview with German public broadcaster ZDF only two weeks before the opening of the soccer tournament in the Gulf state, highlighting concerns about the conservative country’s treatment of gays and lesbians.
Former Qatari national team player Khalid Salman told a German reporter in an interview that being gay is “haram,” or forbidden in Arabic, and that he has a problem with children seeing gay people.
Excerpts of the television interview were shown Monday on the ZDF news program Heute Journal. The full interview, which is part of a documentary, will be shown Tuesday on ZDF.
Germany’s interior minister condemned Salman’s remarks.
“Of course such comments are terrible, and that is the reason why we are working on things in Qatar hopefully improving,” Nancy Faeser said Tuesday.