LGBTQ+ visitors to Qatar for the World Cup could be left open to “gay-bashing” attacks from locals with the security forces lacking the resources to protect them, a Qatari human rights campaigner has said. Concerns have been raised over what sort of treatment visiting members of the LGBTQ+ community will receive from the authorities in a country where same-sex relationships are criminalised. However, Dr Nasser Mohamed, who is from Qatar but who was granted political asylum in the United States five years ago over fears he would face persecution in his homeland as a gay man, believes the biggest threat to LGBTQ+ supporters will not come from the security forces but instead from a local population who he thinks are effectively “trained” to attack such people.