A Qatari flag is seen at a park near the Doha Corniche, in Doha, Qatar, Feb. 17, 2018. Photo: Reuters / Ibraheem al Omari.

i24 News – Members of the LGBTQ+ community can visit Qatar and attend the World Cup, but the West cannot “dictate” Qatari’s beliefs, the Gulf state’s energy minister told German media.

Qatar’s relations with Germany have been choppy recently. German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser sported the “OneLove” armband at her national soccer team’s match against Japan last week and has criticized Qatar’s human rights, despite Berlin sealing a deal to import liquefied natural gas from Doha.

“If they want to visit Qatar, we have no problem with it,” Qatari Energy Affairs State Minister, Saad Sherida al-Kaabi, said of those who identify as LGBTQ+, speaking to Germany’s Bild newspaper on Wednesday.

But he accused the West of efforts to “dictate what it wants” from Qatar, where homosexuality is illegal.

“If you want to change me so that I will say that I believe in LGBTQ, that my family should be LGBTQ, that I accept LGBTQ in my country, that I change my laws and the Islamic laws in order to satisfy the West – then this is not acceptable,” he added.

The Gulf state has been under fire over issues of human rights, particularly gay rights, ahead of and during the World Cup in Doha. While the soccer event’s organizers urged that all fans are welcome regardless of their gender and sexual orientation, human rights groups and international soccer players have raised concerns about Qatari laws discriminating against LGBTQ+ people and women.

In the leadup to the tournament, Human Rights Watch (HRW) in October accused Qatari security forces of arbitrarily arresting LGBTQ+ citizens. Six members of Qatar’s LGBTQ+ community told HRW that they were kept in an underground prison without charges and subjected to verbal and physical abuse.

Weeks later, a Qatar World Cup ambassador told German television ZDF that homosexuality was “damage in the mind.”