Art Basel Qatar, which launched in Doha earlier this month, is not simply an art fair—it’s a declaration of geopolitical intent. For a half-century, Qatar has invested in museums, art collections, and cultural education. Bringing Art Basel to Doha signals a new ambition: to use art to shape political perception far beyond the Gulf. But just as with its hosting of the World Cup in 2022, Qatar’s cultural projects are drawing attention to aspects of its society that it is less eager to showcase.

Qatar’s soft-power ambitions are colliding with the reality of its domestic legal and social environment. Doha is presenting a progressive, decolonial, pro-Palestine, global-south-aligned cultural face while using strict domestic policies to impose controls on women, queer people, and dissidents. In other words, Qatar wants global cultural legitimacy while maintaining domestic policies that alienate major constituencies within the global art world.

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“A platform like Art Basel inherently implies freedom of expression,” said Dr. Nas Mohamed, a Qatari-born artist and activist who now lives in the United States. “Qatar does not have freedom of expression. Period.”

“Civil organizing is completely illegal in Qatar,” he added. “You can’t organize on any issue and talk about it.”

Mohamed’s comments reflect widespread concerns over free speech and civil liberties in Qatar. Far-reaching laws prohibit criticism of the emir, the state, and Islam. The country’s male guardianship system mandates women receive permission for significant decisions around marriage, travel with minor children, and employment. There is no recognition for transgender people, while sodomy and same-sex marriage are illegal. During the World Cup, Qatari officials even confiscated rainbow-themed paraphernalia and threatened to sanction teams for pro-LGBTQ messages.

Art Basel, Mohamed noted, was originally held only “in societies where civil rights existed,” where people were able to organize, create, and dream. “When you bring those platforms into a totalitarian government that hasn’t done the civil rights work, it creates this weird dynamic where it implies they hold similar civil rights. That is not true.”

Access to the exhibit is part of the problem. Art Basel Qatar offers press access only to journalists physically present in Doha, declining requests for remote tours—standard practice at the brand’s other editions and across major international art fairs. Physical presence in Qatar means operating under the country’s media laws, where criticism of the state or content deemed harmful to national unity can trigger legal consequences. Additionally, Sunday Times journalists who reported critically on the 2022 World Cup faced Qatari cyberattacks after leaving the country.

If Qatar’s cultural ambitions are not new, the scrutiny they face is a recent phenomenon. “Qatar’s investment in the cultural field dates back to the 1970s with the inauguration of the National Museum,” said Sultan Sooud al-Qassemi, founder of the Barjeel Art Foundation. “Following the expansion of gas exports in the 1990s, the state transitioned toward large-scale cultural projects serving both internal and external goals: educating the public and strategically positioning Qatar as a significant global cultural player.”

When asked about the claims in this article, Aamer Elsayed Hassan, a spokesperson for the Qatari Embassy in the United States, rejected the idea that the country’s cultural investments serve strategic or reputational goals. “Qatar invests in the world of art for many reasons, none of which are motivated by its global image or reputation,” he said. Events like Art Basel “aim to inspire and motivate our own art-loving population, as well as art lovers across the world.”

When Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Egypt blockaded Qatar from 2017 to 2021, in response to its support of Islamist groups and its alignment with Iran, Doha responded not with military posturing, but with cultural institution-building. The opening of the National Museum of Qatar in 2019—led by Sheikha Al Mayassa Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani and her brother, the emir—was a statement: Qatar would outlast its rivals by becoming indispensable to the global cultural economy.

Art Basel Qatar extends the calculation. Palestinian solidarity has long been central to Qatar’s foreign policy—the country sends fuel and food to Gaza, and it subsidizes partial salaries for Palestinian public servants, doctors, and teachers. As can be seen in the public imagery provided by Art Basel Qatar’s press team, this sentiment saturates the fair’s curatorial vision. It appears in Khalil Rabah’s brightly painted aid shipments mounted high on platforms, as well as Pakistani artist Rashid Rana’s photo montage of the bombing of Gaza.

But that solidarity is instrumentalized—deployed where it enhances Qatar’s global standing, while other marginalized identities remain ignored or suppressed. Qatar champions the Palestinian cause because it aligns with its regional positioning and support for the Muslim Brotherhood. As Tariq Aziz, a nonbinary Saudi activist, explained, the Kurds—another Indigenous population facing systemic erasure—receive no such platform, because “their oppressors are Arab and Muslim, not Israeli and Jewish.”

The fair’s politics on social issues also delineate the limits of its progressive politics. There are several works, for example, that directly address state violence and patriarchy. Egyptian artist Souad Abdelrasoul, showing with Gallery Misr, presented paintings reimagining The Last Supper with a woman as redeemer. “My paintings speak about me and about every woman in my society,” she said. “They are a voice that calls for our rights—rights that ultimately grant us the freedom to exist, to choose, and to be.”

But while Qatar was happy showcasing this feminist critique, certain forms of liberation remain taboo. Of the 84 artists with solo presentations, none are openly LGBTQ.

Mohamed, who gained asylum in the United States on account of his work as an LGBTQ activist, described the enforcement mechanisms behind Qatar’s restrictions: The Preventative Security Department and La Jolla—two armed divisions of the Ministry of Interior—“systematically hunt LGBT people, especially trans people.” Detention involves physical torture, and targets are often identified through minor expressions of gender nonconformity. “They would walk up to people with makeup wipes,” Mohamed explained. “If it catches anything, they immediately take them. No family contact, no legal representation. They take a mugshot with them holding the makeup wipe as the crime.”

Sheikha Al Mayassa, chair of Qatar Museums, said, “We’re a very conservative society, but we’re tolerant.” When Mohamed posted about human rights abuses during a 2022 fashion show in Qatar, she immediately blocked him on Instagram. Qatari government officials, pressed by journalists about Mohamed’s treatment, issued blanket denials but never addressed his claims directly. Hassan, from the Qatari Embassy, similarly said, “While we are a conservative country, we are also exceedingly welcoming to other cultures and people from all walks of life.”

Human rights organizations, by contrast, have been consistently critical of Qatar’s record on civil rights. Amnesty International has accused the country of detaining individuals for “their sexual orientation or gender expression” as well as those “who spoke out for greater rights and freedoms.” Human Rights Watch has made similar claims. “Qatar is ruled by a fully authoritarian regime––a dictatorship––where all political power is held by the l Thani ruling family,” said Roberto González, the Human Rights Foundation’s chief advocacy officer. Among other issues documented by the organization, he cited “the persecution of LGBTQ+ people, arbitrary detention, torture, secret trials, heavy prison sentences, solitary confinement, and indefinite travel bans.”

Despite all this, LGBTQ activists in the region are also wary of presenting a crude caricature of the Gulf’s cultural politics or holding up the West as an arbiter of civil rights. “I’m cautious about framing queer communities primarily through victimhood,” said Khalil Abdel-Hadi, editor in chief of My Kali magazine, an LGBTQ magazine published in Jordan. Abdel-Hadi, who resides in Amann, emphasized that the LGBTQ experience in the Gulf varies from nation to nation and that the West is also culpable for its anti-LGBTQ policies and behavior.

“The international queer narrative itself has become a powerful framing device,” Abdel-Hadi said, adding that it risks using the Gulf as a foil for the West, thereby downplaying the situation for LGBTQ people around the world. In 2025, there were 616 pieces of anti-LGBTQ legislation in consideration in the U.S. Congress, and civilian and police brutality aimed at LGBTQ communities nationwide has been on the rise. According to Abdel-Hadi, “It feels important to avoid isolating or exceptionalizing homophobia in our region without holding a parallel lens to how Western governments deploy ‘human rights’ discourse selectively.”

Indeed, the indifference of major Western galleries to human rights concerns in the Gulf itself suggests that there is bigger dynamic at play. While outspoken individuals from policed communities in the Gulf raise their voices, global art institutions continue to participate in events like Art Basel despite the political constraints. Western galleries that publicly champion inclusion, such as Gagosian, David Zwirner, and Hauser & Wirth, seem happy to show blue-chip artists in a country that criminalizes the identities of many of their own collectors, staff, and artists.

Art Basel itself, owned by Switzerland’s MCH Group, set different terms for Doha than its editions in Basel, Miami, Hong Kong, and Paris—places where press access is standard and editorial independence is protected. In addition to the lack of remote tours, Art Basel Qatar’s official policy requires participants to “refrain from any displays of affection which may be considered inappropriate or offensive under local standards.” For participating institutions, though, the calculation was quite clear: Market access in a region flush with sovereign wealth trumped consistency on values.

Nicholas Galanin, a Tlingit and Unangax artist whose work confronts colonial violence and institutional appropriation of Indigenous culture, was in Doha during the fair to conduct site visits for a future project. He said that he attended Art Basel Qatar to explore opportunities but wasn’t familiar with Qatar’s restrictions on women and LGBTQ people or the intensified crackdowns that activists have documented. His presence—and lack of awareness—illustrates how artwashing functions: Even artists whose practice centers questions of power can be unknowingly drawn into projects that serve to sanction repressive regimes.

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Art Basel Qatar is succeeding commercially, and early reports suggest strong interest from regional collectors. For Palestinian artists gaining visibility, or Indigenous artists like Galanin exploring opportunities in the region, the calculation may seem straightforward: take the platform, reach new audiences, accept patronage where it’s offered. Some activists, desperate for any support, might accept what Aziz called a “devil’s bargain.”

But the cost is borne by communities like Mohamed’s—Qatari LGBTQ people who remain hunted, detained, and erased while their government showcases liberation struggles abroad. The question isn’t whether individual artists should participate, but whether Western institutions—Art Basel, major galleries, museums—should unquestioningly participate in a system that instrumentalizes some struggles while violently suppressing others. As Mohamed said: “What is art without freedom of expression? It’s not art.”