A public health official in Kuwait announced on Tuesday that his agency has found a way to "detect" homosexuals traveling to the Gulf, and plans to ban them from entering the country.
Director of public health Yousuf Mindkar said that the technological method that allegedly determines a person's sexual orientation will be revealed on November 11 during the GCC committee meeting. According to the Atlantic, Mindkar said that his country must ensure the expatriates entering the country are "healthy," which also means they are heterosexual.
"Health centers conduct the routine medical check to assess the health of the expatriates when they come into the GCC countries," he told Gulf News. "However, we will take stricter measures that will help us detect gays who will be then barred from entering Kuwait or any of the GCC member states."
Homosexual acts are currently illegal in Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Quatar, Saudia Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, according to Gulf News. In Kuwait, citizens caught participating in homosexuality can be imprisoned for up to 10 years if the people involved are less than 21 years of age.
Bahrain, another GCC member country, arrested 127 people in 2011 for hosting a "depraved and decadent" party after a large group of citizens who were mostly gay, organized a party in the conservative town of Hidd, located on Muharraq Island in northern Bahrain. The fete was put together so gay men from Arabian Gulf countries could meet up. After neighbors called the authorities with complaints about noise pollution, an official went to check out the scene around 2:30 a.m. The undercover police officer paid a 20 fee and went to the party. There, he saw groups of cross-dressers smoking shisha and drinking, leading him to call for backup.
In 2009, the United States lifted a 1987 ban that stopped HIV-positive foreigners from entering the country.
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