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Leading Welsh political figures have condemned as “pure hypocrisy” the nomination by a gay person of a controversial new left-wing MP who supports Gaza, when homosexuality is illegal there, and accusations of double standards have also been made about other controversial events.
One told The Eye: “George Galloway was nominated by Neale Hanvey, who is openly gay and would be thrown in prison if he went to Gaza, This is pure hypocrisy”.
Another said: “Galloway campaigned on behalf of Gaza – yet one of the people behind him is gay, which is illegal there. If only the voters had known that!”
These comments endorse the fact that as well as being illegal, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) people have experienced significant persecution and violence in Gaza.
A major divide exists between the West Bank and Gaza, with the former having more progressive laws and the latter possessing more conservative ones.
Yet despite his extraordinary record, Mr Galloway registered a huge win in the Rochdale by-election, embarrassing Labour, running on a ticket of advocating for Gaza.
His victory was almost as important a political story as yesterday’s Budget.
“Keir Starmer, this is for Gaza,” Mr Galloway said on Friday, referring to the Labour leader, and he attacked those who supported the invasion by Israel.
Two days ago he became the subject of a leader in The Times which said he “will inevitably be a divisive presence”.
But Mr Galloway has been determined to make his contentious views known, and after his triumph he declared to Al Jazeera: “[People] inside the toxic bubble of the political and media class … support the genocide against the people of Gaza”.
However this worrying episode also throws the spotlight on other events with Wales even more at their heart, and when there have been further accusations of ‘hypocrisy’.
Homosexuality is unlawful, as well, in the host nation of the last football World Cup (WC), Qatar, for which Wales qualified for the first time in 64 years.
It carries a punishment of up to three years in prison, as well as carrying the possibility of the death penalty for Muslims under sharia law.
Yet the Editor of Wales’ only national English-language Radio station BBC Radio Wales (RW), Carolyn Hitt, is herself gay and this may have made it difficult monitoring coverage of matches in Qatar.
Indeed there has been intense criticism of Qatar’s human rights record generally, as well as the background to the WC in the country.
It is, though, difficult to speak out about what is happening, and critics have had their emails hacked.
Another who has been accused of double standards after she went to Qatar but, like Mr Hanvey and Ms Hitt, is gay, is Laura McAllister.
Her sexuality (like in Gaza) is treated as a crime in Qatar, punishable by years in jail. But not acknowledging the absurdity of this law, when it is part of her identity, combined with other criticism, could have made it easier for organisers there to go blithely on with preparations.
Awful remarks from Khalid Salman, (like Professor McAllister, a retired football international), have underscored the terrible fact that gay sex can put people behind bars.
He used an Arabic term for being homosexual meaning that it was a “damage in the mind”, speaking on the German public broadcaster ZDF.
Mr Salman also appallingly said that gay people were bringing in to Qatar something that was “not good”, and he was worried children in his country might see gay men and women. He was then swiftly cut off by a media adviser.
But Professor McAllister was not deterred, and went to Qatar anyway, where she made headlines after being told to remove her rainbow bucket hat by a stadium steward.
The charity Stonewall campaigned strongly against the medieval laws in Qatar, and featured on its website a news piece asking: “Why does it matter that the World Cup is in Qatar?”, and gay activist Peter Tatchell protested about them in the country’s capital Doha.
It also organised a petition to fill a ‘virtual’ stadium, with the headline: “This World Cup season, let’s fill a virtual stadium with pride for LGBTQ+ people in Qatar”.
Professor McAllister, was herself a board member of Stonewall, so presumably will have known well the charity’s masthead during the WC, which proclaimed: “Stand with LGBTQ+ people in Qatar”.
To her detractors, though, it appeared a bizarre way to “Stand with LGBTQ+ people in Qatar”, by actually going to the country in question.
However Professor McAllister seemed determined, because she declared: “The World Cup offers an unprecedented opportunity for us to raise the profile of Cymru whilst also staying firm to and promoting our values of diversity, inclusivity and respect for human rights”.
But there should be no respect for hypocrisy after leading Welsh political figures used the word, following the nomination of a controversial new left-wing MP who supports Gaza by a gay figure, when homosexuality is illegal there.
The memories of our Editor, Welshman Phil Parry’s, remarkable decades long award-winning career in journalism (when hypocrisy and humbug were always exposed) as he was gripped by the rare and incurable neurological disabling condition Hereditary Spastic Paraplegia (HSP), have been released in a major book ‘A GOOD STORY’. Order the book now!
Regrettably publication of another book, however, was refused, because it was to have included names.
Tomorrow – why Phil, who has spent 40 years in journalism, celebrates how an extraordinary legal case from the 1920s of poison pen letters has now been turned into a hit film, five years after he wrote about it in his book.
