Qatar planning for World Cup fans to avoid prosecution for minor offences - Sources

DOHA : World Cup fans in Qatar caught committing minor offences such as public drunkenness will escape prosecution under plans being developed by authorities in the conservative Muslim host nation, a diplomat and a person familiar with Qatari briefings to foreign police told Reuters.

While the policing strategy for the competition, which kicks off in less than two months, has yet to be finalised, organisers have told diplomats and police from qualified countries they intend to show flexibility for relatively minor infringements, the sources said.

The signals reflect the delicate balance which Qatar, a tiny Arab state where many follow the same puritanical school of Sunni Islam as in neighbouring Saudi Arabia, is trying to strike between respecting religious traditions and accommodating the raucous exuberance of more than a million visiting soccer fans.

Qatar's World Cup organisers, the Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy, did not respond to a request for comment.

"Increased leniency pleases the international community, but comes with the risk that it might upset conservatives inside the country," another Western diplomat said.

Organisers have not publicly clarified their approach to policing, and many embassies have warned fans they face punishment for behaviour that would be tolerated elsewhere.

"Remember, while you're in Qatar, you are subject to local laws," U.S. diplomat Morgan Cassell said in a YouTube video.

According to Qatar's legal code, freedom of expression is restricted, homosexuality is illegal and sex outside marriage is outlawed. Public drunkenness can incur a prison sentence of up to six months and some things considered benign elsewhere like public displays of affection or wearing revealing clothes can