QATAR: Public kissing lands married couple in hot water

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The couple was first rebuked by authorities in Qatar for kissing in public along the beach. So the two Lebanese expats argued that they were married and were doing nothing wrong.

But the plea, ironically, put them in even more trouble, as their union was judged unlawful by a court in this conservative Muslim Persian Gulf country.

The couple, who fled Qatar before the verdict was announced, was sentenced in absentia to a year of prison for having an illicit sexual relationship, according to recent media reports.

The court argued that their marriage could not be recognized in Qatar because it was an interfaith union between a Muslim woman and a Christian man.

The Lebanese woman, 24, and her husband, 27, were married under civil law in Cyprus, said a report in the English-language Qatari daily, Gulf Times.

Many Middle Eastern couples travel to Cyprus or other Western countries to tie the knot in civil marriages because their own countries allow unions only between people of the same faith.

Lebanon, a small, multi-religious nation, recognizes civil marriages conducted abroad, which is evidently not the case in some other Arab states.

The trouble started in April when a Qatari family complained to police about the couple kissing in public, Gulf Times said.

Police said the two, whose names were not released to the media, were caught in an ‘indecent position.’

The man, who works in Qatar, said he had done nothing more than place his hand on the shoulder of his wife, who had arrived to the country 10 days earlier.

The two had left Qatar before the trial was over, after a travel ban on them was lifted.

Because of economic difficulties in their own country, thousands of Lebanese reside and work in Qatar, a small nation rich with oil and natural gas.

-- Raed Rafei in Beirut