The Gaslighting Masterclass Happening Now In Doha

A masterclass in gaslighting is being given in Doha right now. Qatar is hosting the Conference of State Parties (CoSP) to the United Nations Convention Against Corruption from December 15 through 19. It’s the proverbial fox in the henhouse brought to life. And corruption isn’t the only element hidden by the smokescreen the UN provides.

Qatar, which is entangled in corruption investigations on multiple continents, is somehow hosting a summit that’s meant to support “parties and signatories in their implementation of” UN anti-corruption norms. However, CoSP is just the latest example of Qatar using smoke and mirrors against the international community under the auspices of the UN. From corruption, to counterterrorism, to human rights, Qatar leverages the UN to launder its own record.

Fifteen years ago, Qatar won the hosting rights to the 2022 FIFA World Cup despite possessing none of the infrastructure required to hold it and clocking dangerously high summer temperatures that forced FIFA to postpone the games from June to November. Qatar secured the unlikely victory through bribes, according to numerous reports and court documents.

And the scandals continued to pile up. Qatar has since been named in corruption investigations in Europe, the United States, and Israel, while flying the anti-corruption flag at the United Nations.

Qatari Attorney General Ali bin Fetais al-Marri serves as the UN Special Advocate on the Prevent of Corruption, a position he’s held for over a decade. Last May, al-Marri inaugurated the third regional Rule of Law and Anti-Corruption Center (ROLACC) in Geneva, Switzerland, in partnership with the United Nations. The first ROLACC opened in Doha in 2011. And for 10 years running, Qatar has collaborated with the UN Office of Drugs and Crime to hand out Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani International Anti-Corruption Excellence (ACE) awards. Ironically, one of the ACE award categories is “safeguarding sports from corruption.”

Perhaps more brazen are Qatar’s counterterrorism efforts at the UN. Qatar, the emirate that reportedly funneled millions of dollars directly to Hamas, is the largest funder of the UN Office of Counterterrorism (UNOCT). As of 2024, all-time Qatari contributions to UNOCT reached $139.53 million. By comparison, the United States, which foots a significant percentage of the UN’s overall bill, is UNOCT’s fifth-largest funder with lifetime contributions totaling $12.87 million.

Qatar hosts UNOCT’s Program Office on Parliamentary Engagement in Preventing and Countering Terrorism, International Hub on Behavioral Insights to Counterterrorism, and Programme Office on Parliamentary Engagement in Preventing and Countering Terrorism. In November, UNOCT worked with Qatar to train “parliamentarians from the Mediterranean region” on counterterrorism legislation.

Qatar is selling itself as a counterterrorism champion, and little could be farther from the truth. Nearly 30 years ago, U.S. authorities were closing in on 9/11 mastermind Khaled Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) who, at the time, was living in Qatar. However, Qatari officials reportedly warned KSM of his impending arrested and he fled to Pakistan. Qatar went on to shelter leaders of Hamas and the Taliban, liaise with leaders of the al-Qaeda-affiliated Nusra Front, line terrorist groups’ pockets with multi-million dollar ransom payments, and remain a permissive jurisdiction for private funders of terror.

Qatar’s engagement with UN counterterrorism organs reached a remarkable level of perversion on October 7, 2025, when Doha co-hosted UNOCT’s “Global Parliamentary Conference on Counter-Terrorism and Prevention of Violent Extremism.” The conference took place on the second anniversary of Hamas’s mass slaughter of 1,200 people in Israel which, according to Israel’s Shin Bet security agency, was enabled “by the flow of money from Qatar to Gaza and its delivery to Hamas’s military wing.”

Qatari politician Hassan bin Abdullah Al-Ghanim delivered opening remarks at the conference. Al-Ghanim previously mourned the death of Ismail Haniyeh, the late Hamas chief whom Israel assassinated in July 2024. Al-Ghanim publicly praised Haniyeh as “a testament to the greatness of the Palestinian people.”

As it does with corruption and counterterrorism, so too does Qatar leverage the UN to whitewash its human rights record.

The U.S. State Department’s latest Country Report on Human Rights found that “significant human rights issues” exist in Qatar, including “credible reports” of disappearances, arbitrary arrest, and  “systematic restrictions on workers’ freedom of association.” Indeed, labor rights have long been a pain point for Qatar, where migrant workers, predominately from south Asia and Africa, make up roughly 88 percent of the population. A FIFA-commissioned report found that “severe human rights impacts did ultimately occur in Qatar from 2010 through 2022” in the runup to the World Cup. Workers building stadiums for the games reportedly faced unsafe working conditions, squalid living quarters, and wage theft.  

Westerners are not immune from Qatari abuses, nor are Qatar’s own citizens. In 2019, Qatari authorities arrested and allegedly tortured British travel executive Marc Bennett after he resigned from Qatar Airways. Mr. Bennett remained in custody for three weeks and was later found hanged in his Doha hotel room. Qatar declared his death a suicide, but a British coroner ruled that foul play “cannot be ruled out.”

More recently, the chairperson of the National Assembly of the Baha’i in Qatar received a five-year prison sentence for posting content on social media that allegedly “cast doubt on the foundations of Islam.” UN human rights experts sounded the alarm about his case in July, saying that it appeared to be “part of a broader and disturbing pattern.”

Yet bizarrely, Qatar remains an accepted part of the UN human rights apparatus. Last year, Qatar was elected to its second consecutive term on the UN Human Rights Council and inked a $750,000 partnership agreement with the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) — a body to that’s received $8 million from Qatar since 2008. Qatar also hosts the UN Human Rights Training and Documentation Center for South-West Asia and the Arab Region, which offered a training course for public prosecutors and attorneys general in November 2025.

The UN is meant to “maintain international peace and security,” not serve as a laundromat for regimes wealthy enough to exploit the system. U.S. Ambassador to the UN Mike Waltz said in October that Washington will use its “contribution as leverage for reform” at the UN. CoSP presents an opportunity to make good on that pledge. The United States should condition its contributions to, and participation in, UN bodies that fail to practice what they preach. Additionally, Washington should push the UN to establish vetting procedures for countries seeking to lead major initiatives. American taxpayer dollars shouldn’t flow to institutions that lack integrity and today, the UN has little.

Natalie Ecanow is a senior research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD). Follow Natalie on X @NatalieEcanow and FDD @FDD.