His crime was to hoist a rainbow flag (he claimed he had no idea it represented LGBT pride) on a pole above his home. He is referring to a doctor held in Jeddah in 2016 by officers from the creepily named Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice. 'Try explaining it to the guy from round here who was arrested by the religious police for waving a rainbow flag,' he says. Which is why Newcastle's enthusiastic support for the Rainbow Laces campaign for LGBT rights leaves Ibrahim and his friends – whose lives are shaped by fear of exposure – shaking their heads in wonder. Ibrahim, not his real name, says the club's takeover by the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF) – a group chaired by the kingdom's unelected authoritarian ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman – 'reeked of the worst kind of hypocrisy'.Īfter all, his regime tortures political opponents, jails women's rights activists and persecutes gay and trans people. A detailed view of a match official's boot with Stonewall Rainbow Laces
