Our scary experience in Lebanon as a gay couple!

‘Your names are blacklisted in Lebanon! You should not be here…'

We were in a panic!

We’d spent over an hour waiting to check in for our return flight to Cyprus at Beirut Airport and another hour in the security/immigration queue.

Once we finally reached the front, Seby was called over, and myself to the neighboring booth.

I handed over my passport to the immigration officer. He started typing something into his computer then suddenly stopped, gave me a suspicious look, then started saying something loudly in Arabic to his colleague who seemed to have the same issue with Seby.

They continued to speak Arabic to each other, each time becoming louder and more frantic.

They looked angry.

“Is everything ok?” I asked the man. He looked at me as if he wanted to spit at me and said curtly:

“You should not be here. You are blacklisted!”

I was in complete shock. What on earth was going on?!

That one time we got blacklisted in Lebanon for being gay…

I looked over at Seby who seemed to be experiencing the same issue. Suddenly I realized this must have something to do with the #gaylebanon content we had posted on our social media during our trip promoting a hotel we were collaborating with in downtown Beirut.

There could not be any other possible explanation: my name, ‘Stefan Arestis’ with a UK passport is entirely unrelated to ‘Sebastien Chaneac’ with a French passport. It was more than a mere coincidence.

Had someone at our hotel snitched on us and called up the religious police? It is, after all, a crime to be gay in Lebanon. We’d made a rookie ‘gay travel error’ of posting content during our trip!

The two immigration officers now started to argue loudly in Arabic in earshot of all other travelers. It was embarrassing. We felt like criminals!

Another man appeared on the scene wearing a police uniform who must have been their supervisor. He told me and Seby to follow him into his office. Seby grabbed my phone and firmly said to me:

“Stefan remove that rainbow wallpaper from your phone. Delete all compromising photos/videos especially any of us kissing/cuddling. Delete Grindr, Misterbnb, Hornet, and any other gay apps. NOW, quickly!”

We were SHITTING ourselves!

We were convinced we would now miss our flight home:

Would we be arrested?
Who would we call?
What were our rights?
Can the British and French Embassies help us?
Our hearts were racing!

Once inside the immigration policeman’s office, the interrogation continued as he looked over our passports:

“Why are you in Lebanon? What are you doing here? What is your job? What is the purpose of your visit? You are blacklisted! You should not be here. You should not have been allowed in the country! What are you doing here?”

We answered each question calmly, explaining we were simply tourists visiting for a short trip to celebrate my birthday. We showed our itinerary – we visited Beirut, did some shopping, visited the tourist sites, and did a day trip to the mountains.

However, the man continued with the same questions over and over, almost spitting at us as he spoke…

“Your names are blacklisted! You should not be here! What are you really doing here…?”

We repeated the details of our trip, but this seemed to fall on deaf ears.

We tried to ask him what the problem was and if he could explain to us why we were being reprimanded. He ignored us and simply repeated, “You are blacklisted, you should not be here”.

Men were coming in and out of the office as the interrogation was happening, each one speaking loudly in Arabic to the other. We kept asking for someone to explain to us what was going on, but nobody would tell us anything.

It was chaotic!

I guess with hindsight they didn’t know what to do with us. We’d obviously entered the country without any issues, but now that our names were blacklisted, they didn’t know if they should retain us, make it an official thing, or just let us go.

This lasted for half an hour until the immigration policeman looked us dead in the eye like we were two naughty children and told us our names are formally blacklisted. He also said we must never even THINK of returning to Lebanon!

Leaving his office, we ran to our gate and managed to board our flight out. We took our seats waiting for the plane to take off. We were so anxious. What if they changed their minds and wanted to keep us longer? They could still board the plane to arrest us…

Eventually, the plane took off and we were in the air. We could finally breathe!

We never officially found out what the issue was. We started a claim with each of our Embassies back home, but they were unable to get a response from the Beirut Airport Immigration Police. Interestingly, the hotel we had collaborated with in Beirut cut all communication with us. They ignored all our emails and telephone calls, which made us suspicious.

Sadly, we also found out that other LGBTQ bloggers with a prominent online presence who had subsequently visited Lebanon experienced the same issues with the Immigration Police at Beirut Airport.

Despite our experience leaving Lebanon, we cannot express how much we loved the country, the people, and of course, the food! It is truly a joy to explore.

However, as with most places in this volatile region of the world, LGBTQ travelers have a lot more work to do before they can safely visit. This is precisely why we published our gay travel book, Out in the World.

Read more travel adventures like this in our book!

We've published our very own gay travel book called, ‘Out in the World'. It has all our practical safety tips, first-hand advice, and travel stories from some of our favorite destinations.

We hope it inspires you to have a fun and safe trip!

Click on the book to order:

Practical safety tips for gay travelers to Lebanon

Important pointers that we wish we had known before our trip which we've also published in greater detail in the Gay Travel Tips section on our website:

• Apply for your visa from your local Lebanese Embassy before booking your trip. Don’t rely on getting your visa on arrival. That way if there is any doubt about your name, the Immigration authorities have the chance to “reject” you outright beforehand, thereby minimizing issues when you arrive/leave from Beirut Airport.
• Get a SIM card as soon as you arrive so that you can make any urgent calls during your trip and research anything you need online. We were relying on Beirut Airport’s Wi-Fi which kept dropping.
• Do not post anything before or during your trip. We keep repeating this because it’s so important! The Lebanese government monitors all online activity and will flag anything untoward. Consider putting your accounts on ‘private' and remove any posts you may have published in the past about Lebanon.
• Lebanon and Israel are officially at war. If you’ve visited Israel or intend to visit Israel before Lebanon, avoid having an Israeli stamp on your passport – they won’t let you in! Get a new passport if you do and consider applying to your local embassy for a visa before booking your trip. Also, scour your social media content and remove any posts about Israel.
• Save the details for your local Embassy in Beirut in the Notes app of your phone and/or print it off so you also have a hard copy for safekeeping. Read what your Embassy offers in the event of arrest. For reference, the USA Embassy lists what it offers in the case of arrest, and the British Embassy in Lebanon offers 24-hour consular assistance online or by phone: +961 (0)1 960 800.
• Travel insurance is a must for all travel to Lebanon. For example, we almost missed our return flight and could have claimed this back on our insurance if this happened. Our travel insurance is with Heymondo who we recommend.
• Use the Video on your phone as a way to record conversations. Our local Lebanese friends taught us this: start the video on your phone then just put it in your pocket and let it film. This way you have a record of the conversation. We wish we had done this, so we could ask one of our friends to translate what the Immigration Officers were saying about us when they were shouting at each other in Arabic.
• Allow at least 3 hours for Beirut Airport. The check-in queue will take around 1 hour, and the immigration/security queue an additional hour, if not more.

Support local LGBTQ Lebanese organizations

Whether you choose to ‘boycott' visiting a country with anti-gay laws or like us prefer to visit and give them a voice, we urge everyone to support local LGBTQ Lebanese organizations, in particular:

• Beirut Pride: Hadi Damien is the founder of Beirut Pride and doing a terrific job for the LGBTQ community of Lebanon. For the 2018 Pride event, Hadi was arrested and detained until he was ordered to cancel it. He is still thriving in Beirut and is active across all social media, particularly on his Hadi Damien Instagram profile. Read our interview with Hadi about gay life in Lebanon and what it's like growing up gay in Beirut.
• Helem: another LGBTQIA+ rights organization, which was the first of its kind in the Arab world when it was founded in 2001.
• LebMASH: an organization of healthcare professionals specializing in the sexual health of marginalized groups including the LGBTQ+ community, women/girls, people living with HIV, and refugees.

For more inspiration:

• If you're heading to Lebanon then our guide about how to get from Beirut Airport to the city will be super useful
• You'll also do well to check out our detailed gay travel guide to Beirut
• We also have an excellent Lebanon gay travel guide which will be invaluable for your trip
• We got engaged in Cartagena and Stefan wrote the story of how he proposed to Seby
• Another story we love is Seby's take on what it's like trekking the Annapurna Circuit in Nepal