قطر · Qatar
مرحباً. هذه قصتنا.
Qatar adopted its own sign language in 2001. The law caught up in 2025.
Access on this page: Signed: Qatari Sign Language — pending How this page is tested
In 2001 Qatar adopted Qatari Sign Language as the country's own — its Deaf community's language, not the 'unified' Arab sign language the region's institutions were promoting, which Deaf people across the Arab world say they cannot understand. The Qatari Center of Social Cultural for the Deaf followed in 2005, and Mada's Jumla dictionary put 4,500 QSL phrases online. Law No. 2 of 2004 gave people with special needs rights on paper for twenty-one years. On 5 October 2025 Law No. 22 of 2025 replaced it: physical and digital accessibility a duty, a fine of QAR 50,000 for discrimination or for failing to provide reasonable accommodation, in force from 19 November 2025 with one year to comply. The language was ours first. The law is ours now. The delivery has a deadline.
QSL video — this story, in our language
A named Qatari Deaf creator tells this page's story in QSL. The video is the page, and the text is its transcript's cousin. This video existing is the reason this page is allowed to exist.
Our language was adopted in 2001. The penalty arrived in 2025.
The delivery is ours to build — before the year runs out.
What do you want to do?
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I want access
Watch.Understand.Belong.
Television, film, and services — in Qatari Sign Language, captions, or audio description.
Go -
I create access
Create.Get paid.Be seen.
Deaf signers, interpreters, captioners, audio describers — your work, your name, your income.
Go -
I provide access
One API.Every screen.
Platforms, governments, cinemas, companies — deliver real access with one integration.
Go -
I back access
Host.Sponsor.Invest.
The builders who will meet the 2025 law's one-year clock with real people signing — be part of the firsts.
Go
More than one of these can be yours. The access is for you, and you can be paid to help make it.
Access in Qatar today
The law now says:
Organisations must ensure physical and digital accessibility — workplaces, customer areas, communication systems and online services — Law No. 22 of 2025, in force 19 November 2025, enforced by the Ministry of Social Development and Family. Discrimination, or failing to provide reasonable accommodation or complete accessibility within a year, is a fine of QAR 50,000 under Article 33. Qatari Sign Language has been the country's adopted sign language since 2001.
And we know the exhausting part: a one-year compliance clock and no supply of signers to meet it. Compliance will be measured in people who sign, not in systems that say they do.
Adopted in 2001. Enforced from 2025. The delivery comes next — made by us. That is what ally is: Deaf and blind creators, paid to make the access — Qatari Sign Language, captions, audio description — delivered to any screen.
In plain words
The law is on your side. What is missing is the service — and that is what gets built here, with the community.
Why captions alone are not enough → Why sign language
Talk to us
Tell us who you are
Write in your own language. We reply in it.
- Emailpartners@a11y.media
- Video messageSend a signed video — no writing needed
Contact us by form, email, or a signed video message — never voice-only.