Tunisia and Malaysia arrest dozens of queer people in escalating crackdowns
Both Tunisia and Malaysia have seen an increase in anti-LGBT rhetoric and arrests
LGBT people in Tunisia and Malaysia have been targeted by police in recent escalating anti-gay crackdowns, with mass arrests happening in both countries this month.
Below are a modestly edited versions of an Agence France-Presse report on the Tunisian events, and an LGBTQ Nation report on the Malaysian events.
Tunisian rights group denounces spate of arrests of LGBTQ people
A Tunisian rights group said on Wednesday that authorities had launched a wave of arrests targeting LGBTQ people, accusing authorities of “mistreatment” of detainees.
Article 230 of the Tunisia’s penal code criminalises homosexuality with punishment of up to three years in prison.
Saif Ayadi, programme officer at Tunisian rights group Damj, told AFP that at least 14 people had been arrested over the past week, nine in the capital Tunis and five on the southern island of Djerba.
Ayadi condemned the state’s “practices… against gender identities and sexual orientations.”
“We are forced to stay at home, in our private spaces, without displaying our identities.”
Damj recorded 84 arrests between September last year and January.
The arrests this week, according to Ayadi, involved body and phone searches and other “acts of mistreatment” by police. According to Damj, at least six of those arrested this week have already been sentenced to prison terms of up to two years for violations of Article 230.
Contacted by AFP, the interior ministry did not immediately comment.
Rights group Amnesty International called on Tunisian authorities to “promptly and unconditionally free everyone detained for their apparent or real sexual orientation and gender identity.”
Hussein Baoumi, Amnesty’s deputy regional director, told AFP that “it is time to end this weaponisation of morality” against LGBTQ people.
Amnesty in February said Tunisian authorities had “stepped up their crackdown” on LGBTQ people, calling for an end to anal tests which the group argued were “a form of torture.”
Police in the Malaysian state of Kelantan arrested 12 men during a raid on a “gay party,” the regional news site Sloboden Pecat reported. The arrests follow 20 that occurred in the state capital of Kota Bharu in June, amid a nationwide crackdown on LGBTQ+ people.
Kelantan state police chief Mohd Yusof Mamat said that officers found no evidence of sexual activity at the party, but they did discover condoms and HIV medication, suggesting that sexual activity may have been planned for later on. Police also found that three men had explicit adult images on their phones — police arrested and charged those three individuals. The officers didn’t arrest any additional people because they could find neither incriminating evidence nor specific charges to press against them.
“During interrogation, [party attendees] admitted that they belonged to a homosexual group,” Mamat said. “We are concerned about this type of behavior… We will continue to monitor the movements of homosexual groups.”
The police chief said more than 100 local men attended the party, though most of them had left by the time the raid began.
Like one-fourth of the world, Malaysia’s anti-gay laws were originally imported by British colonizers. In the modern era, powerful Muslim clerics and politicians have used the laws to whip up outrage and support among conservative citizens. Recently, anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment in the country has gotten louder and deadlier.
In 2023, the Malaysian government reportedly began requiring music venues to have an emergency “kill switch” to quickly shut down concerts following an onstage same-sex kiss between members of the British rock band The 1975 at a Malaysian music festival. Government authorities also said that police will now conduct background checks on artists from other countries before scheduling performances to ensure that they will not promote illegal activities.
In 2022, 20 local Muslims were detained by religious authorities for cross-dressing or “encouraging vice” during a raid on an LGBTQ+ Halloween party. Local censors also said that between 2020 and May of this year, LGBTQ+ content accounted for half of all banned publications, the South China Morning Post reported.
In 2019, Malaysia caned four men between the ages of 26 and 37 for having a consensual same-sex encounter behind closed doors. The men’s actions violated a Sharia law forbidding “intercourse against the order of nature.” The men were reportedly discovered by authorities after the government monitored their private messaging. Around 50 officers raided the apartment where the men met to arrest those involved.
In March 2019, Tourism Minister Datuk Mohamaddin Ketapi claimed there are no queer or trans people in Malaysia, a statement which drew condemnation from the country’s LGBTQ+ community. Despite the country’s anti-LGBTQ+ actions, it still hosts an annual Seksualiti Merdeka (Independent Sexuality) festival, though politicians have increasingly tried to prevent it from occurring.
Since 2019, multiple trans women in Malaysia have also been beaten, hospitalized, or killed by violent mobs.
