Fourteen nations and regions with large Muslim populations have laws providing for the death penalty for same-sex activity or otherwise allow such executions. Many fewer countries actually impose the death sentence — by this blog’s count, probably five of them. Continue reading
Human Rights Watch has endorsed Iraqi Shiite clergyman Muqtada al-Sadr’s call for an end to violence against sexual minorities, reported last month on this blog. HRW issued this press release: Iraq: Cleric’s Call Against Anti-LGBT Violence Fighters Should Heed al-Sadr’s Statement; Government Should Follow Suit (Beirut, August 18, 2016) – State and non-state actors in … Continue reading
76 countries with anti-homosexuality laws (or 72 or 78) This week’s decision by the Belize Supreme Court to overturn that nation’s anti-sodomy law has shrunk the list of nations with anti-LGBT laws once again. By this blog’s tally, the total is now 76 countries with criminal laws against sexual activity. Or the total is 72 … Continue reading
Police in Bangladesh have identified five people involved in the April 25 murder of LGBT rights activists Xulhaz Mannan and Mahbub Rabbi Tonoy, but have not yet arrested them, according to news accounts in Bangladesh. The Bangladeshi online newspaper bdnews24.com reported: Detectives are trying to arrest these suspects, an official of the Detective Branch, speaking … Continue reading
By Colin Stewart Ten nations with large Muslim populations have laws providing for the death penalty for same-sex activity. Only a few actually impose the death sentence. Exactly how many is a difficult question. The 2016 State-Sponsored Homophobia report from ILGA, the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association, lists 13-14 places that threaten … Continue reading
The number of countries with laws against same-sex sexual activity has dropped from 92 a decade ago to 75 today, according to tallies kept by ILGA, the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association. ILGA’s 2016 edition of its State-Sponsored Homophobia report, by Aengus Carroll, is being published today. The latest countries to repeal … Continue reading
In Bangladesh, two LGBT rights activists, including the editor of Roopbaan, the country’s first LGBT magazine, were hacked to death this morning in a flat in the country’s capital, Dhaka. The deceased are Roopbaan editor Xulhaz Mannan, 35, and his friend, Tonoy Mojumdar, also an LGBT rights activist. Bangladeshi LGBT rights activists expressed shock and … Continue reading
The U.S.-based LGBTI asylum and refugee organization ORAM is pleading for the United States to reserve spaces for 500 LGBT refugees from Syria, since their lives are at high risk if they are forced to remain in their embattled country, beset by the murderously homophobic Islamic State. The United States plans to accept 10,000 refugees … Continue reading
LGBTI news in brief from Iran, Iraq, Kenya, Nigeria, Singapore and Uganda — all of them countries that have anti-LGBTI policies or have considered adopting them. These items are excerpted with slight modifications from UNAIDS Equal Eyes recaps of the world’s LGBTI-related news: The UK’s Human Dignity Trust and the Commonwealth Lawyers’ Association warned that the … Continue reading
I wish activist/analyst Scott Long didn’t seem so instantaneously accurate in his pessimistic prediction about yesterday’s historic U.N. Security Council session, which focused on anti-LGBTI violence perpetrated by the Islamic State/ISIS/ISIL. Today he writes: “My fear (I wrote two days ago) was that ‘the Security Council will only give more impetus to murder’: that ISIS, … Continue reading
