Widespread official persecution of LGBTI people continues in Egypt, as described in this excerpt from a Public Radio International article: In much of the Middle East, it’s getting more dangerous to be gay Just after it became known in June that the attacker of Orlando’s Pulse nightclub had pledged allegiance to ISIS, Egypt’s foreign ministry … Continue reading
Tag Archives: Kuwait
Arab LGBTQ activists in U.S., Canada aim to rally diaspora
A group of Independent Arab LGBTQ activists need your support. Located in the United States & Canada, the group of activists are working to mobilize the community in the diaspora to continue the fight against homophobia in the Arab world, and for a safer world for everyone. Leaders from around the Arab World based in … Continue reading
Russia, India, Jamaica, Africa: Many attacks, some progress
News items in this recap mostly were excerpted with slight modifications from two published round-ups of the world’s LGBTI-related news– UNAIDS’s Equal Eyes and ILGA’s LGBulleTIn. Physical attacks and arrests Police arrested about 20 activists supporting the LGBTI community during the annual May Day parade in St. Petersburg, Russia. Two days before the march, Meduza … Continue reading
LGBTI rights activism: Mostly hidden in Middle East, N. Africa
Public recognition of the human rights of LGBTI people remains rare in the many Middle Eastern and North African countries that still have laws against same-sex intimacy. In most of those countries, even advocacy of those rights is unusual. Such advocacy is mostly underground, online or abroad for Algeria, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Morocco, Syria … Continue reading
Focus on anti-LGBTI stance of Kuwait, Kiribati
During the past year, Kuwait and tiny Kiribati were urged to improve their treatment of LGBTI citizens. That advice came when each of those countries’ human rights records came in for review by other United Nations members. Such reviews focus on dozens of countries each year as part of the U.N.’s Universal Periodic Review (UPR) … Continue reading
Us vs. them (Egypt): Deport me!
Second of two articles about the challenge of breaking through emotional barriers that people erect between themselves and victims of persecution who act or look unlike them. This article, by activist/commentator Scott Long, focuses on the difficulty keeping relatively affluent Westerners’ interest in non-white victims of repression, particularly in news coverage of Egypt. The previous … Continue reading
Kuwait police raid ‘gay’ party, arrest 32
Kuwait police have arrested 32 people after they raided a livestock farm to bust an alleged “gay” party, Gay Asia News reported. Vice police detectives raided a jakhour, or livestock farm, where same-sex parties for both genders were being organized, a security source told the Kuwait Times. The source confirmed that 32 men and women … Continue reading
Our world today: Jail for love notes, but death threats are OK?
“You can end up behind bars for sending a message of love, but the authorities look the other way when someone threatens to kill children.” Boris O. Dittrich, the advocacy director for the LGBT rights program at Human Rights Watch, makes that heart-wrenching observation in his commentary today, on the occasion of the International Day … Continue reading
Kuwait: 215 arrested ‘for being gay’? Not quite
Kuwait’s latest 215 arrests The Atlantic Wire used the headline “Kuwaiti Police Sweep Cafes, Arrest 215 People for Being Gay” for its report: 215 gay men and lesbians were recently arrested in Kuwait after an intense investigation of “Internet cafes and suspicious places” across the country, The Kuwaiti Times reported early Tuesday morning. The newspaper, along … Continue reading
Transgender man arrested in Kuwait crackdown
Police arrested a Kuwaiti female-to-male transgender man on June 11 after he was harassed by a group of young men because of his “male-like’” appearance, Gay Star News reported. The unidentified 18-year-old was dressed in the traditional Kuwaiti male attire. The arrest was part of a “vice crackdown” by Kuwaiti police, which has targeted LGBT … Continue reading
