Lesbian MEP gives Pope rainbow scarf

Ulrike Lunacek, head of delegation of the Austrian Green party, said she offered the Pope the present "for gays, lesbians, and for peace" during the European Parliament meeting in Strasbourg. Lunacek is co-president of the European Parliament Intergroup on LGBT Rights, and is the first openly lesbian politician in the Austrian Parliament. She was reportedly attacked with butyric acid as she was giving an interview during the annual Rainbow Parade in Vienna earlier this year. 

No one was injured in the attack, but Lunacek said: "These kinds of isolated cases [show] that the fight for tolerance, acceptance and respect in Austria [is] not over. People who spread fear and hate [need] to be opposed. Read More

How The Father Of Soviet Pornography Became A Crusader Against “Gay Propaganda”

The story of Vladimir Linderman's transformation from anti-Kremlin sexual radical to moralist crusader who many Latvians suspect of being a Kremlin agent isn’t really about how Linderman changed his mind about homosexuality. Rather, he says his story is about how many people living in the former Soviet Union went from being desperate to escape Moscow’s rule to yearning for its patronage. It is also a tale of how Putin used that desire to co-opt some of his most committed enemies and convince many living in the former Communist world that what once seemed so exciting about the West is now what is most terrifying about it.

“I was the father of the sexual revolution, and now I’m becoming the father of the sexual counterrevolution.” Read More

Gay asylum seekers fear arrest for reporting rape in Papua New Guinea

An asylum seeker on Manus Island says he has been raped twice in detention in the past four months, but fears going to the police because he has been told he will be jailed for being homosexual. Mohammad* has reported the assaults to camp security, but lives in fear of further attacks: months after being raped – on two separate occasions by two different men – the man is still living in the same compound as his alleged attackers.

Other gay asylum seekers in the detention centre say they are regularly sexually harassed and assaulted, and have contemplated suicide if they are forced to live in the PNG community. In an interview from detention, Mohammad told Guardian Australia he is regularly sexually assaulted by fellow detainees, but is too scared to report the attacks because homosexuality is illegal in Papua New Guinea and he has been told by camp authorities he will be jailed. Read More

Rise in number of violent homophobic crimes being reported to UK police

Some of the UK’s biggest police forces have recorded a rise in the number of violent homophobic crimes this year, according to new figures.

Hundreds of assaults on gay and lesbian people have been reported to police so far in 2014 – including more than 300 in London alone. Gay rights charities said that while it was encouraging that more people were reporting hate crime, many victims felt silenced by abuse on the street. Read More

My gay life in Nigeria – Isolation, danger, & fear

Ethan Regal* tells his personal story of living in Nigeria as a gay man: "Gay people in Nigeria were invisible – constantly hiding. I know about gay men being raped and the gang rape of a lesbian – all by straight men.

This isn’t about sex or sexual orientation. It’s all about power, violence and malicious homophobic abuse. Early this year, suspected gays in the northern part of Nigeria were reportedly caught and stoned to death. The consensus is that homosexuals deserve it, and that the country needs to be cleansed." Read More

Uganda Report of Violations based on Sex Determination, Gender Identity, and Sexual Orientation

The impetus behind the Uganda Report on Violations Based on Sex Determination, Gender Identity, and Sexual Orientation is the conviction that no violation of rights or dignity based upon an individual’s actual or perceived sex, gender identity, and sexual orientation should go undocumented or unacknowledged.

By setting stringent evidentiary standards, and by erring on the side of caution when considering cases for inclusion in this report, the research team has been able to demonstrate conclusively that human rights violations against sexual minority groups are in fact taking place in Uganda. Read More

Two out of five gay Nepalis harassed on public transport

More than one-third of LGBTI Nepalis have reported discrimination or abuse in three or more public settings, according to a recent study. 

'While Nepal is often cited as a progressive country in Asia having guaranteed equal rights and recognition of sexual and gender minorities through a landmark Supreme Court verdict in 2007, Nepal’s progress in protecting the rights of these minorities and implementing the verdict has been limited,' said Edmund Settle, UN Development Program policy advisor. Read More

When Coming Out Is a Death Sentence: The Rising Tide of Violence Against LGBT Iraqis

Joint briefings by the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, MADRE, and the Organization of Women's Freedom in Iraq published last week expose targeted violence against LGBT Iraqis. Long a persecuted group, LGBT Iraqis experience high levels of violence that is based on the stigma Iraqi society places on differences in sexual orientation and gender expression, and a broad intolerance of those differences. Read More

Militants Stone to Death Two 'Gay Men' in First Homosexual Execution

Members of terror group Islamic State (Isis) have stoned to death two men in Syria after alleging they were gay.  According to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), this is the first execution that the militants have carried out against homosexuals. 

Activists on social media said that the dead men were opponents of IS and that the group had used the allegation as a pretext to kill them. Read More

Love in exile

In 2010, Tiwonge Chimbalanga, a transgender woman, was imprisoned in Malawi for getting engaged to a man. Pardoned and freed, she now lives in exile in South Africa. The international campaign to secure her pardon and resettlement in South Africa represented a triumph for the global cause of LGBT rights. But for Chimbalanga, who unexpectedly found herself on the front lines of an intensifying battle over these rights in Africa, there is little sense of victory. Mark Gevisser reports on an uneasy triumph for the global LGBT rights movement. Read More

As Jamaica Reviews Its Homosexuality Ban, a Top Newspaper Is Waging an Anti-Gay Campaign

Something is going on at The Jamaica Observer, the daily newspaper in the Caribbean island nation. LGBT rights have featured heavily in its pages over the past six months and, although the paper claims to support balanced journalism, critics note that some of the content has been overtly anti-gay — even going so far as to claim that gay men are killing each other and deliberately portraying the murders as homophobic.

The island nation is currently experiencing heightened social tension over the LGBT rights debate as Jamaicans — encouraged by religious and conservative groups — voice their objections towards a government-led select committee review of the Sexual Offences Act, which could potentially lead to a parliamentary vote on decriminalising same-sex relationships.  Read More
 

Iran Representative to the UN: Under no circumstances do we recognize the rights of homosexual citizens

During the UN session of the 2014 Universal Periodic Review (UPR) on Iran, member states presented a total of 291 recommendations to the Islamic Republic of Iran, including 11 that addressed sexual minorities.

As an example, Iceland recommended repealing laws that criminalise consensual same-sex sexual relations; amend laws and policies that treat homosexuality as a mental disorder and outlaw forced sterilisation and reparative therapies against LGBT individuals. 

In response, Mohammad Javad Larijani, the Head of the Human Rights Council of the Judiciary in Iran, stated that under no circumstances will the Islamic Republic of Iran “accept imposing a lifestyle under the banner or umbrella of human rights”, indicating that the lifestyle of LGBT individuals in no circumstances or arguments can be legitimized and justified. Read More