France: Swimmer suffers broken nose in anti-gay attack

World champion swimmer Mélanie Hénique, 23, and two female friends were attacked by four men as they left a restaurant in Amiens, northern France. The men hurled insults and hit the women, after which the ladies sought emergency healthcare. 

Hénique said she ‘fully accepts’ her homosexuality but preferred to keep her private life private. However, she felt it was her duty to make public the facts, ‘if only to help all those who dare not complain. It happens too often...I have been insulted, but have never been hit,’ she continued, without wanting to specify the ‘violent’ homophobic slurs.

Hénique had to postpone training after the attack and was a forced to withdraw from the French Open over the weekend. She won bronze in the 50m butterfly at the world championships in 2011 and has been selected to compete again at the 2014 world championships in Kazan, Russia in August. Read More 

Turkey: UN rights office urges authorities to tackle anti-LGBT violence and discrimination

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) expressed deep concern over attacks and incitement to violence against LGBT people in Turkey, a UN spokesperson said today.

After listing recent disturbances, he said the Office is “further concerned about allegations that in the [Ördek case], police officers trivialized the attack, used discriminatory language, tried to dissuade the victim from filing a complaint, and did not provide protection from additional threats by the alleged perpetrators.”

“We call on the Turkish authorities to take active measures to combat homophobic and transphobic violence and discrimination, to uphold the rights of LGBT people to peacefully assemble and express themselves and to ensure that LGBT victims of crimes are treated with respect and dignity and have access to protection mechanisms and effective remedy,” Mr. Colville said. Read More 

Turkey: No place is heaven for trans people, hell is everywhere for sex workers

Founder and chairperson of the Red Umbrella Sexual Health and Human Rights Association Kemal Ördek was robbed and raped in their home in Ankara. A police officer at the police station reacted by saying “Enough with this tribe of Lot.” 

It has been three days since the attack. At the police station the assailants threatened Ördek by saying, “We know where you live now. They’ll release us anyway and you’ll have to deal with the consequences.” The assailants are free and they continue to harass Ördek on their cell phone.

We met with Kemal Ördek when they arrived at Istanbul for Pride Week and discussed sex workers’ rights struggle. Ördek explains that, as long as it does not include violence, threat, or coercion, sex work needs to be legalized, which would lead to a decrease in sexually transmitted infections since sex workers would be able to freely access healthcare without being discriminated: “Everything starts at legal recognition and guarantees. The current atmosphere of dismissiveness needs to be addressed; dismissiveness also means precarity.” Read More

Turkey: Posters threatening gays with death appear in capital

An Islamist group has pinned posters to walls and posts in Turkey's capital Ankara threatening gays with death, adding to concerns over growing intolerance against homosexuals in the country. The appearance of the posters in Ankara comes just over a week after police prevented Istanbul's annual gay pride march - a successful tradition over the past 13 years - from going ahead, using tear gas and water cannon against activists who showed defiance. 

"Should those who engage in ugly behavior and adhere to the practice of the people of Lot be killed?" read posters that appeared in the Turkish capital overnight, referring to Lot, who features in the Old Testament and the Quran. Many Muslims believe that the decline of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah stemmed from the sexual preferences of their inhabitants.
  
A hitherto low-key Islamist group called the "Young Islamic Defense" claimed responsibility for the poster campaign through a Twitter account @islamimudafaa, saying it was trying to "respond to the immoral actions" of lesbians, gays and bisexuals. Read More

Paraguay: Married gay activist’s meeting with Pope was ‘very productive’

In a historic first, a married gay activist met with Pope Francis on Saturday — and walked away with a sense that the pope genuinely believes “dignity is for everyone.”  Simón Cazal, executive director of Paraguay LGBT group SomosGay, was among a delegation of 1,600 Paraguayan civil society leaders and members who met with the Holy See in Asunción.

 Although the pope did not directly address LGBT issues during his speech, Cazal told the Blade the pontiff “did mention others in which they are included.” “The pope’s speech was very productive,” Cazal added. “The local church insisted on talking about the family and other conservative issues… [But] he distanced himself from this discourse and highlighted diversity in its place.”   

The Paraguayan Episcopal Conference last month invited Cazal and other LGBT rights advocates to attend the meeting, though Cazal was the only one to accept the invitation.  Read More 

Nigeria: Chief Imam says gay sex is anti-human

A Chief Imam from Nigeria has condemned the acceptance of same-sex marriage by countries such as England, Ireland and the US, labelling it as anti-human. Sheikh Muhammad Khalid, the Chief Imam of Apo Legislators’ Quarters Jumat Mosque, made the comments in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria, stating those pushing for same-sex marriage and the countries who had already approved it, were taking a stand “against humanity”.

“I will never support same sex marriage, because of my religion and I am sure that no religion in the world will support it,” he said. “It is against our culture as Nigerians, and against normal human life before the Almighty Allah.” Khalid said that no religion in the world should encourage homosexuality and praised former Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan for signing an anti-gay marriage bill into law. Read More

Malaysia: Transgender targeted as religious authorities' influence grows, LGBTI community says

Members of Malaysia's LGBTI community are speaking out about being violently attacked in the moderate Muslim nation, saying the abuse has become common as religious authorities push for more power.

"We have cases of transgender [people] that have been killed," said Mitch, a transgender man. "For us, we call it a hate crime. For the police they don't call it that, because for them these people are not recognised."

The rights of LGBTI people are largely unrecognised in Malaysia. Homosexuality as well as oral sex, sodomy and cross-dressing are illegal in both the criminal code and sharia law. Representatives of Malaysia's LGBTI community said the laws were largely unenforced in the past, but that had changed in recent years. Read More

US: An open letter to American Muslims on same-sex marriage

Reza Aslan is a writer and scholar of religions, and Hasan Minhaj is a comedian and correspondent on The Daily Show:

To Our Fellow American Muslims,

Hey there. It’s two of your brothers. We’re writing to you about the Supreme Court’s decision to legalize gay marriage in all fifty states. The good news is that a whopping 42% of you support marriage equality, as do both of our Muslim elected officials in the United States Congress. One even serves as vice chair of the LGBT Equality Caucus! There are many faithful gay and lesbian Muslims in the US and we love and support all of them.

At the same time, many of you are scandalized by the ruling (we know because you keep tweeting about it), and many more of you are equally perturbed but have chosen to keep it to yourself. With all the rainbow-flag waving and self-congratulatory pats on the back this country is giving itself right now, you don’t need another reason for Americans to dislike you.

 Read More

Listen to an episode of BBC’s “World Have Your Say” devoted to Reza Aslan and Hasan Minhaj’s letter.

Italy: Supreme Court rules against sterilisation requirement

The Italian Supreme Court has ruled that medical intervention and sterilisation is not necessary for having one’s gender legally recognized.

A 45-year old trans woman who had been living for 20 years as a woman had been denied the recognition by the court of Piacenza. Basis for the denial was a strict interpretation of Law 164 from 1982 (later modified) that requires more or less invasive reassignment surgery (up to state of the art reconstruction) or at least permanente sterilisation. The Supreme Court clarified now that mandatory genital surgery cannot be justified by a public interest in establishing certain genders. It recognized that the intervention in primary sex characteristics of a person can only be considered as ‘necessary’ if the trans person considers it. Read More 

European Court: Countries must recognise same-sex partnerships

The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) ruled that Italy has failed to protect the private and family life of cohabitating same-sex couples by not allowing for any legal recognition of same-sex relationships. The ruling does not demand that Italy recognize same-sex marriages. Still, the potential effect of this decision is huge.

The Court argues that not having a law that recognizes same-sex relationships is a human rights violation. The ECtHR has jurisdiction over more than 800 million people in 47 countries, 23 of which do not have any form of registered partnership for same-sex couples. Potentially, this ruling affects all these countries. But the effects are not direct and may not materialize any time soon. Below is a quick explainer. Read More