A couple participate in the gay pride parade in San Salvador, held before the state of emergency was declared on Mar. 27, under which the government is carrying out massive raids in search of suspected gang members. Members of the LGBTI community are among those arbitrarily detained, victims of police homophobia and transphobia. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala/IPS

By Edgardo Ayala
SAN SALVADOR, Nov 21 2022 (IPS)

Police raids against gang members in El Salvador, under a state of emergency in which some civil rights have been suspended, have also affected members of the LGBTI community, and everything points to arrests motivated by hatred of their sexual identity.

Personal accounts gathered by IPS revealed that some of the arrests were characterized by an attitude of hatred towards gays and especially transsexuals on the part of police officers."Cases like this, which reveal hatred towards gay or trans people, are happening, but the organizations are not really speaking out, because of the fear that has been generated by the ‘state of exception’.” -- Cultura Trans

“Cases like this, which reveal hatred towards gay or trans people, are happening, but the organizations are not really speaking out, because of the fear that has been generated by the ‘state of exception’,” an activist with Cultura Trans, a San Salvador-based organization of the LGBTI (lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and intersex) community, told IPS.

Hatred of homosexuals and transgender people

The activist, who asked to remain anonymous, said that another member of his organization, a gay man known as Carlos, has been detained since Jul. 13, after he complained about the arrest two months earlier of his sister Alessandra, a trans teenager.

The authorities have accused them of “illicit association,” the charge used to arrest alleged gang members or collaborators, under the state of emergency.

“The case against Carlos was staged, it was invented,” said the source. “He is a human rights activist in the trans community, we have documents that show that he participates in our workshops, in our activities.”

A police officer stops a young man in San Salvador and checks his back and other parts of his body for gang-related tattoos, one of the elements used by authorities to track down gang members in El Salvador. Since the state of emergency was declared, 58,000 people have been detained, in many cases arbitrarily, among them members of the LGBTI community. CREDIT: National Civil Police

The state of exception, under which some civil rights are suspended, has been in force in El Salvador since Mar. 27, when the government of Nayib Bukele launched a crusade against criminal gangs, with the backing of the legislature, which is controlled by the ruling New Ideas party.

Gangs have been responsible for the majority of crimes committed in this Central American country for decades.

According to the constitution, a state of exception can be in place for 30 days, and can be extended for another 30. But a legal loophole has allowed the government and Congress to renew the measure every month, under the argument that this was already done during the 1980-1992 civil war.

This interpretation could only be modified by the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice. But Bukele, with the backing of the legislature, named five hand-picked magistrates to that chamber in May 2021, in what his critics say marked the beginning of a shift towards authoritarianism, two years into his term.

Since Mar. 27, the police and military have imprisoned some 58,000 people.

In most cases no arrest warrants were issued by a judge, and the arrests are generally based on gang members’ police files.

In addition, anonymous tips by the public to a hotline set up by the government have gradually expanded the number of people arrested.

“The state of emergency exposes you to an inefficient prosecutor, incapable of investigating and linking people to crimes,” William Hernández, director of Entre Amigos, an LGBTI organization founded in 1994, told IPS.

He added: “If a police officer decides to detain someone and make a report of the arrest, they go out to look for them, but there’s no record of who reported that individual, where the information came from, and no one knows who investigated them.”

Among the 58,000 detainees are some 40 people from the LGBTI community, according to a report made public in October by Cristosal and other human rights organizations that monitor abuses committed by the Salvadoran authorities under the state of exception.

These organizations have collected some 4,000 complaints of arbitrary detentions and other abuses, including torture, committed against detainees. Some 80 people have died in police custody and in prison.

Carlos is a gay man who spoke out against the arrest of his younger sister Alessandra, a trans woman seized in May by Salvadoran police, accused of belonging to a gang. In July he was also arrested and so far little is known about their situation, under the state of emergency in El Salvador, which has led to the imprisonment of 58,000 people. CREDIT: Courtesy of Cultura Trans

Police homophobia

In the case of Carlos, 32, and his sister Alessandra, 18, the information available is that she was arrested in May in one of the police sweeps, in a poor neighborhood in the north of San Salvador.

She was arrested for not having a personal identity card. She had recently turned 18, the age of majority, and she should have obtained the document, which is needed for any kind of official procedure.

The police officers who arrested Alessandra told her mother that she was only being taken for 72 hours, while the situation was clarified.

However, something that could have been easily investigated and resolved turned into an ordeal for her and her family, especially her mother, who was facing several health ailments, said the Cultura Trans activist.

“She was in the ‘bartolinas’ (dungeons) of the Zacamil (a police station in that poor neighborhood),” the source said. “We went to leave food for her, then they sent her to the Mariona prison. We realized that she had been beaten and sexually abused, because she was being held in a men’s facility.”

He added: “When they took Alessandra, her mother told us that the police told the girl ‘culero, we are going to take you to be raped, to be f**ked,’ which is what actually did happen. ‘We’re going to take you so that you learn not to dress like a woman’.”

Culero is a pejorative term used in El Salvador against gays.

Meanwhile, her brother Carlos spoke out against Alessandra’s arrest, during activities carried out by the LGBTI community.

In May, in a march against “homo-lesbo-transphobia” – hatred of gays, lesbians and trans people – he carried several handmade signs calling for his sister’s release from prison.

The authorities visited Carlos’ house, and threatened to arrest him as well, which they did on Jul. 13.

According to the source, the police and prosecutors put together a case and accused him of illicit association. They are asking for a 20-year prison sentence.

“It’s not because of illicit association, we know that very well. It’s because he’s a human rights activist in the LGBTI community, and because he has been demanding the release of his sister,” said the Cultura Trans activist.

“We want him back with us, and his sister too,” he said.

William Hernández, director of the association Entre Amigos, said that the police and the Attorney General’s Office stage raids against alleged gang members without carrying out proper investigations to substantiate the arrests or to release detainees if they are innocent. The Salvadoran government has been on a crusade against gangs since March, but in the process there have been numerous abuses and illegal detentions, according to human rights organizations. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala/IPS

Underreporting hides the real number of cases

According to reports by the NGOs, while the 40 people from the LGBTI community who have been detained represent a small proportion of the total number of people arrested, there could be an underreporting of undocumented cases, especially in rural areas.

“In this country, although it’s small, there may be cases in remote places involving people who have never contacted an NGO. These are cases that remain invisible,” Catalina Ayala, a trans woman activist with Diké, an LGBTI organization whose name refers to justice in Greek mythology, told IPS.

Ayala said that, although she has not personally experienced transphobia from the authorities on the streets of San Salvador, and her organization has not received concrete reports of cases like Alessandra’s, she did not rule out that they could be happening.

“I think it’s a positive thing that the authorities are arresting gang members, but not people who have nothing to do with crime, or just because they are LGBTI,” she said.

The organization’s lawyer, Jenifer Fernández, said Diké has provided legal assistance to 12 people from the LGBTI community who have been detained, mainly because they were not carrying their identity documents.

In one of the cases, the police said things that could be construed as transphobic, although there was also a basic suspicion, since she was a trans woman without an identity document.

“She was a 25-year-old woman who had never had a DUI, an identity document, because she suffered from gender dysphoria and was afraid to go to register, afraid of being asked to cut her hair or to remove her make-up,” said Fernández.

Gender dysphoria is a sense of unease caused by a mismatch between their biological sex and their gender identity and has repercussions on their ability to function socially.

“The arrest report said that she was a gang member disguised as a woman, that they did not know who she was, that she gave a name but that it could not be proven without a DUI,” the lawyer explained.

But Fernández added that, in general, with or without a state of exception, trans women suffer the most from harassment, mockery and aggression.

Of the 12 cases, 11 of the individuals were released, and only one remains in custody because, according to the police, there is evidence that the person may have had ties to a gang, although the details of that evidence are unknown.

Call to stop abuses

On Nov. 11, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) expressed concern over “the persistence of massive and allegedly arbitrary arrests” by Salvadoran authorities under the state of emergency.

It also reported non-compliance with judicial guarantees, and called on the government “to implement citizen security actions that guarantee the rights and freedoms established in the American Convention on Human Rights and in line with Inter-American standards.”

Among the constitutional rights suspended since the beginning of the state of emergency on Mar. 27 are the rights of association and assembly, although the government says this only applies to criminal groups meeting to plan crimes.

It also restricts the right to a defense and extends the period in which a person can be detained and presented in court, which Salvadoran law sets at a maximum of three days.

On Nov. 16, Congress, which is controlled by the governing party, approved a new extension of the state of emergency, which it has done at the end of each month.

New Ideas lawmakers have said that the restriction of civil rights will be extended as long as necessary, “until the last gang member is arrested.”

In this country of 6.7 million people, there are an estimated 60,000 to 70,000 gang members.

Bukele’s party holds 56 seats in the 84-member legislature, and thanks to three allied parties they have a total of 60 votes, which gives them a large absolute majority.

Judoka Rafaela Silva, who won Brazil’s first medal – gold - on Aug. 8, had received racial slurs like “monkey that should be in a cage” when she was disqualified from the London 2012 Games; now she is fa heroine. Credit: Roberto Castro/Brasil2016

By Mario Osava
RIO DE JANEIRO, Aug 18 2016 (IPS)

Brazil’s first gold medal of the Rio de Janeiro Olympics gave it a new multipurpose heroine, Rafaela Silva, whose defeat of the favourites in judo has made her a strong voice against racism and homophobia. Not only is she black and poor, but she just came out as gay.

In her first remarks as an Olympic champion, on Aug. 8, she referred to the harsh criticism she received after being disqualified in the second round of the London Olympics in 2012, when people lashed out against her in the social media, with one saying she was a “monkey who should be in a cage.” Her medal is her vengeance against racism.

It is also an example of a triumph over the poverty and crime that drags down so many young people in the Cidade de Deus, the Rio de Janeiro “favela” or shantytown where she grew up, which was made famous by the film City of God.

Colourful figures like Silva or Jamaican runner Usain Bolt, or unbeatable athletes like U.S. swimming legend Michael Phelps,are crucial in the Olympics, which have become a huge global media event, more than the leading international sports competition.

Sheer overkill also plays a key role in the media spectacle. In the Aug. 5-21 Rio Games, 11,552 athletes – eight percent more than in London 2012 – are participating in 306 medal events in 42 disciplines.

But the number of journalists grew even more, by about 20 percent. More than 25,000 accredited reporters are covering Rio 2016, which translates into 2.2 press, TV, radio and internet journalists for each athlete during the 19-day Games.

The Rio Games – the first held in South America – are the most connected Olympics in history, with data traffic and internet activity four times greater than in London.

And while six million tickets were sold for the stadiums, according to the organisers, billions in profits have been made from the spectators watching the Games on TV or over the internet worldwide.

The opening ceremony alone was watched by an estimated three billion people around the globe. The colourful ceremony and its special effects, directed by prize-winning filmmakers, cleared up the doubts about the success of the Games, due to threats like construction delays, the Zika virus epidemic and Brazil’s political and economic crisis.

The filtered view provided by dozens of TV cameras is no substitute for the actual atmosphere of the stadiums, but it makes it possible to see up-close details from different angles, including up above, which is impossible for spectators in the stadiums. And the technological advances constantly improve the experience of watching the Games from far away points on the globe.

Aesthetics is another dimension that colors the competition. It played a role in the inauguration of the Games and its strong presence in some disciplines, like the various gymnastics or diving events, helped minimise the military origins of many Olympic sports, like wrestling or shooting.

Judoka Rafaela Silva, who won Brazil’s first medal – gold – on Aug. 8, had received racial slurs like “monkey that should be in a cage” when she was disqualified from the London 2012 Games; now she is fa heroine. Credit: Roberto Castro/Brasil2016

But the drama seen in many of the contests is perhaps the central element of the Olympic media spectacle.

More people remember Swiss long-distance runner Gabriela Andersen’s struggle to finish the 1984 Olympic marathon in 37th place, staggering with heat exhaustion in the final 200 metres, than the actual winner of the marathon in Los Angeles that year.

For the honour of lighting the Olympic cauldron at the inauguration of the Rio 2016 Games, the athlete chosen was Brazilian runner Vanderlei de Lima, who became famous in Athens in 2004 when an Irish priest shoved him to the side of the road when he was in the lead in the marathon.

A Greek spectator helped free Lima from the grasp of the priest – who was later defrocked – and he continued the race. But he lost time and his rhythm was broken, and he ended in third place. For exemplifying the spirit of sportsmanship he showed by settling for the bronze, the International Olympic Committee awarded him the Pierre de Coubertin medal, a special decoration that carries the name of the founder of the IOC.

The footage of the incident, broadcast over and over around the world, made Lima an Olympics symbol.

The show needs heroes. National ones abound; sometimes winning a medal is all it takes. So far in Rio 2016, there are many examples.

Judoka Majlinda Kelmendi will surely provide a major boost to the eight-year-old Kosovo’s consolidation as an independent nation now that she has won the country’s first medal – gold. In 2012 she competed under the Albanian flag.

Fiji as well won its first medal – also gold – in Rugby Sevens, which debuted in these Games as an Olympic sport. (Rugby union was played at the Olympics from 1900 to 1924.)

Puerto Rico, an associated free state of the United States, with its own delegation in the Olympics, also took its first gold medal in Rio, won by Monica Puig in tennis.

The IOC recognizes 208 national committees, surpassing the 193 members of the United Nations. Some participants in the Olympics are not independent states, as in the case of Puerto Rico, Hong Kong, the Virgin Islands or American Samoa.

Dramatic incidents like the one involving Vanderlei de Lima also give rise to Olympic heroes, who add to the show.

Etenesh Diro of Ethiopia was cheered when she completed the 3,000-metre steeplechase, even though she finished seventh. She had pulled off her shoe when it was torn in a tangle with other competitors and continued on, barefoot.

But although she didn’t qualify for the final, the authorities rewarded spots in the race to her and two others who fell.

Heroes are generally individuals. Maybe that’s why football didn’t overshadow the Games – a worry that was apparently behind some restrictions set on participating in the sport, which is wildly popular in Brazil, such as a 23-year age limit, with three exceptions.

At any rate, the Olympic audience is guaranteed thanks to the diversity of sports, cultures and dramatic personal or national situations.

The excess of raw material for journalists and for the television and online show and the out of proportion size will make it difficult for another country of the developing South to host the Games in the near future.

Besides aspects linked to the needs and pressures of what is, more than anything, a huge global spectacle, the decision will also be influenced by the problems that cropped up in Rio, like construction delays, urban crime, water pollution, half-empty stadiums, and unsportsmanlike loud booing of some foreign athletes and teams.

Presidents Barack Obama and Uhuru Kenyatta wave to delegates at the Opening Plenary at the Global Entrepreneurship Summit, in Nairobi, Kenya on July 25, 2015. Credit: U.S. Embassy Nairobi

By Aruna Dutt
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 25 2015 (IPS)

U.S. President Barack Obama spoke in Nairobi at the end of a two-day visit Saturday, focusing on Kenya’s economy and the fight against terrorism, but also briefly touching on gay rights and discrimination.

“When you start treating people differently not because of any harm they are doing to anybody, but because they are different, that’s the path whereby freedoms begin to erode, and bad things happen,” Obama said at a joint press conference with Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta."You can't encourage change by staying silent." -- Charles Radcliffe

But LGBTI Kenyans are not in agreement about whether Obama’s presence will help or hurt their struggle, according to the Executive Director of the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, Jessica Stern.

“The difference of views is a sign of the strength and diversity of the Kenyan LGBTI movement, but there’s no question that this is a potential minefield, and ultimately, those who stand to get hurt most are regular Kenyans,” she told IPS.

Some have argued that the U.S. president speaking out on LGBTQ human rights in Kenya was counterproductive in the past, and has made the people of Kenya, where same-sex relations are punishable by up to 14 years in prison, more homophobic and unsupportive of the LGBTQ community.

Anti-gay organisations like the Kenya Christian Professionals Forum claim that they gained more support due to President Obama’s comments in 2013, along with some American policies, likely because the protection of LGBTQ communities is widely viewed as an American value being imposed on African society.

After Obama’s comments Saturday, President Kenyatta stated that in Kenya, it is “very difficult to impose” gay rights because the culture is different from the United States, and the societies do not accept it – which makes it a “non-issue” to the government of Kenya.

“There’s been a deliberate attempt to portray homosexuality as a Western import, which it isn’t,” the U.N. adviser on human rights, sexual orientation and gender identity, Charles Radcliffe, told IPS. “The only Western imports in this context are the homophobic laws used to punish and silence gay people,” these laws mostly originating from 19th century British colonialism.

By speaking on LGBTQ human rights abuses, Obama is “imposing human values, not Western ones,” says Radcliffe. “It’s possible to respect tradition, while at the same time insisting that everyone — gay people included — deserve to be protected from prejudice, violence, and unfair punishment and discrimination.”

Radcliffe said he believes Obama and other leaders should speak out, as it will “open people’s eyes to the existence of gay Kenyans and the legitimacy of their claim to respect and recognition.”

Radcliffe advises prominent individuals to take their lead from members of the local LGBT community – who are best placed to advise on what interventions are likely to help, and which ones risk making things more difficult.

“LGBT activists are too often isolated in their own countries; they need the support of fellow human rights activists, women’s rights activists and others campaigning for social justice. Public opinion tends to change when individual members of the public get to know LGBT individuals and realise they are people too. The government should hasten that process, not obstruct it. ”

Radcliffe notes that “you can’t encourage change by staying silent.”

According to Stern, “LGBTI Kenyans have been fighting their own heroic struggle for years, but the extremists have seized upon this opportunity to undermine their credibility as Kenyans.  All Kenyans, gay and straight, lose when there’s this kind of media spin doctoring.”

Stern urged leaders like Obama and the media not to undermine an opportunity to address a spectrum of human rights abuses Kenyans are living with. Instead, she says there should be a focus on concerns which are being left by the wayside, such as the lack of police accountability, abuse by government security forces, abuse of Somali and Muslim communities, and a crackdown on NGOs, among many others.

“If the mechanisms for government accountability are weak, human rights of all stripes will suffer,” says Stern. “Kenyan activists of all stripes, including those working on LGBTI rights, are protesting corruption in government.  They’ve continued calling for accountability for violence in 2007/2008 after elections.

“They’re defending people who’ve been arbitrarily arrested and charged, such as two men in Kwale County being tried under the ‘unnatural offenses law’. They’ve documented hundreds of extrajudicial killings by police in recent years, and they’ve called for police guilty of violence and theft to be disciplined and prosecuted.”

According to Human Rights Watch, Kenya continues to be plagued by corruption at all levels of government with limited accountability.

For example, although both presidents Kenyatta and Ruto campaigned for elected office on pledges to continue their cooperation with the International Criminal Court (ICC), which has charged both presidents with crimes against humanity in the past, their campaigns later painted the ICC as a tool of Western imperialism, and encouraged other African leaders to undermine the ICC.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

A Ugandan transgender woman in a town near Kampala, shortly before she fled the country. She left to escape the police harassment and violence she experienced after the passage of the Anti-Homosexuality Act. © 2014 Human Rights Watch

By Neela Ghoshal
NEW YORK, Jul 17 2015 (IPS)

A report published in June by the Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf), in collaboration with the Uganda National Academy of Sciences, could help reshape understandings of human sexuality – if African policymakers take the time to consider the report’s findings.

Contrary to widespread belief amongst African lawmakers and ordinary citizens, homosexuality is neither a Western import nor a matter of choice. These are some of the findings the panel of African scientists revealed after reviewing hundreds of studies on same-sex attraction.Same-sex relationships and diverse gender identities exist even where laws are most repressive, and levels of stigma are highest. Criminalising LGBT identities or same-sex conduct simply won’t make LGBT people disappear.

But some African politicians seem too busy fomenting panic around homosexuality to pay attention to the facts, by, for example, spreading false claims that U.S. President Barack Obama is pushing same-sex marriage on Kenya and Nigeria.

Desperate to distract voters from real, unresolved problems, such as poverty, insecurity and corruption, many African politicians like to raise the specter of homosexuality as a mortal danger. In the name of protecting society, “traditional values,” or children, they pass deeply discriminatory laws.

Nigeria, under former president Goodluck Jonathan, slapped 10-year prison sentences on anyone who even “indirectly” demonstrates a “same sex amorous relationship.” In Uganda, before its Anti-Homosexuality Act was struck down on procedural grounds last year, a landlord who didn’t evict a gay or lesbian tenant could have been convicted for maintaining a “brothel.”

For the proponents of these laws, Obama is the latest bogeyman, with one Kenyan politician suggesting that if Obama so much as mentions the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people during his upcoming visit to Kenya, this might tear Kenya’s “social fabric.”

But the panel of well-respected African scientists roundly dismissed claims that homosexuality is imported, finding the prevalence of homosexuality in African countries “no different from other countries in the rest of the world”.

The panel concurred with a previous a finding by Ugandan scientists that “homosexuality existed in Africa way before the coming of the white man.” When these Ugandan scientists presented their report to President Yoweri Museveni in early 2014, he shamelessly ignored their conclusions, claiming their report justified the passage of the Anti-Homosexuality Act.

The recent report notes that same-sex relationships and diverse gender identities exist even where laws are most repressive, and levels of stigma are highest. Criminalising LGBT identities or same-sex conduct simply won’t make LGBT people disappear.

Likewise, an approach to sexuality and gender that is in line with international human rights law will not open the floodgates to waves of Africans “converting” to homosexuality. Indeed, countries like the Netherlands and Sweden, known to be particularly open to sexual diversity, have no higher rates of homosexuality than any other countries in the world.

The scientists find that “… studies such as this show that young people can be friends with LBGTI youngsters without fearing (or their parents fearing) that they will ‘catch’ same-sex attraction from their friends. Such ‘transmission’ of sexual orientation simply does not happen.”

Nor should policymakers worry that LGBT people are a threat to children. The fear that gays are recruiting and abusing children is often offered to justify cracking down on homosexuality. However, the panel found “no scientific evidence to support the view” that LGBT people are more likely to abuse children than anyone else.

Instead, the panel, having examined studies of child sexual abuse, concluded that “most of the perpetrators are heterosexual men.” Rather than scapegoating homosexuals, the report suggests, governments should identify and hold accountable the real child abusers.

When given an opportunity to speak for themselves, LGBT people often emphasise that they were aware of their sexual or gender identity from an early age. Similarly, heterosexual people often develop romantic feelings toward the opposite sex from early childhood—they don’t “choose” those feelings, nor can they change them.

In examining the scientific literature, the panel says that, “Overall, the surge in recent confirmatory studies,” including those of twins and of similarities in chromosomes across a population group with a particular trait, “have reached the stage where there is no longer any doubt about the existence of a substantial biological basis to sexual orientation.”

If sexuality has a biological basis, the scientists ask – and if there is no evidence that LGBT people “recruit” or otherwise harm children – what could possibly be the justification for punishing people for their sexual orientation or gender identity?

African policymakers should ask themselves the same. And rather than wringing their hands about a US court decision on marriage equality, or tearing their hair out over purely hypothetical comments that Obama may or may not make, they should look at the very real social harms caused by homophobia and transphobia.

The African Commission on Human and People’s Rights – which, like the South African and Ugandan scientists who produced the report, can hardly be dismissed as Western – passed a resolution in 2014 condemning widespread violence on the grounds of real or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity.

The commissioners expressed “alarm” that “acts of violence, discrimination and other human rights violations continue to be committed on individuals in many parts of Africa because of their actual or imputed sexual orientation or gender identity.” They cited “‘corrective’ rape, physical assaults, torture, murder, arbitrary arrests, detentions, extra-judicial killings and executions, forced disappearances, extortion and blackmail.”

The commission calls on African countries to end all violence and abuse on the grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity.

The ASSAf report goes a step further in concluding that “As variation in sexual identities and orientations has always been part of a normal society, there can be no justification for attempts to ‘eliminate’ LGBTI from society.”

As the study shows, same sex attraction and gender variance have always existed and nothing will change that, no matter how many repressive laws are passed, how many LGBT people are raped, murdered, imprisoned, expelled from schools or evicted from their homes.

Instead of trying to “eliminate” LGBT people, why not begin taking steps to eliminate violence and discrimination against them?

Edited by Kitty Stapp

Excerpt:

Billboard for the referendum called to strengthen a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage and same-sex adoption in Slovakia in February. It says: WE ARE DECIDING ABOUT CHILDREN'S FUTURES. LET'S PROTECT THEIR RIGHT TO A MOTHER AND FATHER. Credit: Pavol Stracansky/IPS

By Pavol Stracansky
BRATISLAVA, Mar 15 2015 (IPS)

Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) groups in Central and Eastern Europe, which still faced mixed prospects as they fight for rights and acceptance, are now taking some heart from the “failure” of a referendum in Slovakia, a member of the European Union.

Last month, a referendum called to strengthen a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage and same-sex adoption in Slovakia was declared invalid after only just over 20 percent of voters turned out.

The controversial plebiscite was heavily criticised by international rights groups, which said it pandered to homophobic discrimination and was allowing human rights issues affecting a minority group to be decided by a popular majority vote.

The campaigning ahead of the vote had often been bitter and vitriolic, including public homophobic statements by clergy, and a controversial negative commercial about gay adoption, which Slovak TV stations refused to broadcast and eventually only appeared on internet.The reasons behind the relative societal intolerance towards LGBT groups in Central and Eastern Europe vary from entrenched conservative attitudes rooted in countries’ isolation under communism, to local political aims and the influence of the Catholic Church.

The commercial showed a child in an orphanage being told that his new parents were coming to collect him and, after two men appear at the door, asking: “Where’s Mum?”

Activists here say that the referendum’s outcome was a sign that, despite this campaigning, Slovaks know that LGBT people pose “no threat” to society and has positively furthered discussion about allowing registered partnerships in the country.

Martin Macko, head of the Bratislava-based LGBT rights group Inakost, told IPS: “The referendum showed that people consider the family important, but that they do not see same-sex families as a threat to traditional families. The long-term perspective regarding discussions on registered partnerships in Slovakia is positive.”

Importantly, the result has also been welcomed in other parts of Central and Eastern Europe where many LGBT groups still face intolerance and discrimination.

Evelyne Paradis, Executive Director of international LGBT rights group ILGA-Europe told IPS: “LGBT activists across Europe have welcomed the outcome of the Slovak vote … hopefully the referendum will lead to a constructive discussion about equality in Slovakia. At the same time, we know that there is a broad diversity of views in the region which means that much work remains to be done before full equality is realised.”

Compared with Western Europe, attitudes in many countries in Central and Eastern Europe to LGBT people and issues are often much more conservative and in some states actively hostile.

The Czech Republic, whose larger cities have relatively open and vibrant gay communities, is the only country in the region which allows for registered partnerships of same-sex couples.

In other countries, such as Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia and Poland, marriage is defined constitutionally as only between a man and a woman. In January this year, Macedonia’s parliament voted to adopt a similar clause in its constitution.

Adoption by same sex couples is banned in all states in the region while other important legislation relating to LGBT issues is also absent. In Bulgaria, for instance, inadequate legislation means that homophobic crimes are investigated and prosecuted as ‘hooliganism’. This, activists claim, creates a climate of fear for LGBT people.

Poor records on minority rights in general in places like, for instance, Ukraine, mean that while the state may ostensibly be committed to LGBT rights, such communities are in reality extremely vulnerable.

In Russia, legislation actively represses same-sex relationships, with federal laws criminalising promotion of any non-heterosexual lifestyle, while Lithuania has legal provisions banning the promotion of homosexuality.

Deeply negative attitudes towards homosexuals are widespread in some societies. A 2013 survey in Ukraine showed that two-thirds of people thought homosexuality was a perversion, while a study in the same year in Lithuania showed that 61 percent of LGBT people said they had suffered discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity.

Isolated verbal and physical attacks and passive intolerance among more conservative groups are common across the region. But in some countries, specifically Russia, anyone even suspected of being non-heterosexual faces open, organised and sometimes lethally violent persecution.

Natalia Tsymbalova, an LGBT rights activist from St Petersburg, was forced to flee Russia in September last year after receiving death threats. Now claiming asylum in Spain, she was one of at least 12 LGBT activists who left Russia last year.

Speaking from Madrid, she told IPS about the continuing repression of LGBT people in her home country.

She said that although state propaganda campaigns had “switched to ‘Ukrainian fascists’ and the West” being portrayed as the public’s greatest enemy instead of LGBT people since the annexation of Crimea and the start of the Ukraine conflict, “state homophobia has not disappeared”.

“It has just faded into the background,” she added, “no longer making top headlines in the news, but it is still there and it has never left. The number of hate crimes is not falling, and they are being investigated as badly as before.”

The reasons behind the relative societal intolerance towards LGBT groups in Central and Eastern Europe vary from entrenched conservative attitudes rooted in countries’ isolation under communism, to local political aims and the influence of the Catholic Church.

In Slovakia, a strongly Catholic country where the Church’s influence can be extremely strong in many communities, supporters of the referendum welcomed Pope Francis’ personal endorsement of their cause.

It has been speculated that the conservative Alliance for Family movement, which initiated the referendum, is funded by Slovakia’s Catholic Church and that the Church was the driving force behind moves to bring about the vote.

In Lithuania, another strongly Catholic country, Church officials have supported laws restricting LGBT rights and have openly called homosexuality a perversion.

However, some rights activists also say that politicians in countries struggling economically or looking to entrench their own power can often use minorities, including LGBT people, as easy political targets to gain voter support.

ILGA’s Paradis told IPS: “Unfortunately many political leaders use the LGBT community as scapegoats … from activists we often hear that they do this to hide ‘real problems’ in countries, such as youth unemployment, access to education and healthcare. They promote ‘traditional family values’ as the way to rescue society. Sadly, in doing this, political leaders build a climate of intolerance and hatred.”

Saying that Russian politicians are now using homophobia to push wider agendas, Tsymbalova told IPS: “Homophobia plays an important role in the anti-Western rhetoric of President [Vladimir] Putin and his fellows. It is one of the main points of the conservative values that they try to promote and the public still has negative attitudes toward LGBT communities.”

The outcome of the Slovak referendum has left activists there more optimistic about the future for LGBT people in their country.

They are now pushing for discussions with the government about introducing registered partnerships and they hope that LGBT communities in other countries in the region will be heartened by the result or that, at least, people hoping to organise similar referendums will reconsider what they are doing.

Macko of Inakost told IPS: “Religious groups in some Balkan and Baltic countries are considering organising similar referendums and we really hope this will discourage them.”

Paradis told IPS that while the Slovak referendum had already been welcomed by many of its member groups in Central and Eastern Europe, progress on LGBT issues in many countries, including registered partnerships, was unlikely to be swift. “There indeed is more discussion in the region on granting rights to same sex partnerships, but what we see is a very mixed picture.”

However, the outlook for LGBT people in some places remains grim. Tsymbalova told IPS that many LGBT people in her home country have given up hope of any positive changes in the foreseeable future.

“In our community, there is almost no one who believes that the situation for LGBT people in Russia will seriously change for the better any time soon. Under the existing regime, which promotes and exploits homophobia, these changes will not happen and there is almost no hope of a regime change, so expectations are gloomy.”

She added: “Many LGBT activists have either left Russia, like me, or are going to. [As] for same-sex registered partnerships, it would take several decades to be accepted in Russia and I don’t believe I will see this in my lifetime. It is completely out of the question for the next 20 or 30 years.”

Edited by Phil Harris    

By Mandeep S.Tiwana
JOHANNESBURG, Nov 25 2014 (IPS)

Nabeel Rajab, president of the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights, an advocacy NGO, is facing criminal charges for sending a tweet that said: “many Bahrain men who joined terrorism and ISIS have come from the security institutions and those institutions were the first ideological incubator”.

Yara Sallam, a young Egyptian woman activist, is in prison for protesting against a public assembly law declared by United Nations experts to be in breach of international law.

In Nigeria, it is illegal to support the formation of `gay clubs and institutions’.

Mandeep S. Tiwana

In Bangladesh, civil society groups are subjected to rigorous scrutiny of their project objectives with a view to discourage documentation of serious human rights abuses.

In Honduras, activists exposing the nexus between big business owners and local officials to circumvent rules operate under serious threat to their lives.

In South Sudan, a draft law is in the making that requires civil society groups to align their work with the government-dictated national development plan.

With barely a year to go before finalisation of the next generation of global development goals, civil society groups are facing increasing challenges as they seek to assume their rightful role as partners in development.

Back in 2010, when the United Nations organised a major summit to take stock of progress on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), a number of civil society groups lamented that“too little partnership and too little space” was marring the achievement of MDG targets.“With barely a year to go before finalisation of the next generation of global development goals, civil society groups are facing increasing challenges as they seek to assume their rightful role as partners in development”

They pointed out that, in a large number of countries, legal and practical limitations were preventing civil society groups from being set up, engaging in legitimate undertakings and accessing resources, impeding both the service delivery and watchdog functions of the sector, thereby negatively affecting development activities.

Since then, there has been greater recognition at multilateral levels about the challenges faced by civil society. In 2011, at a high-level forum on aid and development effectiveness, 159 national governments and the European Union resolved to create an “enabling environment” for civil society organisations to maximise their contributions to development.

In 2013, the U.N. Secretary General’s expert High Level Panel on the Post-2015 Development Agenda recommended that a separate goal on good governance and effective institutions should be created. The experts suggested that this goal should include targets to measure freedoms of speech, association, peaceful protest and access to independent media and information, which are integral to a flourishing civil society.

The Open Working Group on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) has also emphasised the importance of ‘partnership with civil society’ in the post-2015 agenda. Even as restrictions on civil society activities have multiplied around the world, the U.N. Human Rights Council has passed resolutions calling for the protection of civic space.

Senior U.N. officials and experts, including the new High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, have spoken out against state-sanctioned reprisals against activists highlighting human rights abuses at home and abroad.

Yet, despite the progress, civic space appears to be shrinking. The State of Civil Society Report 2014 issued by CIVICUS points out that following the upheavals of the Arab Spring, many governments have felt threatened and targeted activists advocating for civil and political freedoms.

In Ethiopia, bloggers and journalists speaking out against restrictions on speech and assembly have been targeted under counter-terrorism legislation for “inciting” disaffection.

Additionally, the near total dominance of free market economic policies has created a tight overlap between the economic and political elite, putting at risk environmental and land rights activists challenging the rise of politically well-connected mining, construction and agricultural firms.

Global Witness has pointed out that there has been a surge in the killing of environmental activists over the last decade.

Notably, abundant political conflicts and cultural clashes are spurring religious fundamentalism and intolerant attitudes towards women’s equality and the rights of sexual minorities, putting progressive civil society groups at serious risk from both physical attacks as well as politically motivated prosecutions.

In Uganda, concerns have been expressed about the promotion of homophobia by right-wing religious groups.

In Pakistan, indiscriminate attacks on women’s rights activists are seriously impairing their work.

Countering these regressive developments will require greater efforts from the international community to entrench notions of civic space in both developmental as well as human rights forums.

A critical mass of leading civil society organisations has written to U.N. Secretary General Ban ki-Moon urging him to ensure that the post-2015 agenda focuses on the full spectrum of human rights, with clear targets on civil and political rights that sit alongside economic, social and cultural rights.

It is being argued that explicit inclusion of the freedoms of expression, association and peaceful assembly which underpin a vibrant and able civil society should be goals in themselves in the new global development agenda.

It is equally vital to make parallel progress on the human rights front. Many governments that restrict civic freedoms are taking cover under the overbroad provisions of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).

They argue that the provisions of the ICCPR on freedom of association and assembly, which are short on detail, are open to multiple interpretations on issues such as the right to operate an organisation without formal registration or to spontaneously organise a public demonstration.

The global discourse on civil society rights would be greatly strengthened if the U.N. Human Rights Committee, the expert body of jurists responsible for interpreting the ICCPR, could comprehensively articulate the scope of these freedoms.

This would complement progress made at the U.N. Human Rights Council and support implementation of comprehensive best practice guidelines issued by the U.N. Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedoms of peaceful assembly and association.

For now, the odds seem to be heavily stacked against civil society groups fighting for economic, social and political justice. Many powerful governments do not subscribe to democratic values and are fundamentally opposed to the notion of an independent sector. And many democracies have themselves encroached on civic space in the face of perceived security and strategic interests.

Civil society around the world must remain vigilant and act collectively to ensure that the fundamental rights of freedom of expression, association and assembly are protected. We have come too far to let those with vested interests encroach on the space for citizens and civil society to thrive. (END/IPS COLUMNIST SERVICE)

(Edited by Phil Harris)

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, IPS – Inter Press Service. 

Excerpt:

Kenyan LGBT rights supporters protest Uganda’s anti-homosexuality law. Credit: Dai Kurokawa/EPA

By Joel Jaeger
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 9 2014 (IPS)

Eighteen-year-old Gift Makau enjoyed playing and refereeing football games in her neighbourhood in the North West Province of South Africa. She had come out to her parents as a lesbian and had never been heckled by her community, according to her cousin.

On Aug. 15 she was found by her mother in a back alley, where she had been raped, tortured and killed.“Homophobia becomes both a ruse and a distraction from other real substantive issues, whether those are economic or political.” -- HRW's Graeme Reid

Shehnilla Mohamed, Africa director for the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGHLRC), said that Gift’s murder was part of a disturbing trend in which gender-nonconforming individuals are targeted for so-called corrective rape.

“Corrective rape is really the attempt of the society to try to punish the person for acting outside the norm,” Mohamed said.

In the past 10 years in South Africa, 31 lesbians have been reported killed as the result of corrective rape, she said.  A charity called Luleki Sizwe estimates that 10 lesbians are raped or gang raped a week in Cape Town alone.

Transgender, gay or effeminate men are also the subject of corrective rape, but they are less likely to be murdered and are less likely to report it.

If this is happening in South Africa, the only mainland African country to allow legal same-sex marriage, what is it like to be lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender (LGBT) elsewhere on the continent?

“The type of brutality that you see happening to lesbians and to homosexuals in parts of Africa is just beyond comprehension,” Mohamed told IPS. “It’s like your worst horror movie, and even worse than that.”

More than two-thirds of African countries have laws criminalising consensual same-sex acts, according to IGLHRC.

“Overall what we’ve seen is a fairly bleak picture that’s emerging,” said Graeme Reid, director of the LGBT Program at Human Rights Watch (HRW).

Africa is seeing “an intensification of the political use of homophobia,” he said.

Nigeria and Uganda made headlines in early 2014 when they signed anti-homosexuality bills that handed out long prison sentences for being homosexual or for refusing to turn in a known homosexual.

On Aug. 1, Uganda’s law was declared unconstitutional on procedural grounds by its supreme court, but Shehnilla Mohamed expects that it will be back on the table again once international attention shifts away.

Long-time African leaders who wish to extend their stay in office often try to whip up anti-homosexuality sentiment.

“Homophobia becomes both a ruse and a distraction from other real substantive issues, whether those are economic or political,” Graeme Reid said.

Chalwe Mwansa, a Zambian activist and IGHLRC fellow, told IPS that in his country, politicians equate cases of pedophilia and incest with homosexuality, fabricating sensational stories to inflame the public. This strategy diverts attention away from problems with unemployment, poverty, health and education.

Some leaders also claim that homosexuality is an un-African, Western imposition. Mohamed believes it is the exact opposite.

Homosexuality “existed in a lot of the African cultures and a lot of the African traditions,” she told IPS. “It was quite an accepted pattern.”

Same-sex relationships did not begin to develop a negative connotation until after colonisation brought Western religion, she said.

In an environment of antipathy, LGBT individuals have few places to turn to for help. The police station is often not a sanctuary for those who have been raped.

Mohamed recently spoke to a transgender man in South Africa who was accosted in the lobby of his block of apartments by a group of men who thought he was a woman. When they found out he was a man they raped and “beat him so badly that he was totally unrecognisable,” she said.

The man ended up contracting HIV/AIDS.

In South Africa, after being raped, a person is supposed to report it to the police and receive a free post-exposure prophylaxis within 72 hours to minimise the risk of transmission. However, this man was too afraid to go into the station, knowing that the police would most likely feel that he had deserved it.

The problem is even worse in countries like Nigeria that have criminalised homosexuality. According to Michael Ighodaro, a fellow at IGLHRC from Nigeria, after its anti-homosexuality bill was passed in January, 90 percent of gay men who were on medications stopped going to clinics to receive them, out of fear that they would be arrested.

Even at home, LGBT individuals in Africa face an uphill struggle. Anti-homosexuality laws do have a current of support throughout society. LGBT people often fear ostracisation by their families, so hide their sexual or gender identity.

The increased prominence of LGBT issues in national debates in Africa in the past decade has inspired a bit of a backlash.

Njeri Gateru, a legal officer at the National Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission of Kenya, says that Kenya lies in a tricky balance. Society does not actively persecute LGBT individuals if they outwardly conform to sexual and gender norms, but “problems would arise if people marched in the streets or there was an article in the press.”

“We cannot continue to live in a balance where we are muzzled and we are comfortable being muzzled,” Gateru said at a HRW event in New York.

Religion plays a significant role in the lack of acceptance of gender non-conforming groups in Africa.

IGLHRC’s Mohamed said that even “people with master’s degrees, who are highly educated, who work in white collar jobs will say ‘God does not like this.’”

“I think pointing out that LGBTI people are human beings, are God’s creation just like everybody else is really something that we’ll keep on pushing,” she said.

According to Gateru, even when churches open their doors to LGBT groups, they sometimes do it for the wrong reasons.

A year or so ago, a group of Kenyan evangelical leaders announced that they were going to stop turning LGBT individuals away from churches because, in their words, ‘Jesus came for the sinners, not the righteous.’

The churches are “welcoming you to change you or to pray for you so you can change, which is really not what we want,” said Gateru. “But I think it’s a very tiny step.”

Archbishop Desmond Tutu has repeatedly and consistently criticised discrimination against LGBT groups and condemned new anti-homosexuality laws.

Activist groups welcome the support of prominent religious leaders such as Tutu, and are planning a conference in February to bring together pastors, imams and rabbis to discuss LGBT issues and religion in Africa.

In general, LGBT activist organisations have their work cut out for them.

LGBT advocacy groups “most of the time are working undercover, are working underground, or if they are registered and are working as an NGO, are constantly being harassed by the authorities or by society,” Mohamed said.

IGLHRC was founded in 1990, and helps local LGBT advocacy groups around the world fight for their rights through grant making and work on the ground.

“What we really need is to mainstream homosexual rights, LGBTI rights into the basic human rights discourse,” said Mohamed.

During August’s U.S.-Africa summit in Washington, IGLHRC urged the U.S. to hold African leaders to account.

Depending on the country, the U.S. does have an ability to advance human rights through external pressure. Mohamed speculated that the striking down of Uganda’s anti-homosexuality bill just days before the summit was a public relations stunt by Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, since he wanted a warm reception by the White House.

Nigeria, the other country to introduce a new law in 2014, is more difficult to influence than Uganda, according to Michael Ighodaro. Because of its oil wealth, the Nigerian government would not care if the United States were to pull funding.

The U.S.-African summit, since it was focused on business, offered an opportunity for LGBT advocacy groups to point out the economic costs of sidelining an entire sector of the population.

Mohamed said that LGBT individuals are often “too scared to apply for certain jobs because of how they would be treated. If they did apply they probably would never get the jobs because of the stigmas attached.”

Despite the difficult journey to come, supporters of LGBT rights in Africa can look back to see that some progress has been made.

HRW’s Reid said that the LGBT movement was practically invisible in Africa just 20 years ago.

“In a sense this very vocal reaction against LGBT visibility can also be seen as a measure of the strength and growth of a movement over the last two decades,” he said.

Things may get a little tougher before they get better, Njeri Gateru told IPS, but “history is on our side.”

Edited by Kitty Stapp

The writer can be contacted at joelmjaeger@gmail.com

LGBT flag map of Georgia. Credit: Wikipedia Commons

By Pavol Stracansky
TBILISI, Sep 8 2014 (IPS)

Georgia’s LGBT community is sceptical that recently-introduced anti-discrimination legislation hailed by some rights groups as a bold step forward for the former Soviet state will improve their lives any time soon.

The law, which came into effect in May this year, is ostensibly designed to provide protection for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people in a country where homophobia is deep-rooted at all levels of society and LGBT groups face daily discrimination.

But activists in Georgia say that introduction of the legislation has actually hardened attitudes against the LGBT community and that there are serious concerns over how effectively it can be applied.“Since the law was passed, things are actually worse now for LGBT people. When they make a complaint about something, people just say, ‘what more do you want? You’ve got your rights now in law’. It’s really obnoxious” – Irakli Vacharadze, head of Identoba, the Tbilisi-based rights organisation

Irakli Vacharadze, head of Identoba, the Tbilisi-based rights organisation, told IPS: “Since the law was passed, things are actually worse now for LGBT people. When they make a complaint about something, people just say, ‘what more do you want? You’ve got your rights now in law’. It’s really obnoxious.

“There are also questions over how it is going to be applied and at the moment, at least, it is definitely not effective.”

With a deeply religious society – 84 percent of the population identifies itself as Orthodox Christian – attitudes in Georgia to anything other than traditional heterosexual relationships are deeply negative among much of the population.

LGBT people say that they are often refused service by businesses and hospitals, bullied in school, and harassed by the police. Meanwhile, the Orthodox Church, which has a hugely influential role in society, has denounced LGBT equality and described support for LGBT rights as the “propaganda of sin”.

A 2013 survey by Identoba revealed how entrenched anti-LGBT sentiment is in society – 88 percent of respondents said homosexuality could “never be justified”.

A peaceful gay rights march marking International Day Against Homophobia last year ended in violence as protestors from a rival church-led counter-demonstration attacked and beat LGBT demonstrators.

But the country’s pursuit of closer ties with the European Union forced political parties, which had previously been at best apathetic towards the LGBT community, to address the issue.

As a condition of being granted coveted visa-free travel to EU countries, the government was told it had to implement anti-discrimination laws, including legislation specifically on gender expression and sexual orientation.

And although fiercely opposed by the Church, they were passed with the general support of all political parties.

However, LGBT people in Georgia remain far from convinced that, in its present form, it will help them. Although welcomed as a step forward, rights groups have criticised the fact that a devoted enforcement body was not approved and instead cases will go to the Ombudsman for Human Rights.

They say that the Ombudsman’s office lacks capacity and that effectively dealing with complaints will be compromised. They have called for the passage of additional measures to ensure enforcement of the law.

The Ombudsman’s office has yet to set up a department to deal with anti-discrimination complaints brought under the new legislation and one will not be functional before January.

Meanwhile, faith, or rather lack of it, in the country’s justice system is also likely to limit its effectiveness.

Viorel Ursu, Regional Manager of the Eurasia Programme at the Open Society Foundation, told IPS: “People do not trust the judiciary in general in Georgia. They feel that even when they bring legal action, there is no guarantee that justice will be served. And although there are laws designed to protect against discrimination of LGBT people, they will still face discrimination anyway.”

Activists are under no illusions about what the laws will bring the LGBT community. When asked whether he expected things to get better for LGBT people in Georgia in the near future, Vacharadze said: “Definitely not. There’s no chance.”

But the introduction of the legislation has already had at least one potentially positive effect. LGBT people say a profound ignorance of their gender expression and sexual orientation and their lifestyles contributes to the widespread antipathy towards them in Georgian society, but passage of the laws has at least promoted vitally-needed public discussion of the LGBT community.

Vacharadze told IPS: “The law alone will not change society’s attitudes towards LGBT people, it won’t get rid of homophobia. It won’t do anything to deal with the ignorance about LGBT issues and the community.

“The way to deal with it is to get information about LGBT out to the public and get them informed. One thing about the passage of this legislation was that it did actually create a debate about LGBT people in Georgia and got information about them out into the public and got people discussing it.”

The laws also have a wider significance in that they stand in stark contrast to the repression of LGBT communities in other former Soviet states, most notably Russia which is increasing its persecution of homosexuals through repressive legislation.

Just this week, the senior political figure in recently-annexed Crimea typified the Russian political stance to non-heterosexuals when he attacked LGBT people at a government meeting.

Sergei Aksyonov, leader of the new Russian region, said that if LGBT people held any meetings “police and self-defence forces will react immediately and in three minutes will explain to them what kind of sexual orientation they should stick to.”

He also said that “Crimean children should be brought up with a ‘positive attitude to family and traditional values’,” and that Crimea had “no need” for gays and lesbians.

Some observers say that the passing of the laws in Georgia, at a time when neighbours and other former Soviet states are attacking LGBT people, is proof that the country is set on moving closer to Europe and putting as much political distance between it and Russia, which has annexed some of its territory in recent years.

Indeed, as political parties debated the anti-discrimination laws, Davit Usupashvili, the parliamentary speaker, described the bill as a choice between Russia and the European Union.

Campaigners say that the government’s desire to cultivate closer and closer ties to the EU means that the legislation will, in time, become effective.

Ursu told IPS: “In the next year or so, the Georgian government should look to strengthen the law and try to prove that it is functioning simply because it remains under the scrutiny of the EU.

“The law not only had to be adopted but it also needed to be shown to be working effectively. It is in the government’s interest to ensure that it can be applied effectively.”

(Edited by Phil Harris)

Members of the Rights and Freedoms Working Group at a meeting in Sana’a. Credit: Luke Somers/IPS.

By Shuaib Almosawa
SANA’A, Aug 16 2013 (IPS)

As he gets ready to go to a café in Yemen’s capital Sana’a, Husam tucks his long tresses inside a hood before getting into the back of his friend’s car.

“Still problematic,” his friend tells him, assessing him in the rear view mirror. Husam pushes his hair further inside. A short drive ahead, they stop at a checkpoint, one of the many that keep an eye on Sana’a’s heavy traffic. A soldier grabs a torch, shines it on Husam. His long lashes blink in the harsh light.

Husam, now 19, left home for good about a year ago, after having spent much of his childhood under semi-house arrest. “My family didn’t like my (feminine) looks,” he told IPS.

“In practical terms,” Brian Whitaker, former Middle East editor at The Guardian and author of Unspeakable Love: Gay and Lesbian Life in the Middle East, told IPS, “the biggest problem is the attitudes of families and society rather than the law itself.”

It’s not easy being gay in Yemen. The country’s conservative society has no place for them in its midst, the law sees homosexuality as a crime punishable by death, while the extremists take things into their own hands, killing homosexual men.

Some eight men have been killed on the streets of Yemen in recent months for being gay. The attackers are believed to be members of the al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). Exerting control over most of south Yemen, AQAP members go about imposing their own laws on locals.

Killing people with homosexual orientation is part of the mandate they have set out for themselves.

A security officer and resident of al-Huta region in Lahj province, some 350 km to the southeast of Sana’a, confirmed to IPS the recent news of three youths killed by AQAP. The families of the gay men apparently informed the authorities, but no action was taken.

“Ansar al-Sharia has been working on killing them (gays), but the government has taken no action,” the security officer told IPS on condition of anonymity. There were similar killings of gays last year as well, he added, but they were not reported.

Yemeni law is governed by the principles of the Sharia. Under this Islamic law the punishment for sodomy, said Ahmed al-Hasani, a Yemeni writer and law graduate, is a whipping of a hundred strokes for each partner if they are unmarried, along with imprisonment of up to one year. If the presumed offenders are married, punishment is stoning to death.

The punishment for lesbianism is imprisonment not exceeding three years.

This criminalisation of homosexuality has driven international rights groups to call on the Yemeni government to end laws that treat same-sex relationships as a crime. International advocacy group Human Rights Watch (HRW) said it has raised the issue with the Yemeni government.

Letta Tayler, a senior researcher at HRW, told IPS, “We have raised this issue in writing and in direct advocacy meetings with Yemeni government officials, but have not received any commitment to changing the law.”

The U.N. Human Rights Committee and Amnesty International have also asked the Yemeni government to repeal laws which provide for, or could result in, prosecution and punishment of people because of their sexual orientation.

Fouad al-Ghaffari, an aide to Yemen’s minister of human rights, said the ministry is not aware of any communication from international human rights groups.

“We don’t have gays in Yemen,” he said, reiterating the official position on the subject.
The culture of denial continued at the complaints department of the ministry, where an official said he did not know of any records of prosecution or detention of any gay people.

However, as many as 316 gay men have been arrested in the last two years on charges of homosexuality, according to official reports obtained by IPS from a security source under condition of anonymity.

These arrests were made across 18 of Yemen’s provinces, with 95 cases in 2011 and 63 in 2012. Each case, explained the security officer, means the arrest of two gay persons.

Even advocacy for the LGBT community is considered profanity in Yemen, and treated as a crime. Local rights groups working for the community have to operate in anonymity. Homophobia creates its own obstacles, as with one group which has been trying to raise HIV awareness among people, including gays.

Established in 2007, this group estimates Yemen has close to 35,000 people with HIV, though there is no specific number for gays. Their outreach programme involves providing training courses for the prevention of sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV, as well as conducting free HIV tests.

But, as an official from the group says, “The majority of the gay community has no idea of the health risks associated. The illiteracy rate [among gays] is high; there are gays who have no idea what a condom is.”

“Being visible is the first step!” Twenty-three-year-old Ala’a Jarban, a young activist, declared his homosexuality a couple of months back on his blog. At the forefront of the 2011 youth movement in his country, Jarban is now in Canada, paying the price for his openness by seeking asylum.

“I’m angry at all this institutionalised violence against our existence,” he had said on his blog, “angry for being fated to death by strangers, by those in power in governments.”

“Although a lot of comments about Ala’a have been hostile, things like this do help break down taboos about discussing homosexuality and, in the longer term, can lead to people questioning homophobia,” said Whitaker.

He and others hope that the new Yemeni constitution being shaped during the two-year transition period will include some human rights clauses.

But the committee tasked with recommending and receiving freedom- and rights-related laws said no one has brought up the subject of homosexual rights so far.

“No one has suggested we endorse such [homosexual] rights, neither have we done so ourselves,” Arwa Othman, chairwoman of the Rights and Freedoms Working Group, one of the nine groups of the National Dialogue Conference mandated with the shaping of a new system for Yemen, told IPS.

“There is no way to discuss it,” Othman, a longstanding voice against Islamists, said. “Basic rights issues, which the West had tackled some 200 years ago, are still being debated and discussed now.” But also, she added, “many EU countries still impose a ban on gay marriage, after all.”

Homosexuality is broadly accepted in North America, the EU and much of Latin America, but widely rejected in predominantly Muslim nations and Africa, as well as in parts of Asia and Russia. Credit: Bigstock

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 4 2013 (IPS)

The 193-member U.N. General Assembly (UNGA), in its supreme wisdom, has declared over 100 commemorative “days” dedicated to peacekeepers, refugees, children, migrants, girl children, rural women and indigenous people, among others.

And then there is also World Water Day, an International Day of Happiness, a World Day for Social Justice, World Tourism Day, International Day for Biodiversity and an International Day for Elimination of Racial Discrimination."The international level... frankly has been one of the last bastions of acceptable bias and intolerance in matters of sexual orientation and gender identity." -- Amnesty International's Jose Luis Diaz

The U.N.’s calendar of “international days” each month is virtually bursting at its seams.

But the General Assembly, which is sharply divided over the politically sensitive issue of gay and lesbian rights, has side-stepped a decision to declare an International Day dedicated to lesbians, gays, bisexuals and the transgender (LGBT) community.

Still, the New York Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and the Joint U.N. Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) hosted a press conference last month to commemorate an International Day Against Homophobia (IDAHO).

But there were no system-wide commemorative meetings at the United Nations because, for all intents and purposes, IDAHO was a low-profile event since it did not have the blessings of the General Assembly, the U.N.’s highest policy-making body.

Homosexuality is broadly accepted in North America, the European Union and much of Latin America, but widely rejected in predominantly Muslim nations and Africa, as well as in parts of Asia and Russia, according to a survey of 39 countries by the Pew Research Center.

The results of the survey, released Tuesday, also mirror the political division at the United Nations over gay and lesbian rights.

Charles Radcliffe, chief of the Global Issues Section at OHCHR, told IPS, “There has been no attempt to date to introduce a resolution designating 17 May as the International Day Against Homophobia.”

In total, he said, the United Nations and its agencies officially observe nearly 120 “international days” — in almost all cases these flow from UNGA resolutions or, in a few cases, decisions taken at an agency level through their governing boards.

Boris O. Dittrich, advocacy director of the LGBT programme at Human Rights Watch (HRW), told IPS the High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay gave a speech in The Hague where she remarked that the U.N. observes many “special days”, but not IDAHO.

She would like to see this changed, but in the United Nations one needs a majority vote.

Dittrich said HRW would support an initiative to celebrate IDAHO officially. “It is a great advocacy hook,” he added.

In many countries, he said, activists organise activities and there is some media attention for discrimination issues based on sexual orientation or gender identity.

Meanwhile, the 19-member U.N. Committee on Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs), which recommends consultative status to gay and lesbian groups, has repeatedly rejected applications from these groups over the last few years.

In what was described as “a historic vote”, the Committee last week recommended special consultative status to the Lesbian Medical Association (LMA). The Australia-based organisation advances both lesbian health professionals’ visibility and lesbian health in general.

The representative of Bulgaria told the committee that the organisation had faced postponement for seven consecutive sessions and had answered 54 questions posed to it over the years. The Committee was systematically deterring its application. It was time, she stated, to take a decision.

The Committee then recommended consultative status to the LMA by a vote 10 in favour (Belgium, Bulgaria, Burundi, India, Israel, Nicaragua, Peru, Turkey, the United States and Venezuela) to six against (China, Morocco, Pakistan, Russia, Senegal and Sudan), with two abstentions (Kyrgyzstan and Mozambique).

Cuba, another committee member, was absent during voting time.

Jose Luis Diaz, Amnesty International’s representative at the United Nations, told IPS, “We heartily welcomed the vote to grant consultative status to the Australian Lesbian Medical Association.”

He said the vote sent a strong message for equality of treatment and non-discrimination, “rights to which we are all entitled without distinction”.

“It was also further evidence that the struggle of the LGBT community for equality is bearing fruit at the international level, which frankly has been one of the last bastions of acceptable bias and intolerance in matters of sexual orientation and gender identity,” he added.

And in another encouraging step, a week after the Australian group got the nod from the U.N.’s NGO committee, an Austrian organisation, Homosexuelle Initiative Wien, also obtained consultative status.

“I hope these two historic votes mean that the day the UNGA can decree without controversy a day against homophobia has drawn nearer,” Luis Diaz added.

Asked about NGO committee’s recommendation, HRW’s Dittrich told IPS, “It was a great day for the NGOs, but it was not unprecedented.” The Dutch LGBT group COC received observer status directly through the NGO Committee in 2008.

“It was a close vote then with only a one vote majority. I remember this very well as HRW lobbied for the COC group,” he noted.

Meanwhile, the Pew survey released Tuesday said the view that homosexuality should be accepted by society is prevalent in most of the EU countries surveyed, with 88 percent in Spain sharing this view.

Outside of Europe, it is accepted by about three-quarters or more: in Canada (80 percent), Australia (79), Argentina (74) and the Philippines (73). A smaller majority (60) believes homosexuality should be accepted in the United States.

In sub-Saharan Africa, at least nine in 10 respondents in Nigeria (98 percent), Senegal (96), Ghana (96), Uganda (96) and Kenya (90) believe homosexuality should not be accepted by society.

Overwhelming majorities in the predominantly Muslim countries surveyed also say homosexuality should be rejected, including 97 percent in Jordan, 95 percent in Egypt, 94 percent in Tunisia and 93 percent in the Palestinian territories.

Georgia may be touted as the most pro-Western country in the South Caucasus, but the recent backlash against LGBT activists in Tbilisi underscores how wide the cultural divide is when it comes to defining democratic values.

While most Georgians condemn the violent May 17 attack on an anti-homophobia rally, many do not see the core issue as having anything to do with a lack of tolerance, a right to freedom of assembly or respect for minority rights.

Rather, many see the central issue as a matter that goes to the heart of Georgia’s national heritage and cultural identity: should Georgians be expected to embrace a lifestyle seen as common in the West, but unsuitable for Georgian society and incompatible with the teachings of the country’s main unifying force, the Georgian Orthodox Church?

Many Georgians would answer no to that question. After years of jumping through hoops to meet Western demands, some say they have seen no results – popularly defined as economic prosperity and territorial security – out of the process. How showing greater respect for gay rights, an issue often misinterpreted in Georgia as meaning general avowal of personal homosexuality, will change that situation leaves many at a loss to explain.

“If the West wants us, they have to take us as we are,” declared Georgian Orthodox Church Bishop Iakob of Bodbe and Tsurtaveli in response to international criticism of the attempt to drive LGBT activists from Freedom Square, an event in which he took part.

Criticism coming from the West about the May 17 events appears to be doing more to fuel resentment than fostering soul-searching. “Whoever — America or Europe — comes to us as a friend, we will be friends, of course. But if it wants to dictate its own [agenda], we will not accept that,” said a Tbilisi tobacco stand worker named Nodar.

One Tbilisi printing shop clerk agreed. “In general, [the West] has been treating [Georgia] like a little child: ‘If you will behave well, we will take you to ride the rides” said Manuchar. “That is having a really bad effect on people.”

The explanation for such sentiments lies, in part, in the context of current times.

“Georgian society at the moment is very poor, very frustrated, very unhappy and…caring [more] about economic and survival issues [than self-expression],” said political scientist Marina Muskhelishvili, co-founder of the Centre for Social Studies in Tbilisi. “Nobody can expect that it [Georgia] will become European in a moment … and tolerate all lifestyles and all behaviours.”

In recent years, as Georgians have grappled with economic, political turmoil and perceived encroachments on their country’s sovereignty, interest in all things seen as intrinsically Georgian – in particular, the Church — has increased. The issue of gay rights, as Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili explained to European diplomats on May 24, is “relatively new to us,” news outlets reported.

Against that backdrop, international calls for respecting those minorities’ right to assemble can come across more as demands to change “core values,” said Koba Turmanidze, country director of the Caucasus Research Resource Centers (CRRC), which runs annual surveys on values in the South Caucasus.

“[I]t is hard to say whether people understand that no one asks you to become gay, no one asks you to marry a person of your gender; you are just asked not to beat these people up,” Turmanidze said.

While Georgian television reported Western diplomats as expressing “surprise” at the attack on LGBT activists, in reality, the display served as “maybe [a] very good reminder” that Georgia, though “going ahead fast” toward democracy, has not yet arrived at its final destination, observed political scientist Alexander Rondeli, founder of the Georgian Foundation for Strategic and International Studies in Tbilisi (GFSIS).

Muskhelishvili cautioned that the cultural divide could widen if Western governments do not listen more and lecture less. “For many years, Western partners were promoting [the] development of Georgia. But in many cases they were following their own vision of what is on the agenda” within the country, she said.

Women’s rights, for instance, are “not a priority” for Georgians since they are more concerned with “how to feed their family” than about “who is the boss in the family,” she noted.

Representatives of the US Embassy and European Union’s mission in Tbilisi did not comment when queried on the cultural-divide question.

The Georgian government should do more to inform the public about the role civil rights plays in any partnership with the West, said Viktor Dolidze, chair of the Parliamentary Committee for European Integration.

At present, many Georgians see the prospect of membership in the European Union or the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation purely in terms of the benefits of enjoying a greater degree of stability and prosperity. Few are taking into account the fact that membership in such organisations will require Georgia to harmonise its values with EU and NATO norms, Dolidze added.

With time, though, more and more Georgians will come to understand the challenges, said GFSIS’s Rondeli. “Only now, [a] generation of Georgians understand[s] they have to have [a] modern, democratic, inclusive, nation state,” he said. “And now, people are starting to understand that it is very difficult to achieve.”

*Editor’s note: Molly Corso is a freelance journalist who also works as editor of Investor.ge, a monthly publication by the American Chamber of Commerce in Georgia.

This story originally appeared on EurasiaNet.org.