More than 100 trans prisoners are reportedly missing, and presumed dead, after the infamous Evin prison in the Iranian capital city of Tehran was hit by Israeli airstrikes.
Situated in the Evin neighbourhood of north Tehran, Evin Prison was opened in 1972 and has a long and bloody history of human rights abuses, including beatings, torture, prolonged solitary confinement, sleep deprivation and sexual abuse, alongside poor conditions.
The prison is the main site for detaining the Islamic Republic’s political prisoners, journalists, academics and foreign citizens accused of spying – including dual-British-Iranian national Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, human rights activist Narges Mohammadi and Australian academic Kylie Moore-Gilbert.
An exterior view of an office building of the Evin prison, which is destroyed in Israeli strikes in northern Tehran, Iran, on July 1, 2025. (Photo by Morteza Nikoubazl/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
The prison was struck during the 12-day war between Israel and Iran on 23 June, one day before the ceasefire
“According to official figures, 71 people were killed in the attack on Evin Prison,” judiciary spokesman Asghar Jahangir said some days later, confirming the number of casualties
Jahangir said the victims at Evin included administrative staff, guards, prisoners and visiting relatives as well as people living nearby.
As per reporting by The New York Times, Reza Shafakhah, a prominent human rights lawyer, said following the strike around 100 trans inmates are missing, with the authorities saying they are presumed dead after their part of the complex was destroyed.
Shafakhah added the Iranian government often treats being trans as a crime.
In Iran, changing your gender is legal but trans people still face significant social and political barriers, with transition only allowed on the basis a trans person receives surgery. There are no protections for trans people from hate crime or discrimination and being trans is treated as a mental illness.
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An interior view of a hospital in Evin prison, which is destroyed in Israeli strikes in northern Tehran, Iran, on July 1, 2025. (Photo by Morteza Nikoubazl/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
In 2019, Peace-Mark magazine published a quote reported to be by a trans inmate at Evin Prison. They said: “When you go to the Transgender Ward, you can’t even see the sunlight. The human body needs sunlight. If it’s not available, you need to take pills, but they don’t give us any.
“During my detention, except for the two times I was transferred to the infirmary with begging and pleading, I hadn’t seen the sunlight.”
The U.N. Human Rights Council voted on Monday to renew the mandate of an LGBTQ rights expert, a move welcomed by advocates amid the absence of the United States, a former key supporter that is now rolling back such protections.
Western diplomats had previously voiced concerns about the renewal of the mandate of South African scholar Graeme Reid who helps to boost protections by documenting abuses and through dialogue with countries.
The motion for a three-year renewal passed with 29 votes in favor, 15 against and three abstentions. Supporters included Chile, Germany, Kenya and South Africa while several African nations and Qatar opposed it.
“The renewal of this mandate is a spark of hope in a time when reactionary powers worldwide are trying to dismantle progress that our communities fought so hard to achieve,” said Julia Ehrt, executive director of campaign group ILGA World.
The United States, which has disengaged from the council under President Donald Trump, citing an alleged antisemitic bias, was previously a supporter of the mandate under the Biden administration.
Since taking office in January, Trump has signed executive orders to curb transgender rights and dismantle diversity, equity and inclusion practices in the government and private sector.
His administration says such steps restore fairness, but civil rights and LGBTQ advocates say they make marginalized groups more vulnerable.
In negotiations before the vote, Pakistan voiced opposition to the mandate on behalf of Muslim group OIC, calling it a tool to advocate “controversial views.”
Police Scotland has announced that trans women held in custody by police in the country will now be strip-searched by male officers, not female.
The decision comes over two months after the UK Supreme Court ruling. The landmark case brought by gender-critical group For Women Scotland against the Scottish government found that the legal definition of a woman excludes trans women and the protected characteristic of ‘sex’ under the 2010 Equality Act refers to biology.
In new interim guidance around searching members of the trans community, Police Scotland, which is the UK’s second-largest police force after the Met, issued a five-page document, which states that searches will be conducted “on the basis of biological sex”.
However, if someone requests an officer of their affirmed gender to perform the search, “efforts will be made to ensure an appropriate officer conducts the search, where this is operationally viable to do so”.
In these scenarios, written consent from the authorising officer, the person being searched and the officer/s conducting the search will be required.
Assistant Chief Constable Catriona Paton said via the press release: “This is a complex and important area of policing and searching members of the public is a significant intrusion of their personal liberty and privacy.
“It is critical that as an organisation, Police Scotland continues to fulfil its legal duties as well as ensuring officers and staff feel confident that they are conducting searches lawfully.
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“While the guidance will bring clarity to both our colleagues and members of the public, we are acutely aware of the impact and depth of feeling around this issue, both among the transgender community and those who hold gender critical views.
“Our priority continues to be ensuring that in all our interactions we police and make decisions in line with our service values of integrity, fairness, respect and upholding human rights.”
The interim guidance remains under review “with ongoing legal advice and engagement with key stakeholders”, amid the pending publication of revised national guidance. Police Scotland added that its wider review into sex and gender is ongoing, and further updates would “be issued in due course”.
A spokesperson of the Scottish government told the BBC: “It is for Police Scotland to decide their operational processes, including their guidance for officers, and ensure they are in line with legal obligations.
“The Scottish government has made clear we accept the Supreme Court ruling and that public bodies have a duty to comply with the law.”
Keir Starmer has urged public bodies currently not enforcing the Supreme Court’s gender ruling to bar trans people from single-sex spaces “as soon as possible”.
The court verdict, handed down in April, deemed that the legal definition of the protected characteristic of “sex” in the 2010 Equality Act referred to “biological sex” only, so excluding trans people.
In response, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), the UK’s equality watchdog, issued interim guidance which called for transgender men and women to be banned from single-sex facilities which matched their gender and, in some cases, from using those which matched their “biological sex”.
When asked at the NATO summit in The Hague if hospitals, universities and government departments should implement the findings of the Supreme Court into internal policies, the prime minister said: “We’ve accepted the ruling, welcomed the ruling, and everything else flows from that, as far as I’m concerned.
“Therefore, all guidance needs to be consistent with the ruling and we need to get to that position as soon as possible.”
Maya Forstater, the chief executive of gender-critical campaign group Sex Matters, said Starmer’s comment was an “important intervention from the prime minister” given the “huge number of public bodies failing to implement the Supreme Court judgement and therefore operating outside the law”.
She went on to say: “Political leadership is essential if women, whose rights are being stolen, are not to be forced to turn to the courts, where public bodies will end up losing – at great expense to taxpayers.”
The EHRC’s public consultation period into changes to its Code of Conduct, which aims to “support service providers, public bodies and associations to understand their duties under the Equality Act and put them into practice” closes today. A mass lobby took place at Westminster last week, where trans people hoped to voice concerns to their MPs.
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The situation has left many trans people feeling fear for their rights, and Green co-leader Carla Denyer warned that the EHRC’s interim guidance would “act as a bigot’s charter”, with the potential to unleash “vigilante harassment, intimidation and violence against trans people when they try to use facilities in public spaces”.
Following the Supreme Court judgement, he told the BBC: “I welcome the decision, which has given us much-needed clarity, and I think for those now drawing up guidance, it’s a much clearer position. I’m really pleased the court has clarified the position. We can move on from there and that’s very helpful. I welcome that.”
Starmer went on to say that “a woman is an adult female”, and when asked by ITV West Country if he believed trans women are women, he replied: “I think the Supreme Court has answered that question. A woman is an adult female. It’s important that we see the judgement for what it is: a welcome step forward. We need to move [on] and ensure all guidance is in the right place according to that judgement.”
The Supreme Court case was brought against the Scottish government by gender-critical For Women Scotland, supported by author JK Rowling, following a lower court’s finding that sex was not limited to biology.
Hungary’s LGBTQ community is preparing for a face-off with the country’s autocratic government and plans to push ahead with a march in the capital on Saturday despite a government ban and threats of legal repercussions.
The populist party of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán in March fast-tracked a lawthrough parliament that made it an offense to hold or attend events that “depict or promote” homosexuality to minors aged under 18. Orbán earlier made clear that Budapest Pride — marking its 30th anniversary this year — was the explicit target of the law.
But on Friday, Pride organizers along with Budapest Mayor Gergely Karácsony, European Commissioner Hadja Lahbib and Vice President of the European Parliament Nicolae Stefanuta said the march will take place Saturday despite official threats of heavy fines for participants and even jail time for the liberal mayor.
They expect the march to be the largest ever Pride event in Hungary.
“The government is always fighting against an enemy against which they have to protect Hungarian people … This time, it is sexual minorities that are the target,” Karácsony told a news conference. “We believe there should be no first- and second-class citizens, so we decided to stand by this event.”
Hungary’s recent law allows authorities to use facial recognition tools to identify individuals that attend a prohibited event. Being caught could result in fines of up to 200,000 Hungarian forints ($586.)
Orbán, seen as Russian President Vladimir Putin’s closest ally in the European Union, has in recent years prohibited same-sex adoption and banned any LGBTQ content including in television, films, advertisements and literature that is available to minors.
His government argues exposure to such content negatively affects children’s development. But opponents say the moves are part of a broader effort to scapegoat sexual minorities and consolidate his conservative base.
Fines and facial recognition
After police rejected several requests by organizers to register the Pride march, citing the recent law, Karácsony joined with organizers and declared it would be held as a separate municipal event — something he said does not require police approval.
But Hungary’s government has remained firm, insisting that holding the Pride march, even if it is sponsored by the city, would be unlawful. In a video on Facebook this week, Hungary’s justice minister, Bence Tuzson, warned Karácsony that organizing Pride or encouraging people to attend is punishable by up to a year in prison.
At the news conference Friday, Karácsony sought to dispel fears that police would impose heavy fines on Pride attendees.
“Police have only one task tomorrow: to guarantee the safety and security of those gathered at the event,” he said.
Speaking to state radio on Friday, Orbán said that attending Pride “will have legal consequences, but it can’t reach the level of physical abuse.”
“The police could disperse such events, they have the right to do so. But Hungary is a civilized country,” he said.
Right-wing counterdemonstrations
On Thursday, radical right-wing party Our Homeland Movement announced it had requested police approval to hold assemblies at numerous locations across the city, many of them on the same route as the Pride march.
Later, a neo-Nazi group said it too would gather Saturday at Budapest City Hall, from which the Pride march is set to depart. The group declared that only “white, Christian, heterosexual men and women” were welcome to attend its demonstration.
European officials respond
Hungary’s Pride ban has prompted a backlash from many of the country’s partners and allies. Over 30 foreign embassies signed a joint statement this week expressing their commitment to “every person’s rights to equal treatment and nondiscrimination, freedom of expression and peaceful assembly.”
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen posted on social platform X on Wednesday, calling on Hungarian authorities to allow Pride to proceed “without fear of any criminal or administrative sanctions against the organizers or participants.”
More than 70 members of the European Parliament, as well as other officials from countries around Europe, are expected to participate in Saturday’s march.
Lahbib, the European Commissioner, said Friday that “all eyes are on Budapest” as Pride marchers defy the government’s ban.
“The EU is not neutral on hate,” she said. “We cannot stay passive. We cannot tolerate what is intolerable.”
In November 2023, at the United Nations in New York City, the Political Network for Values held its fifth Transatlantic Summit event.
The conference was called “Affirming universal human rights: Uniting Cultures for life, family, and fundamental freedoms.” It was attended by a variety of far-right Christian groups that have historically advocated for anti-LGBTQ policies.
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One of those groups is Alliance Defending Freedom. At the conference, Emilie Kao, the group’s senior counsel and vice president of advocacy strategy, took the floor to express her outrage that a Finnish doctor was put on trial for referring to homosexuality as “a developmental disorder,” “a shame and a sin” and as a form of “genetic degeneration.”
“Thank God she was unanimously acquitted,” said Kao.
Austin Ruse, president of the Center for Family and Human Rights (C-Fam), who has supported laws that would criminalize homosexual behavior and has also said that hard left people that run modern universities should be “taken out and shot,” spoke about some of his group’s recent accomplishments. “There is no redefinition of the family because we stopped them. Sexual orientation and gender identity has never become a category of nondiscrimination in international law, because we have stopped them,” he said.
Kao, C-Fam and ADF did not respond to requests for comment. Ruse disputed that he called for the criminalization of gay sex, saying that he was only offering “a hypothetical.” He added that he has “never advocated that anyone be taken out and shot.”
The access and influence of these anti-LGBTQ groups inside the UN isn’t limited to this summit. Both hold what’s known as Special Consultative status at the UN. And they’re not the only ones.
In a months-long investigation, Uncloseted Media found that at least six Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC)-designated anti-LGBTQ hate groups hold this coveted status, which is granted by the UN’s Economic and Social Council.
“What’s astounding is I’m not sure anybody’s ever produced a list,” says Heidi Beirich, who oversaw SPLC’s annual designation of hate groups from 2012 to 2019. “These organizations have been stealthily inserting themselves into bodies whose beliefs they don’t share for years,” she told Uncloseted Media.
“Many of these organizations don’t even believe in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” she says.
Special Consultative Status—which is held by more than 5000 groups—gives members unique access to the UN and its subsidiary bodies, to the various human rights mechanisms of the organization and to special events organized by the President of the General Assembly.
The UN did not respond to repeated interview requests as well as requests for comment.
“You have access to member states, right? So I think the danger of all of this is access to the members who make decisions on resolutions. Who make UN policy,” says Gillian Kane, director of global policy and research at Ipas, a non-governmental organization that focuses on advancing gender equity and reducing the harm of U.S. foreign policy.
Kane, who attended the November Summit, says this status “legitimizes these groups” who have clear track records that conflict with the core principles of the UN, like the promotion of human rights and fundamental freedoms.
“There’s nothing subtle about what they do. They hate gays and they’re unapologetic to go after it,” Kane told Uncloseted Media.
Many of these groups have been around for decades, advocating against the LGBTQ community. Kao’s group, ADF, published a press release titled “ADF increases global impact with new status at United Nations” when they were granted consultative status in 2010. “ADF can now have a say when UN treaties and conventions are drafted that directly impact religious liberty and important matters related to the sanctity of life, marriage, and the family,” the release said. It goes on to say that “ADF will now be able to monitor and provide input on matters” affecting religious freedoms.
Screenshot / Southern Poverty Law Center.
The group, which consists of hundreds of lawyers in the U.S. and around the globe, was founded in 1994 by Alan Sears, who co-authored “The Homosexual Agenda: Exposing the Principal Threat to Religious Freedom Today.”Since then, they have advocated at the state and federal levels for laws that promote conversion therapy and that would ban gays from serving in the military. In addition, they’ve testified in favor of laws that would strip transgender folks of the right to use the bathroom that matches their gender identity, that would prevent them from changing the name on their birth certificate and that would ban their access to gender affirming healthcare.
Screenshot / UN
They have also been effective globally through their international arm, ADF International. In 2012 in Jamaica, they advocated for the retention of a law that criminalizes gay sex. That law remains in effect. And in 2013, members of ADF worked to defend a Belize statute that makes anyone engaging in LGBTQ sex subject to a punishment of up to 10 years in prison.
The other groups—which include the Howard Center for Family Religion and Society (now known as the International Organization for Family), Family Research Council, the Association of United Families International and the American Family Association of New York—all have similar track records.
“We put them on the hate list because they demonize the entire LGBTQ population in derogatory, dehumanizing language, just like the Klan would with Black people or Jewish people,” says Beirich, now the co-founder and chief strategy officer at the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism.
“People in the Christian right who have long demonized the LGBTQ community have political power in this country, and it’s more normalized to hate queer people than to hate Black people for no damn good reason. Which is what we’re talking about. So it’s the biblically informed aspect of it that somehow legitimizes it,” says Beirich, who adds that she has “absolutely no idea” how these groups secured this status.
So how do these groups get here? While they all conform to basic principles required for Special Consultative Status, such as being a registered nonprofit and having specialized expertise on issues relevant to the UN, they are also expected to act in conformity with “the spirit, purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations,” which specifically states that members must promote and encourage respect for human rights, take action “to strengthen universal peace” and—specifically for members with consultative status—must promote policies that encourage “social progress.”
Neil Datta, the executive director for the European Parliamentary Forum for Sexual and Reproductive Rights, says part of the reason these groups are granted this status is due to overworked civil servants who work for the NGO Branch of the UN and are in charge of a preliminary screening of these applicants.
Richard Koek / Ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken.
“The folks reviewing these applications are not necessarily thematic experts on anything. So they’re tasked with a very dry job of processing different applications that come in, and very legitimately won’t know what all of these different groups are,” he says. “Imagine you had 15 climate groups applying and one didn’t believe in climate change. It’s not necessarily that easy to understand.”
Datta says it can be even harder to identify anti-LGBTQ groups because they often operate under the guise of protecting the family or the rights of the child.
“These groups have very nice names that aren’t obviously anti-LGBTQ. And so the people reviewing these applications may not be able to pick up on some of the subtleties,” he told Uncloseted Media.
In addition, Datta says these groups use “very clever vocabulary” that sounds well-meaning. But really, they are weaponizing this language to penetrate powerful institutions like the UN. “In reality, they’re using religious freedom as a fig leaf for hate speech.”
“But if you know your Catholic social doctrine, then you will recognize [this vocabulary] immediately.” Datta says common dog whistles such as “common good” or “human dignity” and “in favor of life [or] of the family” are used almost exclusivelyto limit the human rights of others, “usually in sexuality and reproduction.”
Datta says these “codewords” are another reason these groups go unnoticed within the UN. For example, during a three hour meeting at the November Transatlantic Summit event, participants used the term “human dignity” over 30 times.
After they get through the preliminary screening by UN civil servants, their application is reviewed by the NGO Committee—which meets twice a year—to decide who they will recommend for Special Consultative Status. After review, the recommended organizations are presented to ECOSOC for their final decision.
This committee includes 19 countries, including multiple countries that have extremely hostile policies against LGBTQ people, like Algeria, where homosexual activity is punishable by up to two years in prison; and Eritrea, where homosexuality is illegal and can be punished with jail time.
“It honestly depends on who’s sitting on that committee. So if you have countries that already have anti-LGBTQ policies in place, they’re going to be friendly to inviting these groups in and approving their status,” says Kane.
Once these groups officially gain this status, they use religious freedom as a justification for promoting policies and laws that limit the rights of LGBTQ people through the UN apparatus.
The UN Declaration of Human Rights does not yet explicitly protect folks who are discriminated against for their sexual orientation or gender identity. This lack of protection has given anti-LGBTQ groups leverage in their arguments to roll back the rights of LGBTQ folks.
Inside the UN, there are efforts to change this. In 2019, the Office on Genocide Prevention and the Responsibility to Protect published a Strategy and Plan of Action on Hate Speech that outlines what constitutes hate speech and how to combat it. In it, they describe hate speech “as any kind of communication in speech, writing or behavior, that attacks or uses pejorative or discriminatory language with reference to a person or a group on the basis of who they are, in other words, based on their religion, ethnicity, nationality, race, color, descent, gender or other identity factor.”
Unsurprisingly, this new guidance is opposed by the anti-LGBTQ hate groups. At the Political Network for Values Transatlantic Summit in November, ADF’s Kao said current hate speech laws protect too many different groups of people and in doing so infringe on religious freedom laws. “Who can possibly know what would fall under such an expansive definition of hate?” she said. “These laws give a veto to any offended person, allowing them to censor their neighbors.”
Beirich disagrees. “You can’t use religion as a foil for harming communities and tearing into their civil and human rights. I don’t care,” she says, adding that the Ku Klux Klan has weaponized religion as a means to discriminate against Black people since it was founded in 1865.
“It’s one thing to live your life however you want to live it biblically inspired. It’s a different thing to have that affect other people,” says Beirich. “Keep your views to yourself.”
As these groups continue to operate inside the UN, what can be done? Datta says NGOs applying for Special Consultative Status should be subject to more rigorous background checks, where an independent body thoroughly examines the track record of applicants.
“What are the positions … of these organizations and what have they actually done?” says Datta. “What other things have they done which could be seen as having undermined human rights—the UN’s Declaration of Human Rights?”
He says using an independent body for this review would reduce the potential of political influences in the decision-making process.
As for those who already have Special Consultative Status, their status can be revoked if they don’t “conform at all times to the principles governing the establishment.”
Beirich feels strongly that this should happen swiftly for all six anti-LGBTQ groups that currently hold this status. “The United Nations should revoke the consultative status of people who stand opposed to the Universal Declaration. It shouldn’t stand for policies that are rolling back human rights—it’s absurd.”
In celebration of Pride Week, more than five thousand LGBTQ+ activistsconverged on Mexico City’s Zócalo to form the world’s largest human LGBT flag. Under a shower of rain and brandishing vibrant umbrellas, the colorful formation draped the historic Plaza de la Constitución, capturing global attention and shattering previous records.
Mexico City Mayor Clara Brugada joined the crowd led the choreography. She said during the event that “Mexico City is and will continue to be the city of rights and freedoms. This monumental image we draw with our bodies and colors will be a powerful message to the country and the world. Mexico City is the capital of pride, diversity, peace, and transformation.”
Organized by the government of Mexico City, the event, the largest of its kind in Mexican history, lasted two hours, starting at 10:30 am, on June 22, with participants moving in unison to the rhythm of the song ‘A quién le importa’ by Alaska y Dinarama. The event was recorded via drone, and the images and videos went viral on social media, with many expressing their surprise at the event not being canceled due to the weather. In a powerful display of resilience and resourcefulness, the activists dealt with unexpected rain by bringing umbrellas corresponding to their color in the giant flag to do the performance.
Mexico City has long been fighting for LGBTQ+ rights, making homosexuality legal in 1871 under French occupation. Mexico City was also the first Latin American city to legalize same-sex marriage in 2009. However, the Frente de Liberación Homosexual, founded in 1971 by Nancy Cárdenas, was Mexico’s first gay liberation movement, had to operate clandestinely under repressive political conditions.
Across Latin America, trans and non-binary people still face high levels of violence, and Mexico has one of the highest trans murder rates in the world. In 2022, more than 95% of homicides in Mexico went unpunished. For the murders of transgender women, the figure is thought to be even higher. City officials passed a landmark transfemicide law in July 2024, with murders targeting trans people carrying a prison sentence of up to 70 years.
The visual performance was part of the city’s Pride Month programming and served as a prelude to the annual Mexico City Pride March, which will take place on Saturday, June 28. In recent years, the march has drawn crowds of over 1 million, making it one of the largest Pride celebrations in Latin America.
The British Library has announced it will posthumously reinstate gay poet and playwright Oscar Wilde’s reader pass after revoking it in 1895 due to his homosexuality.
Known at the time as the British Museum Reading Room, the venue banned Wilde after he was found guilty of “gross indecency” with men and sentenced to two years of hard labor.
The symbolic pass will be presented to Wilde’s grandson, Merlin Holland, at an event on October 16, Wilde’s birthday. Asked how Wilde might react to the gesture, Holland told The Guardian, “He’d probably say ‘about time’ too.”
Holland, who is also a Wilde scholar, said that his grandfather had already been imprisoned for three weeks when the British Museum Reading Room revoked his access. “So he wouldn’t have known about it, which was probably as well… It would have just added to his misery to feel that one of the world’s great libraries had banned him from books just as the law had banned him from daily life. But the restitution of his ticket is a lovely gesture of forgiveness, and I’m sure his spirit will be touched.”
Holland also said, however, that he doesn’t think his grandfather’s conviction should be pardoned as part of a 2017 UK law allowing posthumous pardons for anyone convicted under former laws that criminalized homosexuality. The law led to pardons for an estimated 50,000 to 100,000 gay and bisexual men, but the names of those men were not released.
“Oscar didn’t think there was anything wrong in same-sex love… I’m not absolutely certain he has been pardoned… If I had to ask for a pardon, I wouldn’t, because all it would do is make the British establishment feel better about itself… History’s history, and you can’t start rewriting it.”
Laura Walker, lead curator of modern archives and manuscripts, said the reinstatement of the pass is even more important since the British Library owns a massive collection of Wilde’s manuscripts.
“We really want to honour Wilde now and acknowledge what happened to him,” Walker told The Guardian. “Section 11 of the law, which related to the criminalization of homosexuality, was unjust.”
Tomoya Asanuma, a prominent transgender activist in Tokyo, faced the triple abuses of Japan’s “hostage justice” system, hostile detention conditions, and mistreatment trans people face in the absence of meaningful legal protections.
For Asanuma, March 14, 2024, was supposed to be another Thursday at work. At around 7 a.m., he woke up to the sound of someone repeatedly ringing his doorbell. Through the intercom, Asanuma saw three men wearing dark-colored clothes, this time pounding his front door. When he opened the door, the men identified themselves as police officers and showed him an arrest warrant.
This was the beginning of what Asanuma recently described to Human Rights Watch as being “difficult to put into words.” After Japanese police arrested him for sexual assault for allegedly hugging an acquaintance from behind, the authorities held him for months at a pre-trial detention center.
During this time, they mocked his transgender identity during interrogation, denied him access to medical services such as dental care, and initially denied hormone treatment until he obtained a recommendation from a doctor.
While some authorities showed a level of consideration for Asanuma, including letting him shower away from other detained men, the abusive treatment he faced led him to attempt suicide twice.
Trans people in Japan are in legal limbo. Historically, they have faced outright discrimination — including a law compelling them to be surgically sterilized for legal gender recognition — and barriers to accessing education, employment, and health care. A landmark Supreme Court decision in 2023 declared the sterilization requirement unconstitutional, but reform has stalled in parliament — leaving trans people’s basic rights in limbo.
The courts finally granted bail to Asanuma in July 2024 and found him not guilty in January 2025. But in a country with a 99.8 percent conviction rate for indicted cases, Asanuma had to live through acute fear as authorities forcibly tried to obtain a confession from him during interrogations without the presence of his lawyer.
His fears are grounded in a justice system with a well-earned reputation for abuse and arbitrariness. His experience is part of systemic treatment in Japan called “hostage justice,” under which criminal suspects are detained for prolonged periods, sometimes months or years, unless they confess to the charges. This denies them the rights to due process and a fair trial.
The authorities ultimately dropped the sexual assault allegations, but charged Asanuma with assault, which is punishable by up to two years in prison or up to a 300,000 yen fine ($2,000.) Prosecutors sought a 200,000 yen fine. Despite this, because he pleaded not guilty, a court rejected his request for bail four times and detained him for more than 100 days in pre-trial detention, punishing him disproportionately since the prosecutors did not even seek imprisonment for his alleged crime.
In Japan’s hostage justice system, authorities frequently subject suspects to harsh interrogations to coerce confessions from them during pre-indictment detention. Defense lawyers are not permitted to be present, and the questioning does not stop even when a suspect invokes their constitutional right to remain silent. Indeed, Asanuma invoked his right to remain silent, but authorities interrogated him for hours on 13 occasions.
The case of Iwao Hakamata highlights the dangers of this practice. Hakamata, a former professional boxer, was arrested on Aug. 18, 1966, for murdering a family of four. Following harsh interrogations by the police and prosecutors, he confessed nearly a month later. Based on this coerced confession, Hakamata was indicted and subsequently convicted and sentenced to death. He maintained his innocence and was eventually acquitted — 58 years after his arrest — on Sept. 26, 2024, following a retrial.
To prevent further abuses and wrongful convictions spurred by the “hostage justice” system, the Japanese government should not as a general rule deny bail to suspects in pretrial detention, and should end interrogations without legal counsel that often involve coerced confessions through manipulation and intimidation.
The Japanese government should also improve the conditions under which suspects are being held, including by ensuring adequate access to all medical services, and revising the Notice Regarding Treatment Guidelines for Detainees with Gender Identity Disorder by specifying that hormone replacement therapy and other gender-affirming medical interventions are medically necessary and should be made available to all imprisoned people who want them.
“My case is just the tip of the iceberg, as there are others who are detained much longer,” Asanuma said. “I think this experience gave me a good reason to speak up even more for the rights of suspects going forward,” he added.
A minute’s silence was held at a Pride event to honour a gay couple who were amongst the more than 240 passengers killed in the Air India crash.
On Thursday (12 June) the Air India Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner was destined for London Gatwick but crashed shortly after taking off from Ahmedabad Airport, plummeting from the air and into a building in the suburb of Ahmedabad, the largest city in Gujarat state.
The two men ran a wellness and lifestyle company called The Wellness Foundry and filmed themselves laughing in a post shared on their company’s instagram account just hours before the doomed flight.
At Ramsgate Pride on Saturday (14 June), a minute’s silence was held to honour to couple, who were due to host a wellbeing workshop at the event.
In a video taken at the event, a Pride organiser can be seen explaining the need for the minute’s silence to Ramsgate Pride’s attendees, followed by a moment of pause and then claps and cheers to honour the men.
Speaking to the BBC prior to Ramsgate Pride, Lucy Taylor – assistant manager for Ramsgate Pride – said the couple were “brilliant” and “brought a lot of peace and healing in their spiritual practice to Ramsgate”.
“They were really vibrant people and I will be performing a song dedicated to them,” Taylor added.
Following the couple’s deaths, Ramsgate Pride took to social media to express sorrow from the whole Pride team.
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On Ramsgate Pride’s official Instagram story, the team said they were “absolutely heartbroken” by the loss of the two men.
“We are absolutely heartbroken to announce that The Wellness Foundry Workshops will no longer be taking place at our Pride event due to the sudden and devastating loss of Jamie and Fiongal in the Air India Flight,” the post read.
“Our thoughts are with their loved one’s at this tragic time.”
