Sophie Perry

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. The prison […]

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 […]

In the documents, the NEC is urged to vote in favour of postponing the National Women’s Conference because it would be at “significant risk of a legal challenge” following the judgement if it were to go ahead – as it had in the past – on the basis of self-ID, adding given the “proximity” to the ruling it may result in “protests, direct action and heightened security risks”.  “This would also represent a political risk which would be likely to feature prominently throughout conference week,” the document also reads.  The leaked papers went on to warn that Labour would face […]

The killing of the ‘world’s first out gay imam’ Muhsin Hendricks has sent shockwaves across the world, particularly among LGBTQ+ Muslims. Hendricks was killed in an execution-style hit in broad daylight on Saturday morning (15 February) after the car he was travelling in, near the coastal city of Gqeberha in the country’s Eastern Cape province, was ambushed. He was 57. A hooded figure was captured on CCTV getting out of a pick-up truck that had blocked Hendricks’ vehicle before firing shots through the window. There have been no arrests but deputy justice minister Andries Nel has said the authorities are “hot on […]