The body of a beloved Philippines LGBTI activist was found only a few hundred meters from his home in Cebu City.
Locals found Raymond Mabini, also known as Rica Reyes, dead in a ravine on Tuesday (23 April). They found his body at the bottom of a slope in the mountain area of Babag.
Police said he had several wounds to his head and body. Police also found him with his underwear and shorts below his waist.
The 25-year-old student studied agriculture at the Cebu Technological University and lead Babag’s LGBTI group. He was last spotted at 7pm on Monday after visiting his brother at work.
Police are still investigating and have not ruled out foul play.
‘We still do not know anything because he (Mabini) did not have any known conflicts with anyone,’ Police Staff Sergeant Mark Daclan told CDN Digital.
Daclan speculated someone may have deliberately lured Mabini to the area. He also suggested someone had tried to play a prank on him that backfired.
‘We are still waiting for the autopsy result because it’s possible that he just fell into the ravine, or maybe it was intentional or somebody was playing a prank on him, causing him to fall,’ he said.
Remembering Rica Reyes
Hundreds of people paid tribute to Mabini on his Facebook page.
‘REST IN PEACE, OUR FRIEND RICA REYES,’ wrote one Facebook user.
Cebu City’s assistant administrator, Annabeth Cuizon, also used Facebook to commemorate Mabini.
‘In memory of Raymund Mabini aka Rica Reyes, an LGBT and an active member of the Cebu City LGBT community who was murdered last night. #JusticeforRicaReyes,’ she wrote.
Cebu is one of the biggest cities in the Philippines. It is also considered one of the most progressive when it come to LGBTI rights and popular gay tourist destination.
A gay club in the city of Dnipro in Ukraine has been violently raided by police.
Potemkin, a popular club for gay men in the city in central Ukraine, was the target of a police raid on 20 April.
What happened?
According to Nash Mir, one of the most prominent local LGBTI organizations, police burst into the night club at 1am.
Once inside the club, police officers forced everyone to lie down. At the time, about 30 visitors were at the club, alongside several members of staff.
Police then confiscated mobile phones. Moreover, some of the staff complained about other items disappearing from the cloakroom.
Eyewitnesses claim police officers behaved in a homophobic way, yelling slurs at them. Moreover, police allegedly forced two foreigners to sing the national anthem of Ukraine.
Officers also allegedly inflicted injuries to one of the club’s visitors.
The club’s owners and some visitors filed applications on illegal actions of the police to Sobornе Police Department in Dnipro.
What were the reasons for the raid?
The official website of Dnipro police presented an explanation for the raid.
Police explained they called a search within a pre-trial investigation initiated under Part 2 of Article 302 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine which criminalizes the creation and the management of brothels and trading in prostitution.
The article, however, didn’t address the alleged homophobic conduct during the raid.
They confirmed they removed equipment, laptops and mobile phones, as well as condoms.
Gay sex between consenting adults isn’t a crime
‘We strongly condemn these obviously homophobic and illegal actions of the police in Dnipro city,’ spokesperson for Nash Mir Andriy Maymulakhin said in a statement.
‘At the time when there is no shortage of genuine criminal offence in Ukraine, including hate crimes based on sexual orientation, the police actually engaged in the fight against gay sex between consenting adult men.’
He also added: ‘We want to separately emphasise that to prosecute so-called “distribution of pornography” and “running brothels” (Articles 301 and 302 of the Criminal Code respectively) is an anachronism in the modern democratic world and an instrument of selective pressure if this affects the voluntary actions of adult individuals.’
A group of Russian LGBT+ activists have been arrested in St. Petersburg during an annual “Day of Silence” protest for sex and gender equality.
Some 11 people were detained by police on April 17, including Daniel Maksimenko, who spoke to reporters at local news site OVD-Info.
“The police are going to detain everyone who walked with their mouths sealed. I heard what they said,” said Maksimenko.
The activists were walking in the direction of the Church of the Saviour and covered their mouths with red tape when the police began making arrests. According to the organisers around 40-50 people attended the protest.
In 2013 Russia implemented a “gay propaganda” law which prohibits “propaganda of non-traditional sexual relationships” towards minors. The European Court of Human Rights ruled the law is discriminatory.
Since it was implemented hate crimes against LGBT+ people have doubled in the country.
In August 2018 police detained around 30 LGBT+ activists in St Petersburg. A total of around 60 campaigners assembled in Palace Square after their request for a pride parade was turned down by local authorities.
On November 27, 2018, the European Court of Human rights ruled that Russia’s ban on pride events breaches human rights. The ruling found that “the applicants suffered unjustified discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation.”
Two LGBTI Bruneians with whom the Washington Blade spoke on Saturday said their country’s new penal code that calls for the death penalty for anyone convicted of same-sex sexual relations continues to spark fear.
A gay man who asked the Blade not to publish his name said during a WhatsApp interview from Bandar Seri Bagawan, the Bruneian capital, that he was “freaked out” when the provision took effect on April 3. The man said he did not go to school on Saturday, in part, because police officers were participating in a career day.
“Anyone would freak out initially, but as the days go on, they don’t really want to enforce that type of punishment because of the international backlash,” he said. “The international media is already getting into it, calling out Brunei. If Brunei tries to enforce that type of the law, of course they’re going to get into more trouble.”
Brunei’s penal code, which also criminalizes apostasy and adultery, began to take effect in 2014.
The State Department, openly gay U.S. Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau are among those who have sharply criticized the penal code, which is based on Shariah law. George Clooney, Ellen DeGeneres and other celebrities have called for a boycott of the Beverly Hills Hotel and other properties that Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah of Brunei owns.
The Bruneian government in an April 7 letter to the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights defended the penal code. The gay Bruneian man with whom the Blade spoke on Saturday said his country’s government “tried to implement this without getting caught, which obviously didn’t work.”
“It got real,” he said.
He added Bolkiah implemented the penal code as a way to exert further control over his country’s population. A transgender Bruneian woman with whom the Blade spoke agreed.
“I knew it was going to happen sometime in the future because the sultan wanted more control and power over the population and religion for him would be the best tool for it,” she said during a WhatsApp interview from Canada. “But personally, it sucks my friends back there would basically be criminals under Shariah law.”
“It’s just that they’re basically waiting to be found,” she added.
The trans woman, who also asked the Blade not to publish her name, said she flew to Vancouver last November. She said she decided to seek asylum in Canada because of the country’s human rights record and Trudeau’s immigration policy.
“I’ve always wanted to leave Brunei as soon as possible and as far as possible,” said the trans woman, noting it was impossible for her to transition in Brunei. “They would punish anyone or stone anyone who is an apostate, which is someone who left Islam.”
She said Brunei was always “a repressive country before” the penal code’s implementation, even though oil and gas deposits have made the country one of the wealthiest in the world.
The State Department’s 2018 human rights report notes “violence or threats targeting lesbian, gay, bisexual and intersex (LGBTI) persons including intimidation by police,” the exploitation of foreign workers and “substantial interference with the rights of peaceful assembly and freedom of association” are among the human rights concerns in Brunei. Bolkiah and his family have also faced questions over their lavish lifestyle and reports that his brother had a harem of dozens of women.
“Even without Shariah law, Brunei would still be a repressive and oppressive nation,” said the trans women.
The gay man in Bandar Seri Bagawan with whom the Blade spoke said he will leave Brunei if “it becomes dangerous for me as an LGBT (person.)” In the meantime, he said he hopes Bruneians will begin to understand the penal code’s impact on the country.
“In the best-case scenario, I hope that the people are starting to learn the consequences of the government using religion as a political tool to gain power and using it to control the people,” he said.
“I would hope that the people at least respect us as human beings,” he added, referring to LGBTI Bruneians.
A bisexual Bruneian man in Bandar Seri Bagawan with whom the Blade spoke earlier this month acknowledged the boycott of Bolkiah-owned hotels, but added international pressure will have more impact. The trans woman agreed.
“What is effective is looking for ways to target the sultan personally,” she said.
A lawyer named Susel Paredes and her wife, Gracia Aljovin, are battling to legalise same-sex marriage in Peru.
Paredes and her wife married in Miami in 2016 and have since been campaigning to get the union recognised in the heavily Catholic, conservative country.
On April 4, a local court asked authorities to treat the couple’s marriage like they would any other stating that not to do so would be unconstitutional.
“We want to trigger a legal process that moves us toward obtaining the equal right to marriage in Peru,” Paredes told Reuters.
Peru does not recognise same-sex marriage
Reneic responded to the request by saying the couple’s marriage cannot be legally recognised, as same-sex marriage isn’t legal in Peru.
In official documents, Reneic noted that Article 2347 of the Civil Code states that “marriage is the union voluntarily arranged by a man and a woman, and since the plaintiffs are the concerted union of two women, it is not effective.”
However, the Paredes appeal could potentially result in the legalisation of gay marriage in Peru, which is one of the few countries in Latin America not to recognise same-sex unions.
Catholicism compromises up to 90% of Peru’s population. And despite Paredes also being a Catholic herself, religious officials disagrees with her decision.
“A judge has basically said that God was wrong, that it’s not just man and woman (who can marry),” Peru’s Catholic Cardinal Juan Luis Cipriani told a local broadcaster on the matter.
Susel Paredes asks other gay people to come out
In an interview with local media Paredes made an appeal to other gay people in the country. “Christ said the truth will set you free. That’s why I call on you to come out of the closet,” she said. “Who can be happy leading two lives?”
Paredes has vouched to take the battle to Peru’s high court, the Constitutional Tribunal, or even the Costa Rica-based Inter-American Court of Human Rights if needs be.
An appeals court in the Cayman Islands has delayed the implementation of same-sex marriage legalisation in the British Overseas Territory.
The Court of Appeal accepted a government request to halt the legalisation of same-sex marriage that Chief Justice Anthony Smellie of the Grand Court of the Cayman Islands ruled with immediate effect in a historic ruling on March 29.
The government is appealing the ruling and demanded a stay on same-sex marriage legalisation, which the appeals court granted on Wednesday (April 10), the Cayman Compass reported.
“Chantelle and Vickie aren’t trailblazers. They’re just a couple who are in love and who know they want to spend the rest of their lives together. They don’t want to be in court fighting for their right to marry, a right which opposite-sex couples take for granted.”
— Jonathan Cooper
The March 29 ruling came less than a year after Chantelle Day and her partner Vickie Bodden Bush applied for the right to be married in the Cayman Islands, but had their application rejected due to the fact that they are a same-sex couple.
They initially said that they’d be prepared to accept a civil partnership as long as their relationship could be recognised by law, but since their plea was rejected they were forced to litigate to have their relationship officially recognised.
The couple was due to become the first married same-sex couple in the Cayman Islands this week, but will instead have to wait at least until August, when the Court of Appeal will hear the government’s argument and decide whether the March 29 ruling should stand.
Cayman islands delay in legalising same-sex marriage labelled a ‘disgrace’
Jonathan Cooper, a barrister at Doughty Street law firm, who has advised the couple on their case, called the appeals court’s decision a “disgrace.”
“Chantelle and Vickie are at the heart of this story. The Chief Justice of the Cayman Islands has recognised their constitutional right to marry.
“Chantelle and Vickie aren’t trailblazers. They’re just a couple who are in love and who know they want to spend the rest of their lives together. They don’t want to be in court fighting for their right to marry, a right which opposite-sex couples take for granted.
“They just want the law to recognise their right to be together. Instead they are treated like pawns in a chess game,” Cooper said in a statement to PinkNews, adding: “They are being demeaned and shamed and it is a disgrace.”
The barrister renewed his call to the Foreign Office and Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt to take action in this case to ensure the couple can marry.
“Hunt needs to stand firm and ensure that Chantelle and Vickie’s ordeal is over. They want a Spring wedding. Is it too much for the Foreign Secretary to grant them that?”
In February, a report from the UK Parliament’s foreign affairs committee called on the government to extend equal marriage—which became legal in England and Wales in 2013 and Scotland in 2014—to British Overseas Territories such as the Cayman Islands.
Eighty businesses in Singapore have made a pledge to end workplace discrimination against people living with HIV (PLHIV).
Major LGBTI organizations in Singapore including Action for AIDS (AFA) and support group, Oogachaga, collaborated with social enterprise, Be Inclusive, to end HIV discrimination in the workplace.
Global multinationals such as Google and Barclays are some of the signatories to the pledge alongside local companies such as restaurant booking platform, Chope.
AFA’s advocacy manager Avin Tan said that workplaces play a crucial role in ending discrimination against individuals with HIV.
‘The challenge of being gainfully employed without the fear of being sacked because of one’s HIV infection must be addressed if we want to effectively control HIV in Singapore,’ AFA’s advocacy manager, Avin Tan told Today Online.
‘The challenge of being gainfully employed without the fear of being sacked because of one’s HIV infection must be addressed if we want to effectively control HIV in Singapore.
‘It is good public health practice to have someone whose HIV status is known and successfully treated, than someone who is undiagnosed, unaware, frightened and potentially infectious.’
According to data from Avert, a global HIV educator, more than 50% of people worldwide have discriminatory attitudes to PLHIV. Avert said HIV stigma can lead to people being shunned by family, peers and the wider community. Others could face poor treatment in educational and work settings, erosion of their rights, and psychological damage. These all limit access to HIV testing, treatment and other HIV services.
The tiny nation of Brunei has recently implemented the Sharia Penal Code, including the death penaltyfor people convicted ofsodomy.
Gay Star News broke the news at the end of March, when it learned the new law was entering into force on 3 April.
Since the news went public, it has met with significant public outcry.
Actor George Clooney penned an op-ed urging people to boycott Brunei-owned hotels and other businesses. Elton John, Ellen DeGeneres and other high-profile LGBTI celebrities also encouraged their fans to take action against Brunei.
Nonetheless, the nation in Southeast Asia isn’t the only one where gay sex is punishable by death.
Here are the other countries in the world where LGBTI people might lose their lives for living their truth.
Afghanistan
The country’s penal code doesn’t refer explicitly to homosexuality, but Article 130 of the Constitution allows recourse to sharia law, prohibiting same-sex sexual activities in general.
Although gay men may face the death penalty, Afghanistan hasn’t issued any sentence for homosexuality since the end of the Taliban rule in 2001.
Chechnya
Photo: Dave Frenkel
The federal Russian LGBTI laws apply in Chechnya, a part of the Russian Federation.
However, in Chechnya, as in other regions of southern Russia, Russian President Vladimir Putin has empowered local leaders to enforce their interpretation of traditional values.
In 1996 Chechnya’s separatist president Aslan Maskhadov adopted sharia law in his Chechen Republic of Ichkeria. Article 148 of the Chechen penal code made sodomy punishable by caning after the first two offences. Third-time offenders can be executed.
In 2017, local opposition newspaper Novaya Gazeta reported anti-LGBTI purges were taking place in the country as people were detained and tortured, with many killed in extrajudicial killings.
Chechnya Crisis Appeal
Iran
Gay sex between men is a capital offence under Iran’s Islamic Penal Code, enacted in 1991.
Iran sentences gay men to death for homosexual intercourse. Moreover, men can be flogged for lesser acts such as kissing, while women may be flogged for same-sex sexual activity.
The country publicly hanged a man for homosexuality in January 2019 after he was found guilty of raping two males.
Mauritania
Muslim men engaging in same-sex sexual activity face death by stoning according to a 1984 law in force in the northwestern African country. Women can face prison for the same crime.
Nigeria
Nigerians protested the murders of LGBTI people on the National Day of Mourning. | Photo: Twitter/Bisi Alimi
Several states have adopted sharia law and imposed a death penalty for men engaging in homosexual behavior.
Pakistan
Pakistan allows the death penalty for gay and bisexual men engaging in same-sex intercourse but there haven’t been executions since the law came into effect.
Qatar
Qatar punishes Muslim people by death for extramarital sex, regardless of the gender of those involved.
Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia punishes homosexuality with the death penalty
According to the interpretation of the law by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, any married man or any non-Muslim who engages in sodomy with a Muslim risks death by stoning.
A State Department spokesperson on Thursday said the U.S. is “deeply concerned” over reports that indicate more than a dozen LGBTI people in Azerbaijan have been arrested.
Reuters cited an Azeri LGBTI advocacy group that said police this week arrested four transgender sex workers. Freedom House in a press release said police in Baku, the country’s capital, on Monday arrested “at least 14 LGBT+ people.”
ILGA-Europe in a tweet said those who were arrested were “forced to undergo medical examination to test their HIV/STI status.” ILGA-Europe also said authorities fined some of those who were arrested and sentenced them to 30 days “of arrest” on charges of “hooliganism.”
“The United States is deeply concerned by reports of the arrest and detention of more than a dozen LGBTI individuals in Azerbaijan, as well as by reports that detained individuals may have been subjected to forced medical examinations,” the State Department spokesperson told the Washington Blade.
“If true, such acts would be inconsistent with Azerbaijan’s international human rights obligations, and with the principles and commitments it has undertaken as a participating state of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe,” added the spokesperson.
The spokesperson said the State Department “regularly” communicates with the Azeri government “regarding human rights and encourage it to uphold its international commitments on human rights.” The spokesperson added the U.S. Embassy in Baku “has conveyed our concern regarding these reports to” Azeri authorities.
Azerbaijan is a former Soviet republic that borders the Caspian Sea, Russia, Georgia, Armenia, Turkey and Iran.
The State Department in its 2018 human rights report notes Azeri police in September 2017 arrested more than 80 men “presumed to be gay or bisexual” and trans women during a series of raids they conducted. The report also says officers beat some of those they arrested and used electric shocks “to obtain bribes and information about other gay men.”
The State Department report also notes violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity remains commonplace in Azerbaijan.
“Governments have an obligation to ensure that all people, including LGBTI people, can freely enjoy the universal human rights and fundamental freedoms to which they are entitled,” the State Department spokesperson told the Blade. “We strongly oppose human rights violations and abuses against LGBTI persons, including violence, the criminalization of LGBTI status or conduct, and serious forms of discrimination.”
Azerbaijan police randomly began detaining LGBTI people on Monday (1 April) night.
LGBTI rights organization Minority Azerbaijan broke the news yesterday (2 April) morning, revealing shocking details of authorities ‘hunting’ transgender people, then handcuffing them and detaining them.
Now they confirm authorities detained at least 14 people and they can identify five.
Authorities fined two of them under Article 510 of the Code on Administrative Offenses – Minor Hooliganism.
While three detainees had official charges under section 535.1 (wilfully not obeying lawful orders of the police officer who engaged protecting of public order) of the Code of Administrative Offences.
Protest in Germany. | Photo: Ghvinotsdaati
Yesterday, the Binagadi District Court in Baku sentenced two detainees with 10 days and another one with 15 days of administrative detention.
Authorities are keeping the detainees in police custody at the Temporary Detention Centers of Police Departments (TDC).
Local sources explain TDCs should only hold people for 48 or 96 hours of detention.
‘Therefore, it is wrong to keep persons who [have been] punished with more than 10 days of administrative detention in the TDC,’ an anonymous source told Gay Star News. ‘From this point of view, the conditions of the victims are inadequate in that place.’
Breaking the law
The source then explained how authorities were illegally detaining LGBTI people.
‘In general, the detainees are considered to be held administratively,’ the local source explained. ‘The law does not specify the compulsory examination of persons held in an administrative if it’s not a criminal case.’
Authorities are also breaking the law in another way, with forced medical examinations of people living with HIV.
The source continued: ‘The law… states that medical examinations to persons living with HIV cannot be accomplished by physical, psychological or moral pressure.
‘But, when an HIV [positive] person posing a threat of infecting others or their legal representative does not agree to a medical examination, the medical examination for HIV-infected person is compulsory by court order in the manner prescribed by law,’ the source explained.
According to eyewitness testimony, detainees did not receive any official request or signed paper before they had to undergo medical examinations.
‘There was no court decision that justifies the examinations,’ the source said. ‘Therefore, under current conditions forced medical examination is not lawful.’
What’s going on in Azerbaijan?
One report claims police are trying to ‘hunt’ transgender people via the internet. Police allegedly deceived a transgender sex worker, inviting them to a hotel to provide sex services.
Upon the trans person’s arrival to the meeting place, ‘they pulled out handcuffs’ and took the trans person to the police station, according to local activists.
Brutality of Azerbaijan police in September 2017. | Photo: Aziz Karimov / supplied
Similar reports of authorities in Azerbaijan randomly detaining LGBTI people emerged in September 2017.
Eyewitness reports at the time claimed authorities detained LGBTI people, beat, verbally abused and forced medical examinations on transgender people. Some reports even suggest authorities shaved the hair of transgender women.
One gay man told how authorities beat, electrocuted and detained him for nine days.
The man – known only as Xeyal – said authorities beat with a baton on the head, knees, and arms. They also administered electric shocks to his head and body more than 30 times.
Police also tortured Xeyal into revealing names of former sexual partners. They then forced him to sign documents without reading them.
Azerbaijan is actually getting worse when it comes to LGBTI rights.
Although same-sex sexual activity is technically legal, Azerbaijan lags behind in anti-discrimination laws, parenting rights for same-sex couples, transgender rights and same-sex marriage.