The State Department has issued a global security alert warning Americans abroad that terrorists could target lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people and LGBTQ-related events during Pride Month in June.
“Due to the potential for terrorist attacks, demonstrations, or violent actions against U.S. citizens and interests, the Department of State advises United States citizens overseas to exercise increased caution,” the warning, issued on Friday, reads. “The Department of State is aware of the increased potential for foreign terrorist organization-inspired violence against LGBTQI+ persons and events and advises U.S. citizens overseas to exercise increased caution.”
Officials advised Americans abroad to stay alert in tourism districts, at Pride events and in venues frequented by LGBTQ people. They added that before traveling overseas, Americans should enroll in the State Department’s Smart Traveler Enrollment Program to receive alerts from the department and to make it easier for officials to locate Americans in emergency scenarios.
Authorities did not specify if there are any countries or regions of the world that are of particular concern. They also did not name any foreign terrorist organizations suspected of potentially planning attacks.
A spokesperson for the State Department said in a statement Monday that the department is committed “to provide U.S. citizens with clear, timely, and reliable information about every country in the world so they can make informed travel decisions” but did not specify if the officials know where the potential threat is more pronounced.
The State Department issued a similar warning in October about extremist attacks against Americans overseas, shortly after the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack on Israel. That alert did not mention potential threats against LGBTQ people or events specifically. In Monday’s statement, the spokesperson said the department issued Friday’s alert “in anticipation of the many Pride celebrations held every year in June.”
Neela Ghosal, the senior director of law, policy and research at the LGBTQ human rights group Outright International, criticized the State Department for not providing further information.
“I understand that the State Department feels that they do have an obligation to let people know about these types of threats, and I think it’s important to take that seriously,” she said. “But without a level of specificity, it just creates a bit of stress and panic without anybody having valuable information on how they might change their behavior to avoid a risk.”
Ghosal added that terrorism is one of several ways LGBTQ people are targeted when they organize publicly. Research from an upcoming Outright International report shows that Pride events were attacked by far-right actors or were circumvented by governments in Turkey, Georgia and Mongolia last year.
“Given the state of the world right now, LGBTQ activists everywhere, unfortunately, know that we are potential targets,” she said. “And so in some ways, this was just a reflection of one of the many ways in which we are targets, whether it’s from terrorism or from hostile governments or from ordinary members of the public.”
The State Department’s warning Friday follows a similar alert issued jointly by the FBI and Department of Homeland Security this month regarding threats of terrorist attacks at upcoming Pride events in the U.S. The agencies similarly did not name any cities, states or venues suspected of potential threats.
The FBI and DHS did, however, cite anti-LGBTQ messaging from the Islamic State terror group and an attempted knife attack by three alleged ISIS sympathizers in Vienna last year as reasons for concern. The federal agencies also mentioned an increase in potential violence due to the eighth anniversary next month of the Pulse nightclub mass shooting in Orlando, Florida. The 2016 massacre left 49 people dead and 53 wounded.
The LGBTQ media advocacy group GLAAD recorded at least 145 incidents of harassment, vandalism and assault directed at LGBTQ people and events during Pride Month in the U.S. last year.
Ella Anthony knew it was time to leave her native Nigeria when she escaped an abusive, forced marriage only to face angry relatives who threatened to turn her in to police because she was gay.
Since Nigeria criminalizes same-sex relationships, Anthony fled a possible prison term and headed with her partner to Libya in 2014 and then Italy, where they both won asylum. Their claim? That they had a well-founded fear of anti-LGBTQ persecution back home.
While many of the hundreds of thousands of migrants who arrive in Italy from Africa and the Mideast are escaping war, conflict and poverty, an increasing number are fleeing possible prison terms and death sentences in their home countries because of their sexual orientation or gender identity, advocates say.
And despite huge obstacles to win asylum on LGBTQ grounds, Anthony and her partner, Doris Ezuruike Chinonso. are proof that it can be done, even if the challenges remain significant for so-called “rainbow refugees” like them.
“Certainly life here in Italy isn’t 100% what we want. But let’s say it’s 80% better than in my country,” Chinonso, 34, said with Anthony by her side at their home in Rieti, north of Rome. In Nigeria, “if you’re lucky you end up prison. If you’re not lucky, they kill you,” she said.
“Here you can live as you like,” she said.
Anthony and Chinonso have coffee at their house in Italy.Alessandra Tarantino / AP
Most European countries don’t keep statistics on the number of migrants who claim anti-LGBTQ persecution as a reason for seeking refugee protection under international law. But non-governmental organizations that track the phenomenon say the numbers are rising as countries pass or toughen anti-homosexuality laws — a trend being highlighted on Friday’s observance of the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia.
To date, more than 60 countries have anti-LGBTQ laws on the books, most of them in Africa, the Middle East and parts of Asia.
“The ultimate result is people trying to flee these countries to find safe haven elsewhere,” said Kimahli Powell, chief executive of Rainbow Railroad, which provides financial, legal and logistical support to LGBTQ+ people needing asylum assistance.
In an interview, Powell said his organization had received about 15,000 requests for assistance last year, up from some 9,500 the year before. One-tenth of those 2023 requests, or about 1,500, came from Uganda, which passed an anti-homosexuality law that year that allows the death penalty for “aggravated homosexuality,” and up to 14 years in prison for “attempted aggravated homosexuality.”
Nigeria also criminalizes consensual same-sex relations between adults and the public display of affection between same-sex couples, as well as restricting the work of groups that advocate for gay people and their rights, according to Human Rights Watch. In regions of Nigeria where Sharia law is in force, LGBTQ+ people can face up to 14 years in prison or the death penalty.
Anthony, 37, said it was precisely the threat of prison that compelled her to leave. She said her family had sold her into marriage, but that she left the relationship because her husband repeatedly abused her. When she returned home, her brother and uncles threatened to turn her into police because she was gay. The fear and alienation drove her first to attempt suicide, and then take up a trafficker’s offer to pay for passage to Europe.
Anthony and Chinonso show photos of themselves together. Alessandra Tarantino / AP
“At a certain point, I couldn’t take all these sufferings,” Anthony said through tears. “When this man told me that I should abandon the village, I immediately accepted.”
After arriving in Libya, Anthony and Chinonso paid traffickers for the risky boat trip across the Mediterranean Sea to Italy, where they both claimed asylum as a member of a group — LGBTQ+ people — who faced persecution in Nigeria. According to refugee norms, applicants for asylum can be granted international protection based on being a “member of a particular social group.”
But the process is by no means easy, straightforward or guaranteed. Privacy concerns limit the types of questions about sexual orientation that migrants can be asked during the asylum interview process. Social taboos and a reluctance to openly identify as gay or transgender mean some migrants might not volunteer the information immediately. Ignorance on the part of asylum interviewers about anti-gay laws in countries of origin can result in unsuccessful claims, according to the EU Agency for Asylum, which helps EU countries implement asylum norms.
As a result, no comprehensive data exists about how many migrants seek or win asylum in the EU on LGBTQ+ grounds. Based on estimates reported by NGOs working with would-be refugees, the numbers in individual EU countries ranged from two to three in Poland in 2016 to 500 in Finland from 2015-2017 and 80 in Italy from 2012-2017, according to a 2017 report by the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights.
An EU directive grants special protection for people made vulnerable due to sexual discrimination, prescribing “special procedural guarantees” in countries that receive them. However, it doesn’t specify what those guarantees involve and implementation is uneven. As a result, LGBTQ+ asylum seekers don’t always find protected environments once in the EU.
“We’re talking about people who are unfortunately victims of a double stigma: being a migrant, and being members of the LGBTQIA+ community,” said lawyer Marina De Stradis.
Even within Italy, the options vary widely from region to region, with the better-funded north offering more services than the less-developed south. In the capital Rome, there are only 10 beds specifically designated for LGBTQ+ migrants, said Antonella Ugirashebuja, an activist with the Arcigay association.
She said the lack of special protections often impacts female migrants more negatively than male, and can be especially dangerous for lesbians.
“Lesbians leaving Africa often, or more frequently, end up in prostitution and sexual exploitation networks because they lack (economic) support from their families,” she said. “The family considers them people to be pushed away, to be rejected … Especially in countries where this is punishable by law.”
Anthony and Chinonso consider themselves lucky: They live in a neat flat in Rieti with their dog Paddy, and dream of starting a family even if Italy doesn’t allow gay marriage.
Chinonso, who was studying medicine in Nigeria, is now a social and health worker. Anthony works at the deli counter in a Carrefour supermarket in Rome. She would have liked to have been able to continue working as a film editor, but is happy.
One woman was killed and three others severely injured Monday when a man set fire to the room the four women were sharing in a Buenos Aires boarding house.
While police have not yet specified a motive in the horrendous attack, the Buenos Aires Herald reports that the victims were two lesbian couples. In a statement, the Argentine LGBT Federation called the attack “potentially one of the most abhorrent hate crimes in recent years.”
According to the Buenos Aires Herald, the woman who died has been identified as Pamela Cobas. The three others were taken to local hospitals. On Monday, one remained in critical condition, with burns on 90 percent of her body. The two other women were taken to a separate hospital, where one remained on respiratory assistance Monday with burns covering more than half of her body, while the other was reportedly responding well to treatment but was unable to provide details about the vicious attack.
A 62-year-old man was arrested for the attack and taken to another hospital, where he was treated for what was believed to be a self-inflicted neck wound. He has remained in police custody since being discharged.
Firefighters reportedly found burned rags soaked in flammable liquid at the scene. The fire spread through the building, and in total, seven people were hospitalized for injuries.
Police are treating the crime as a homicide.
In its statement Monday, the Argentine LGBT Federation drew a direct line from the attack on the four women to Argentinian President Javier Milei’s administration plan, announced in February to shut down the country’s National Institute Against Discrimination, Xenophobia, and Racism.
“Hate crimes are the result of a culture of violence and discrimination, sustained by hate speech currently endorsed by several government officials,” the Federation’s statement read. “The only spaces to which those of us who are victims of these attacks can resort are being emptied or eliminated by the current government, like the National Institute Against Discrimination, Xenophobia, and Racism (INADI).”
The organization vowed to support the victims and their families and to ensure the case is brought to court.
Two Russian online film distributors, including a company owned by Nasdaq-listed internet giant Yandex have been charged with offenses under the country’s so-called LGBT propaganda law, a notice on a Moscow court’s website said.
Russia last year expanded its restrictions on the promotion of what it calls LGBT propaganda amid a broader clampdown on queer rights, which President Vladimir Putin has sought to portray as evidence of moral decay in Western countries.
The companies, Kinopoisk and Restream Media, face an administrative case for the “propaganda of non-traditional sexual relationships” or “gender reassignment” online, according to the notice posted on Wednesday.
Separate charges were filed on Wednesday against two Kinopoisk and Restream Media executives for the same offense, an online court notice showed.
Yandex-owned Kinopoisk and Restream Media, majority-owned by digital services giant Rostelecom have both been fined repeatedly under a similar article banning the “demonstration” of LGBTQ relationships to minors.
That resulted from them listing films such as “Bridget Jones’s Diary” and “Perfect Strangers” without an 18+ label.
A spokesperson for Kinopoisk told Reuters that the charge was related to its listing of the U.S. television series “Supergirl,” which features a same-sex relationship, and that the company planned to challenge the court ruling.
“The laws and regulations as currently drafted do not provide sufficient objective criteria for determining propaganda of non-traditional relationships,” the company said in a statement provided to Reuters.
“We hope that the current practice of fines against online cinemas will be revised to warnings.”
Restream Media did not immediately reply to an emailed request for comment.
When people look at images captured by Ty Busey, the photographer says she wants them to know that the pictures and films were captured by a queer woman. Drawing on Renaissance paintings as inspiration, Busey poses her subjects, who are LGBTQ women and nonbinary people, with halos and textured backgrounds in lounging postures. She describes her artistic eye in one word: “Sapphic.”
The term derives from Sappho, a lyrical poet who lived in ancient Greece and created verses about pursuing women lovers that were rich in sensuality and nostalgia — and even libertine at times.
A self-portrait of photographer Ty Busey.Courtesy of Ty Busey
The style of Busey’s work is a fitting way to rectify its namesake’s historical legacy. In the hundreds of years after her death around 570 B.C.E., Sappho was often portrayed in art as heterosexual when her own poetry said otherwise.
When asked what she hopes viewers take away from her visuals, Busey said, “I want the person watching the video to be like, ‘Yes, this is what it feels like to be with a woman.’”
Busey, a Maryland resident who has identified as a lesbian since she was a teenager, first learned about the label “Sapphic” on TikTok in 2021. In the years since she’s embraced the term, it has abounded, appearing on social media meme pages, as a literary genre, as a descriptor for events in brick and mortar spaces and even as a noun for self-identification.
Photographer Ty Busey draws on Renaissance paintings for inspiration.Courtesy of Ty Busey
Over two-and-a-half millennia removed from its namesake, the term Sapphic does not have a precise definition that’s agreed upon by all of those who currently embrace it. However, its current use is generally as an umbrella term for lesbians, bisexuals, pansexuals and other women-loving women, and for transgender and nonbinary people who may not identify as women themselves but align with this spectrum of attraction and community.
While Sapphic may evoke ancient images of romance, it has a lesser-known political undercurrent: The poet Sappho resisted tyranny in her own era by the military general Pittacus, making her a potent queer symbol during a tenuous time for LGBTQ rights.
A rebirth on the internet
Describing herself as “chronically online,” Tyler Mead, 28, said she learned about the term Sapphic “funnily enough, actually, on the internet.”
As a singer, songwriter and producer under the moniker STORYBOARDS, she came across queer artists like Fletcher using the term.
“It got me intrigued, and I was like, ‘What does this term mean? What does this mean to them? And, what could it also mean for me?’ Because it’s been a bit of a journey for me of coming out in multiple layers,” Mead said.
In 2018, Mead came out as pansexual, then in 2020 as a trans woman. For the past year, she’s identified as a lesbian and as Sapphic, which she said captures a philosophy of “softness” in her approach to romance and dating.
“An interesting part of being a trans woman who is Sapphic is that, even before I started transitioning, I always knew that I was attracted to women … but not in a straight way,” Mead, who lives in Los Angeles, said.
The expansiveness of the term, she explained, is a strong draw, adding that she knows people who are trans masculine that use it.
A songwriter since middle school, Mead not only considers her music Sapphic but sums up her entire “energy” on the bio section of her TikTok profile as: “Sapphic fairy.”
The word “Sappho” appears to have first emerged digitally in 1987 on an early iteration of an email list, according to Avery Dame-Griff, curator of the Queer Digital History Project.
The Greek poet, it seems, was the namesake of an English language mailing list for LGBTQ women during a time when email would have only been accessible to those in academic or computer-related fields, according to Dame-Griff.
A name like Sappho, he explained, would have signaled that the mailing list was for queer women without using a term like “gay” or “lesbian,” which would have drawn unwanted attention.
Since 2004, the first year for which Google Trends provides search data, the term “Sapphic” peaked in December 2005 before steadily declining for the next 15 years. Since 2020, however, it has been on a steady upward trajectory.
Perhaps nowhere is the term currently more prominent than social media, where Sappho-themed meme accounts — Sappho Was Here, Suffering Sappho Memesand Sapphic Sandwich, just to name a few — have amassed tens of thousands of followers on Instagram. And, on TikTok, a wildly popular social media platform among those in the 18-29 demo, the term has been hashtagged over 340,000 times.
Some of those hashtags lead to 26-year-old New Yorker Nina Haines. During the pandemic, Haines said, she was craving queer community. Unable to see LGBTQ friends in person because of Covid, she started posting about Sapphic literature on TikTok in an effort to find connection.
Then, in 2021, Haines founded Sapph-Lit, a book club that today boasts 8,200 members from over 60 countries, with members who identify as queer women and nonbinary people. Her book picks have included modern romances, like Casey McQuiston’s “I Kissed Shara Wheeler,” and classics like Audre Lorde’s “Zami: A New Spelling of My Name.”
Nina Haines, founder of Sapph-Lit, and her Sappho tattoo, inked by Yink of Golden Hour Tattoo in Brooklyn, N.Y.Courtesy of Nina Haines
“At the end of the day, we really want to prioritize Sapphic literature, because Sapphics have been historically rendered invisible throughout history,” she said.
For Haines, who has a tattoo of Sappho on her arm, the term Sapphic “captures the women-loving-women experience” in a way that is “rooted in history” and that signals “that we have always been here.”
A historical legacy
Hailing from the Greek island of Lesbos and living from roughly 630 B.C.E. to 570 B.C.E., what is known of Sappho’s life comes from surviving fragments of her poetry and what was written about her by other ancients, according to Page duBois, the author of 1995’s “Sappho Is Burning” and a professor of classics and comparative literature at the University of California, San Diego.
Sappho’s queer legacy, duBois added, emerges from an expression of romantic and sexual desire toward women in her poems, often with a tint of nostalgia.
Greek lyric poet Sappho and another woman listen to a performance by fellow poet Alcaeus on the lyre circa 610 B.C. Hulton Archive / Getty Images
“They are really lovely and project that kind of world of voluptuous, flower filled, scented eros [desire] directed toward women,” duBois said.
But a passive “pink, romantic Valentine” she was not. “An aggressive pursuer of her lover,” Sappho described intimate memories of a far away, beloved woman, according to duBois.
“She talks about anointing her with beautiful ointments and putting garlands on her, and satisfying each other on soft beds,” duBois said of Fragment 94 of Sappho’s poetry.
A painting depicting Sappho throwing herself into the sea due to unrequited love, circa 580 B.C.Archive Photos / Getty Images
There are contradictory interpretations that Sappho was a schoolteacher, an aristocrat or a hetaira (a sex worker who operated like a courtesan or geisha), and that she was perhaps enslaved. In the Middle Ages and Victorian periods, she was presented as heterosexual in art, portrayed as a forlorn woman who threw herself off a cliff after she was rejected by a ferryman she loved.
Finding a new generation
For the past 100 years, an ever-evolving lexicon — and a debate about the best terms to use — has been a consistent feature of LGBTQ culture.
Of course, butch, femme, dyke, stud and a host of other terms have been embraced by queer women, each shaped by the communities that created them and the social movements of their time.
“Maybe in some ways, the terms are changing because it’s about a break from a past generation,” said Woolner, an associate professor of history at the University of Memphis.
Though Woolner and others have noted that there are those who eschew certain terms or identifiers, for one reason or another. Some LGBTQ women, for example, don’t identify with “Sapphic” due to a perceived chasteness and the ancient aura.
A photograph from Maryland-based photographer Ty Busey.Courtesy of Ty Busey
For the past three years, Busey has organized a “Sapphic picnic” outside of Washington, D.C. For this year, Busey chose the theme “For the Gods,” an ode to Greek gods and goddesses and conducted a photo shoot to match.
“There’s something about those ancient photos and the way that they’re all falling on each other — I really love them so much,” she said. “I just want to recapture it specifically with women, especially if I could put a Black woman in there.”
More than 2,500 years after Sappho walked the earth, champions of the term Sapphic see the parallels between finding their own power and the erasure and subsequent embrace of the lyrical poet’s queer identity.
“I see her as this reclamation,” Haines said of Sappho. “As this statement of, ‘No, I actually mean the words that I say, and don’t twist them.’”
Despite the massive backlash that follows her work, Rauda Morcos has never hesitated to advocate for LGBTQ+ Palestinians. The human rights lawyer and activist helped create ASWAT, the first organization for Palestinian lesbians, also known as the Palestinian Feminist Center for Gender and Sexual Freedoms.
“I said to myself if I were to die achieving my goal and putting the word out that we are equal within our Palestinian community as women, as lesbians, and as queer, then it’s worth it,” she told LGBTQ Nation.
ASWAT started out as a humble email group back in the late 1990s. Intending to open up the conversation around sexual orientation in Palestine, the organization operates as the first line of support for women, as well as men, who have questions about their sexuality.
Based in Haifa, Morcos has seen many positive changes for LGBTQ+ Palestinians over the last two decades.
“Today you can find Palestinian couples with kids, some who are out and some who are not. It’s your choice.”
Nevertheless, activists like Morcos have paid a high personal cost for fighting against repressive and ingrained societal norms that further marginalize often vulnerable members of the LGBTQ+ community.
There’s no question many LGBTQ+ Palestinians contend with a complex intersection of identities. Queer Palestinians are simultaneously dealing with the same issues as other Palestinians while also fighting for legal recognition and protection from anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination.
“The challenges that face all Palestinians are the same, occupation and a lack of freedoms because of the restrictions imposed on the Palestinians due to the occupation,” she said. “Not only the destruction but the human rights violations against Palestinians are the most stressful at the moment. Not only in the West Bank because Palestinians inside Israel feel very threatened at the moment.”
A complex legal framework
Palestinian activists have endured personal attacks, discrimination and even death threats as they struggle to fight for equal rights in a region already rife with conflict. Yet, there is a marked difference in the legal and social environment for LGBTQ+ Palestinians between the two Palestinian territories, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
In the West Bank, same-sex sexual acts were decriminalized in 1951 as a result of the annexation of the territory by Jordan and the subsequent ratification of the Jordanian Penal Code. Yet in the Gaza Strip, under the rule of Hamas, conditions are more challenging.
Opinions differ on the extent to which the British Mandate Criminal Code Ordinance, which was enacted in 1936 and punishes “carnal knowledge against the order of nature”, is applied to consensual same-sex relations. According to the UK-based NGO Human Dignity Trust, there is “little evidence of the law being enforced, and it appears to be largely obsolete in practice.”
Statistics published by the Global Acceptance Index, which tracks LGBTI social acceptance across the world, show little positive change has happened in Palestine in recent years. The Index ranks Palestine 130 out of 175 countries, with no notable advancement in equal rights over the last decade.
For LGBTQ+ folks in Western countries, groups like Queers for Palestine offer solidarity as a form of intersectional justice. They see queer liberation as linked to Palestinian liberation.
Whereas some LGBTQ+ people feel they can’t support Palestinian rights because of the anti-LGBTQ+ nature of the region, queer advocates for Palestinian liberation criticize Isreal for ‘pinkwashing’ its human rights record in order gain support from queer people in the West.
A global fight
Maisan Hamdan – a Palestinian writer and activist born in the port city of Haifa – has split her time between Haifa and Berlin since 2017. But distance doesn’t make her any less connected to her birthplace.
“I became very much connected, but in a different way,” she told LGBTQ Nation. “Seeing LGBTQ issues in Palestine as a part of a huge international intersectionality showed me that we can’t separate issues when it’s about oppression and resistance.”
Before 2017, Hamdan volunteered with alQaws for Sexual and Gender Diversity in Palestinian Society, an organization working to improve the rights of LGBTQ+ Palestinians.
Hamdan’s activism has included attending protests in Haifa and participating in internationalist pride in Berlin, where she gave a speech about the experiences of queer people in Palestine.
“Due to the complexity that we live in, it is never normal for us like other queers around the world who might have to fight for their rights but within their country, among their people,” she said. “We fight double oppression – colonialism and patriarchy.”
She added that it’s essential for others to work to understand the complexity that she and other queer Palestinians inhabit.
“As Palestinian queers who live in a place where oppression is part of the daily scene, it is a huge thing to feel that you are not alone,” she said, “that there are spaces where you feel you are part of a community, where you are being listened to, where you can share your thoughts without being afraid and where basically you feel safe.”
The queer community in Kenya can breathe a sigh of relief after a Mombasa court on Monday ruled clerics, politicians, and anti-LGBTQ groups cannot hold homophobic protests or engage in incitement.
The Mombasa High Court’s ruling, however, is temporary until July 24 when the court in Kenya’s second-largest city determines a petition on the issue.
Two petitioners — Mr. JM and the Center for Minority Rights and Strategic Litigation — last October sued Police Inspector General Japhet Koome for allowing religious leaders and lobby groups to hold homophobic protests whenever a court rules in favor of the LGBTQ community.
The petitioners’ effort to demand a ban on anti-LGBTQ protests in Kenya was in response to a series of homophobic demonstrations, particularly in Mombasa, after the Supreme Court last September affirmed an earlier decision that allowed the National Gay and Lesbian Rights Commission to register as an NGO.
Mombasa High Court Judge Olga Sewe in her Monday ruling also directed the petitioners and the respondents, who include Koome, two anti-LGBTQ activists and a national lobby group dubbed the “Anti-LGBTQ Movement” that organized protests, to file their witness lists and counter statements within 14 days of the July hearing.
“Pending the hearing and determination of this petition, this Honorable Court (does) hereby issue a conservatory order restraining the 2nd and 5th Respondents from calling on or inciting members of the public to carry out extra-judicial killing, lynching, punishing, stoning, forcible conversion, or any other means of harming LGBTQ+ identifying persons and their homes,” Sewe stated.
She also stopped the “Anti-LGBTQ movement,” Koome and any state agency from any attempted “expulsion from Kenya or any party of Kenya of LGBTQ+ identifying persons or closure of organizations serving LGBTQ+ identifying persons.”
The court’s directives come after the Center for Minority Rights and Strategic Litigation led a protest on April 11 against the “anti-LGBTQ Movement”‘s invasion of Mvita Clinic in Mombasa that “hateful misinformation” reportedly sparked because the facility also serves queer people.
“Mvita Clinic, like all healthcare providers, serves the entire community,” CMRSL stated. “Targeting them for LGBTQ+ inclusion is discriminatory and an attack on the basic right to health. Everyone deserves access to healthcare, and we urge an end to the spread of lies. Let’s promote inclusivity and ensure Mvita Clinic remains a safe space for all.”
CMRSL in response to Osewe’s ruling said it was a “major win for safety and equality in Kenya” because it allows the LGBTQ people to live with “greater peace of mind.”
The Initiative for Equality and Non-Discrimination, an LGBTQ rights group, meanwhile lauded the court’s decision as a reprieve to homophobic attacks on the queer community.
“There is some reprieve given the security incidents we witnessed during the protests on Sept. 15 last year,” INEND Communications Officer Melody Njuki told the Washington Blade.
“We had rescued LGBTQ+ folks in Mombasa, Kilifi, and Lamu, due to security incidents caused by the hatred the anti-LGBTQ movement mongered and the calling of violence towards people associated with the queer group and those identifying as members,” she added.
PEMA Kenya, a Mombasa-based gender and sexual minority organization, also applauded the court’s temporary injunction, describing them as timely in protecting the LGBTQ community against all forms of homophobic attacks.
“We welcome the ruling and we believe it will impact our members who for some time felt robbed of the freedom to express themselves,” PEMA Kenya director Ishmael Baraka told the Blade.
The Nature Network, a rights organization for refugees living in Kenya, also welcomed the Monday ruling which it termed “a positive step showing the courts’ commitment to upholding human rights for all.”
“Anti-LGBTQ Movement” Chair Salim Karama, however, declined to respond to the Blade’s questions about the ruling until determination of the petition’s status. He noted the organization is waiting for their lawyer to speak with them about the decision and the filing of counter statements that Sewe ordered.
As LGBTQ rights groups seek the queer community’s protection in Kenyan courts, parliament, on the other hand in is set to consider a petition that notes what it describes as the proliferation of homosexuality in the country.
National Assembly Speaker Moses Wetang’ula on Feb. 27 referred the petition to the relevant parliamentary committee for inquiry after MP Ali Mohamed, a member of the ruling party and a vocal LGBTQ rights opponent, presented it in the National Assembly, the lower house of the Kenyan parliament, on behalf of a group of more than 70 Kenyans and religious organizations opposed to homosexuality.
Belarus has hit a new low in its targeting of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people. As of today, the definition of pornography under Belarusian law will include depictions of same-sex relationships as well as transgender people.
The Culture Ministry recently amended its decree on “erotic materials” to classify “homosexualism, lesbian love” and the “desire to live and be seen by others as a person of an opposite sex”—a reference to transgender people—as “non-traditional sexual relationship or behavior.” This places depictions of LGBT people alongside those of necrophilia, pedophilia, and voyeurism, all of which legally constitute “non-traditional relationships.”
Under Belarusian law, they all may also constitute pornography.
Public displays of pornography are punishable in Belarus with up to four years in prison. Child pornography is punishable with up to 13 years behind bars.
While it is not yet clear what kinds of depictions of LGBT people could fall under the new definition of pornography, it clearly aims to assault the dignity of sexual and gender minorities, people already demonized and at risk of persecution in Belarus.
Belarusian public officials and religious groups periodically advocate for introducing administrative and criminal liability for “non-traditional sexual relationship and gender change propaganda.” Neighboring Russia recently expanded its anti-gay propaganda law and banned the “international LGBT movement” as extremist.
In 2020, police arrested numerous peaceful protesters who demonstrated against the rigged presidential elections. Belarusian rights groups documentedthe systematic and widespread ill-treatment and torture of the protesters, reporting that people perceived as LGBT faced an increased risk of police violence and threats of sexualized violence.
Since then, Belarusian authorities have used public humiliation as a shaming tool against critics who are perceived to be or are LGBT. In one such instance, police forced a detainee, arrested for leaving a critical comment online, to “confess” on camera to being gay. At the end of the horrific video, he said: “I understand this is immoral, I promise to correct it.”
In their brutal assault against civil society in recent years, Belarusian authorities shut down all human rights organizations, including LGBT rights groups, leaving LGBT people with even less protection.
Belarus should annul these despicable amendments and stop cynically targeting LGBT people.
Iraq’s parliament passed a law criminalising same-sex relationships with a maximum 15-year prison sentence on Saturday, in a move it said aimed to uphold religious values but was condemned by rights advocates as the latest attack on the LGBT community in Iraq.
The law aims to “protect Iraqi society from moral depravity and the calls for homosexuality that have overtaken the world,” according to a copy of the law seen by Reuters.
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It was backed mainly by conservative Shi’ite Muslim parties who form the largest coalition in mainly Muslim Iraq’s parliament.
The Law on Combating Prostitution and Homosexuality bans same-sex relations with at least 10 years and a maximum of 15 years in prison, and mandates at least seven years in prison for anybody who promotes homosexuality or prostitution.
It also imposes between one and three years in prison for anyone who changes their “biological gender” or wilfully dresses in an effeminate manner.
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The bill had initially included the death penalty for same-sex acts but was amended before being passed after strong opposition from the United States and European nations.
Until Saturday, Iraq didn’t explicitly criminalise gay sex, though loosely defined morality clauses in its penal code had been used to target LGBT people, and members of the community have also been killed by armed groups and individuals.
“The Iraqi parliament’s passage of the anti-LGBT law rubber-stamps Iraq’s appalling record of rights violations against LGBT people and is a serious blow to fundamental human rights,” Rasha Younes, deputy director of the LGBT rights programme at Human Rights Watch, told Reuters.
Iraqi officials who oversee human rights could not immediately be reached for comment.
Major Iraqi parties have in the past year stepped up criticism of LGBT rights, with rainbow flags frequently being burned in protests by both ruling and opposition conservative Shi’ite Muslim factions last year.
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More than 60 countries criminalise gay sex, while same-sex sexual acts are legal in more than 130 countries, according to Our World in Data.
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Reporting by Timour Azhari and Ahmed Rasheed in Baghdad; Editing by David Holmes
The High Court of Dominica has overturned a colonial-era law banning same-sex relations between consenting adults after a gay man filed a lawsuit claiming the ban was unconstitutional.
The complainant, who remained anonymous, claimed the law led him “to live in constant fear of criminal sanction for engaging in consensual sexual activity” and caused “hateful and violent conduct towards him and other LGBT persons” that stopped him “from living and expressing himself freely and in dignity,” according to BBC.
The ruling stated that the constitution guarantees that “a person shall not be hundred in the enjoyment of his right to assemble and freely associate with other persons” and that this “must necessarily include the freedom to enter into and maintain intimate relationships without undue intrusion by the State.”
Written by High Court Judge Kimberly Cenac-Phulgence, it also said that the current law causes “widespread hostility towards persons perceived to be LGBT both in public and private settings” and “cannot be justified as necessary to respect the rights and freedoms of others or the public interest.”
Activist Daryl Phillip celebrated the ruling, telling BBC it has set the country – which should not be confused with the Dominican Republic – “on a promising path toward restoring people’s dignity and safeguarding LGBTQ people’s rights to privacy, health, and freedom from torture and ill-treatment, aligning with international human rights obligations.” He also acknowledged that the ruling will not make homophobia “stop tomorrow” and that it is “a process.”
Maria Sjödin, executive director of LGBTQ+ organization Outright International, explained that “Decriminalisation helps create an environment where LGBTQ individuals can live openly without fear of persecution, enabling them to access health care, education, and employment without facing discrimination.”
“The repeal of these discriminatory laws is a testament to the tireless efforts of activists, advocates, and allies who have long fought for justice and equality,” Sjödin continued. “It is a victory for human rights and a significant milestone in the ongoing struggle for LGBTQ rights in the Caribbean.”
The anonymous complainant has spent five years battling for the law to be overturned. Originally established during the British colonial era, the Associated Press says it was strengthened in 1998 and carried a potential ten-year prison sentence.
