Maxim Sergeyevich Martsinkevich, leader of Russian anti-gay vigilante group “Occupy Pedophilia,” who is alleged to have lured LGBT youth to abusive encounters through fake social media profiles, was sentenced to five years in a Russian penal colony. Read More
Cameroon lesbians freed after 9 months awaiting trial
After nearly a year in jail, 2 Cameroon lesbians have been convicted of same-sex activity. Cameroonian law provides for prison sentences of up to 5 years for same-sex sexual activity. Though it's supposed to apply only when a couple is “caught in the act,” the law is often interpreted as justifying imprisonment for suspected homosexuality.
Liliane and Nicole each received a two-year prison sentence, which was converted into a three-year suspended sentence and were released back to the community. Read More
Hate = Death, A round up of global hate crimes
Hate crimes are a global issue, spreading across cultural and national boundaries. This week's victims included an 18 year old Azerbaijan whose parents doused him with gasoline and threatened to murder him when they found out he is gay. The boy survived his burns. After Alejandro Gala, president of Ola LGBT+ Almeria, was attacked with a Molotov cocktail the Spanish youth leader swore, "it’s my obligation to denounce these homophobic acts, and urge others to do the same to show that there’s still a lot left to fight for and that activism is the solution.’
Meanwhile Brian Higgins, aka Feather Lynn, was taken off life support after a brutal attack left him on life support with a fatal brain aneurysm in San Francisco. In South Africa, Gift Makau, an 18 year old lesbian was the victim of “corrective rape”, before she was strangled to death.
Jamaican LGBT rights start in a storm drain
"Any kind of injustice bothers me--bothers me deeply,” Yvonne McCalla Sobers said. A small woman with light gray hair, she is a dynamic force. As an LGBT activist in Jamaica, a battlefield country with the sixth highest homicide rate in the world, she faces violent intolerance rooted in national homophobia. Watch now
Report finds most young Iranians are sexually active and many are gay
The research department of the Iranian Parliament has found that four out of five young adults in the Islamic republic are sexually active and 17% with people of the same sex despite the country imposing the death penalty for homosexual acts. Read More
Iran’s Judiciary Chief Sadeq Amoli Larijani categorically dismissed the allegations by some western advocates of Human Rights that Iran executes people for being homosexuals. Meanwhile several human rights groups are reporting: Four prisoners were hanged in public this August. According to the official website of the Iranian judiciary two of the men had been accused of sodomy and "illegal sex between people of the same sex practices." Read More (french) Read More (english)
Gay Palestinians In Israel: The 'Invisible Men'
On the run from Palestinian families, living illegally in Israel—treated by both sides as the enemy—gays from Palestinian territories can’t go home again. In January 2010, Rawashda was picked up by the secret police in the middle of the night on suspect of being gay. Next thing he knew, he was in an interrogation room being accused of collaborating with Israel. “I’d never even been to Israel before. But anyone who’s gay is immediately accused of spying for the enemy.” Read More
Being gay in Kenya: ‘I’m a refugee in my country’
Mary Muthui’s scars tell a story of the harsh persecution that gay Kenyans face. Three years ago she and a friend were approached by 9 men who had noticed her T-shirt with the slogan 'Proudly Lesbian': “I crossed the road and kept running. They caught up and shouted that I should come back and find my friend, who they had grabbed. They raped us for three hours.” Her son was conceived in a similar attack with six men, during which her head was slashed by a machete. It was during that attack that she contracted HIV. Read More