Fear and Loathing

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Thousands demonstrate in France to defend "traditional family values"

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Protesters took to the streets in Paris and Bordeaux to demonstrate against medically assisted procreation techniques for lesbian couples and surrogacy. According to Ludovine de la Rochere, president of Manif Pour Tous that organised the demonstration, such techniques must be "fought at all costs.” Manif pour Tous fought against the adoption of same-sex marriage in France last year.  Read More

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Teen's Suicide Highlights Struggle of LGBT Colombians

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Two photos — one haunting, the other simply poignant — published separately last weekend by two Spanish-language news groups tell the story of Colombian society's urgent need to reconcile its religiously conservative culture with acceptance and respect for its LGBT men, women, and children.

The first photo is of a handsome young Colombian who committed suicide recently, after his teachers and school administrators allegedly harassed him because he was gay. The second shows his mother, Alba Reyes, with solemn eyes narrowed to a point of focus that only mothers of lost children know. Read More

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Uganda judge received death threats for striking down anti-gay law

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President Museveni signalled he is having second thoughts over tough anti-homosexuality legislation, arguing the impoverished east African nation needed to consider the impact on trade and economic growth. Saying he only signed off on the anti-gay law earlier this year because he wanted to protect children and stop people being “recruited” into homosexuality, he now worries the law could lead to a trade boycott which would hurt Uganda.

A Ugandan judge has revealed she has received death threats after annulling the anti-gay law earlier this year. Solomy Bossa Balungi has said she has received numerous attacks from the public after she helped with the ruling the Anti-Homosexuality Act must be nullified.


On 1 August, the Constitutional Court found speaker Rebecca Kadaga had acted ‘illegally’ in rushing the anti-gay legislation through parliament.  Read More

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Egyptian men arrested declared ‘not gay’ after exam, will appear in court in November

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A group of Egyptian men arrested on the accusation that they are gay were subjected to invasive medical exams intended to show whether they engaged in homosexual activity. Prosecutor General Hisham Barakat ordered the men detained and “physically examined” after an online video emerged showing the men attending what appeared to be a same-sex marriage ceremony on a Nile riverboat. They are set to appear in court on November 1st.

Egypt's LGBT community began a Twitter campaign with the hashtag #stopjailinggays. Read More

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Chad becomes 37th African state to seek ban on homosexuality

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Chad government ministers voted to make same-sex relations a crime punishable by up to 20 years in prison and 50,000-500,000 Central African francs. 

The decision was condemned by human rights groups as another setback in the struggle for gay rights on the continent. Chad’s penal code is more than half a century old and does not explicitly mention homosexuality. The cabinet claims the measure is intended to “protect the family and to comply with Chadian society”.  Read More

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The gay divide

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THERE was a teenager in Arizona in the 1970s who “could no more imagine longing to touch a woman than longing to touch a toaster”. But he convinced himself that he was not gay. Longing to be “normal”, he blamed his obsession with muscular men on envy of their good looks. It was not until he was 25 that he admitted the truth to himself—let alone other people. In 1996 he wrote a cover leader for The Economist in favour of same-sex marriage. He never thought it would happen during his lifetime. Yet now he is married to the man he loves and living in a Virginia suburb where few think this odd.

The change in attitudes to homosexuality in many countries—not just the West but also Latin America, China and other places—is one of the wonders of the world (see article). This week America’s Supreme Court gave gay marriage another big boost, by rejecting several challenges to it; most Americans already live in states where gays can wed. But five countries still execute gay people: Iran hangs them; Saudi Arabia stones them. Gay sex is illegal in 78 countries, and a few have recently passed laws that make gay life even grimmer. The gay divide is one of the world’s widest (see article). What caused it? And will tolerance eventually spread?  Read More

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The Closeted Continent

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38 out of 55 African nations have laws punishing sodomy. And things may get worse before they get better.

The progress for LGBT equality has been powered by an increasingly potent global gay rights movement driven by major international organizations like Human Rights Campaign and the International Gay & Lesbian Human Rights Commission, as well as smaller grassroots gay groups that have sprouted up (or, in some cases, chosen to work underground for fear of activists' safety) in many dozens of countries worldwide.

Elsewhere in the world, though, signs of momentum in the global gay rights struggle are fueling a determined effort to slam the closet door though legal measures, harassment, and violence. Read More 

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Solidarity with Egypt LGBT Protests Initiative

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We invite you to participate in the demonstration that will take place on 18 October 2014 in front of every Egyptian embassy around the world (If accessible) to protest against human rights violations committed by the Egyptian government, relying on unlawful and unethical media tools, towards those of differing sexual orientations and gender identities. Read more

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Egypt Begins Surveillance Of Facebook, Twitter, And Skype On Unprecedented Scale

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Egyptians’ online communications are now being monitored by the sister company of an American cybersecurity firm, giving the Egyptian government an unprecedented ability to comb through data from Skype, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, among others.


See Egypt, the sister company of the U.S.-based Blue Coat, won the contract over the summer, beating out the British Gamma System, and the Israeli-founded Narus System. See Egypt has begun monitoring Egyptians’ online communications, according to several Egyptian government officials who spoke to BuzzFeed News.


“See Egypt has already worked with the government and has strong ties to the State Security Services,” said one official. He asked to remain anonymous, to protect his position within the government. “They were a natural choice and their system is already winning praise.” Read More