Nigeria: Country's Homophobic Law Driving Gays Into Shadows

Award-winning Nigerian writer Jude Dibia’s first novel, Walking With Shadows, has as its central character a gay man who lives his life as a married family man. Dibia’s novel is one of the first to deal with the taboo subject of homosexuality in Nigeria. 

“People have gone further underground, but they still are trying to survive. And, I think maybe that is why online now on the Internet and on blogs you are seeing more stories coming out,” he says.

“There is a lot of anger festering in the underbelly. … But, more stories are popping out there because of this law. And, I think it is a good thing. In its own way, it is a good thing,” Dibia says.   Read More

Conservative Paper Attacks Turkish MPs Who Attend LGBTI Conference

Conservative Turkish newspaper Milli Gazete attacked the Turkish MPs who participated in the conference titled “Fundamental Rights, Non-Discrimination and the Protection of Vulnerable Groups, Including LGBTI” organized by the European Parliament. Following reporting on the event, “Parliament gives pass for immorality,” three MPs withdrew their participation. Read More 

Pastor Calls for LGBT Holocaust to Eradicate AIDS by Christmas

In the U.S., even the most right-wing of religious fundamentalists, even if they believe Scripture condemns LGBT people as deserving of death, usually pull their punches (or stones) and stop short of actually calling for the execution of anyone based on sexual orientation or gender identity.

But one Baptist minister in Arizona has not only called for an LGBT holocaust but put forth the claim that such a mass killing would wipe out AIDS by Christmas. Read More

Latvian Ruling Party Official Laimdota Straujuma Resigns After Praising Nazi Extermination Of Gays

In a Twitter discussion with party colleagues that included former Welfare Minister Ilze Viņķele, the subject wandered onto the possibility of same-sex partnerships being introduced in Latvia. Challenged on the point, Laimdota Straujuma said she approved of homosexuals having to leave the country as a result of opposition to homosexuality in society at large.

"Thank god - at one time, the Germans shot them. It improves fertility," Priede said in a tweet that was subsequently deleted and replaced with a call for "Christian values." Priede was immediately warned by Viņķele and others that her comments were inappropriate and might amount to a incitement to hate crimes. Read More

Rights and repercussions: The paradox of LGBT life in Georgia

Former Russian republic makes progress on paper as discrimination continues. “It is becoming a dangerous trend in Georgia to condone and leave unpunished the acts of violence against religious and sexual minorities if they are perpetrated by the Orthodox religious clergy or their followers.

It is simply unacceptable for the authorities to continue to allow attacks in the name of religion or on the basis of anyone’s real or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity,” said John Dalhuisen, Europe and Central Asia program director at Amnesty International, in the aftermath of the chaos. Read More

4 Russian Journalists, Activist Seek Asylum in West, Citing Anti-LGBT Abuse

Three journalists and an LGBT activist have fled Russia in recent days, seeking asylum in Germany and the U.S. on the basis of alleged homophobic abuse, a series of recent news reports revealed.  Lauding the move, St. Petersburg lawmaker Vitaly Milonov told reporters that now it is the best time for Russia's gays to leave their country.

"It is clear that St. Petersburg 'homos' felt that they were needed [by the West]. This is the right time to leave Russia, in a state of political humiliation. This situation even gives these people the possibility to claim social benefits [in the West]," said Milonov, who is well known for his anti-gay sentiments. Read More

Lesbians in Kenya: The forgotten victims of AIDS

Brenda was gang-raped to ‘cure’ her of being lesbian, leaving her with HIV which she passed on to her female partner. In Kenya, health workers are often particularly insensitive and ill-equipped to serve lesbians, lacking the knowledge on how to prevent HIV transmission between two women.

‘We are told that women cannot infect each other and sometimes they even ask us about our male sexual partners,’ Brenda adds. ‘Unfortunately our society defines us and our roles from the day we are born and we are raised to actively live up to those roles or face being ostracized.’ 

It is impossible to know how many ‘corrective rape’ cases there are each year, but the phenomenon is reported by lesbians all over Africa. Read More 

Lesbian MEP gives Pope rainbow scarf

Ulrike Lunacek, head of delegation of the Austrian Green party, said she offered the Pope the present "for gays, lesbians, and for peace" during the European Parliament meeting in Strasbourg. Lunacek is co-president of the European Parliament Intergroup on LGBT Rights, and is the first openly lesbian politician in the Austrian Parliament. She was reportedly attacked with butyric acid as she was giving an interview during the annual Rainbow Parade in Vienna earlier this year. 

No one was injured in the attack, but Lunacek said: "These kinds of isolated cases [show] that the fight for tolerance, acceptance and respect in Austria [is] not over. People who spread fear and hate [need] to be opposed. Read More

How The Father Of Soviet Pornography Became A Crusader Against “Gay Propaganda”

The story of Vladimir Linderman's transformation from anti-Kremlin sexual radical to moralist crusader who many Latvians suspect of being a Kremlin agent isn’t really about how Linderman changed his mind about homosexuality. Rather, he says his story is about how many people living in the former Soviet Union went from being desperate to escape Moscow’s rule to yearning for its patronage. It is also a tale of how Putin used that desire to co-opt some of his most committed enemies and convince many living in the former Communist world that what once seemed so exciting about the West is now what is most terrifying about it.

“I was the father of the sexual revolution, and now I’m becoming the father of the sexual counterrevolution.” Read More

Gay asylum seekers fear arrest for reporting rape in Papua New Guinea

An asylum seeker on Manus Island says he has been raped twice in detention in the past four months, but fears going to the police because he has been told he will be jailed for being homosexual. Mohammad* has reported the assaults to camp security, but lives in fear of further attacks: months after being raped – on two separate occasions by two different men – the man is still living in the same compound as his alleged attackers.

Other gay asylum seekers in the detention centre say they are regularly sexually harassed and assaulted, and have contemplated suicide if they are forced to live in the PNG community. In an interview from detention, Mohammad told Guardian Australia he is regularly sexually assaulted by fellow detainees, but is too scared to report the attacks because homosexuality is illegal in Papua New Guinea and he has been told by camp authorities he will be jailed. Read More

Rise in number of violent homophobic crimes being reported to UK police

Some of the UK’s biggest police forces have recorded a rise in the number of violent homophobic crimes this year, according to new figures.

Hundreds of assaults on gay and lesbian people have been reported to police so far in 2014 – including more than 300 in London alone. Gay rights charities said that while it was encouraging that more people were reporting hate crime, many victims felt silenced by abuse on the street. Read More

My gay life in Nigeria – Isolation, danger, & fear

Ethan Regal* tells his personal story of living in Nigeria as a gay man: "Gay people in Nigeria were invisible – constantly hiding. I know about gay men being raped and the gang rape of a lesbian – all by straight men.

This isn’t about sex or sexual orientation. It’s all about power, violence and malicious homophobic abuse. Early this year, suspected gays in the northern part of Nigeria were reportedly caught and stoned to death. The consensus is that homosexuals deserve it, and that the country needs to be cleansed." Read More