In Cameroon, LGBT associations are working together as never before, signing up to create a Human Rights Observatory that will act as a watchdog against violations of the rights of LGBT people and human rights defenders. Continue reading
Monthly Archives: January 2017
Report: Lebanon court rejects anti-gay law
A court in Lebanon has ruled that homosexuality is natural and is not a criminal offense. [Contrary to an earlier version of this article, the ruling was not made by the Supreme Court in Lebanon.] For English-speakers, details of the ruling must await a translation of an Arabic-language account of the decision. But a dispatch … Continue reading
Ivory Coast: No anti-gay law, but 3 months in prison anyway
Two gay men in relatively tolerant Ivory Coast served a three-month sentence in a rural prison despite the fact that the country has no anti-gay law. The situation highlights the limitations of city-based LGBT rights activism in Ivory Coast and elsewhere in Africa, journalist Robbie Corey-Boulet writes in The Guardian. Continue reading
U.S. may welcome Ivan, a refugee from anti-gay Uganda
Shunned by his family for acting too girlish, attacked by his neighbors for being gay, Ivan Kimbugwe fled to Kenya, only to face further homophobia there. Now he has a chance to reach safety in the United States. This is his story. Continue reading
Scared, readers buy Orwell to explain ‘post-fact’ Trump
Scared and mystified by President Donald Trump, people on both sides of the Atlantic are turning to George Orwell’s 1984 and other dystopian novels for insight into what to expect from a repressive, fact-denying government. Continue reading
Anti-AIDS programs under fire in Russia, U.S., Tanzania
Anti-AIDS programs are newly at risk in many countries, including Russia, Tanzania and the United States. Continue reading
Indonesian police push anti-LGBT militant Islamic agenda
Indonesian police are working with militant Islamists to curtail the human rights of LGBT Indonesians, Human Rights Watch says. In a news dispatch, HRW reported: Continue reading
Scarred in Uganda, LGBT refugee is about to reach safety in U.S.
Scarred by beatings in Uganda, LGBT refugee Kwesigabo Simon has been approved for resettlement from Kenya to the United States. Here he tells his story: Continue reading
LGBT hopes in Africa, LGBT fears in the U.S.
On Jan. 20, as the United States inaugurated a president who might roll back advances toward LGBT justice and equality, troops thousands of miles away in West Africa were reported entering the Gambia, seeking to install the newly inaugurated president who would replace that nation’s violently anti-LGBT strongman. Continue reading
Jamaican Christians, end your hypocrisy about sex
For Dwayne Morrison, the hypocrisy was too much to bear. He decided to challenge Jamaica’s Christian fundamentalists’ silence about a new (heterosexual) sex scandal involving one of their own. For years, those same Christian conservatives have remained hot and bothered about consensual same-sex relationships, including a massive protest two years ago, when the Rev. Richard … Continue reading
