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| The State Department report on human rights details anti-gay abuses around the world. The nations with the most egregious records are highlighted here.
Some critics said the United States should improve its own record regarding anti-gay discrimination. In the U.S., it is legal under federal law to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity in employment. Sodomy was criminalized in some states until 2003. President Bush has repeatedly called for a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage and similar bans have already passed in numerous states.
1.) Uganda: Last July, the government of Uganda approved a constitutional amendment banning equal marriage rights for gays. Consensual homosexual sex can be punished by life in prison.
2.) Iran: People with HIV face discrimination in employment and at school. Intercourse between two men is punishable by death and homosexual acts that do not involve intercourse are punishable by 100 lashes. Two young men, at least one a minor, were executed in Mashad in July, some claim, for being gay. Two more men were executed for being gay last November.
3.) Egypt: While Egyptian officials claims that homosexuality is not illegal, Human Rights Watch says that it is. Egyptian law prohibits fujur, which courts have interpreted to mean "homosexual relations between men." Rights groups have documented hundreds of cases in which gay men were arrested and tortured. Men are subjected to abusive anal examinations.
4.) Saudi Arabia: Some gays who are convicted of homosexuality are flogged with 2,000 lashings, according to Ariel Herrera of Amnesty International’s OUTFront program. Gay men have been beheaded in public squares for the crime of consensual homosexual sex.
5.) Nigeria: Homosexuality is outlawed in the Nigerian penal code and Muslim law. However, in northern states under Muslim law the punishment can be death; in the civil penal code homosexuality can carry up to a 14-year prison sentence. The numbers of people arrested and sentenced for sodomy are unknown. A new law forbids same-sex marriage and prohibits gays from assembling and petitioning the government. It also allows prosecution of newspapers that publish information about same-sex relationships and religious groups that allow same-sex unions. Those who violate the law can be sentenced to five years in prison.
6.) United Arab Emirates: Civil and Muslim law criminalize homosexuality in the UAE. Last November, 26 gay men were arrested and reportedly given hormone treatments and therapy.
7.) Cameroon: Last May, 17 men were arrested for homosexuality. Twelve were charged and detained. The suspects were given a "medical examination" to find evidence of homosexual conduct, the State Department reported, citing IGLHRC as the source of the information.
8.) Poland: "Right wing groups attempted on several occasions to disrupt Gay Pride marches," states the report. In 2005 Warsaw Mayor Lech Kaczynski, who is now Poland’s president, denied Gay Pride groups the right to march because he "would not allow the promotion of gay culture," the report states. However the marchers assembled anyway and spoke about discrimination they faced.
9.) Nepal: While homosexuality is not criminalized, government authorities harass and abuse gays and transgender people. In April, police attacked 18 transgender women who were on their way to a festival.
10.) India: Violation of India’s sodomy law is punishable by up to 10 years in prison. The sodomy law is often used to harass and detain AIDS prevention workers and gays.
Sources: Human Rights Watch, State Dept. report on human rights abuses
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HOME > NEWS > NATIONAL NEWS
By: ELIZABETH WEILL-GREENBERG
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The latest U.S. State Department human rights report has some gay activists calling on the government to heed its own advice and impose sanctions on countries that target gay citizens with abuse.
Each year, the State Department issues a human rights report detailing abuse committed by foreign governments, including abuse motivated by victims’ sexual orientation and gender identity.
Gay rights advocates applauded the 2005 report, released last week, for its detailing of anti-gay abuses committed in a range of countries, including Iran, Poland, Brazil and the United Arab Emirates.
"I was glad to see [the report] talked about issues of discrimination," said Scott Long, director of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Rights program at Human Rights Watch.
Past reports, he said, "were willing to address egregious persecution but not everyday life."
The violations detailed in the report range from criminalizing homosexuality in Nigeria to banning gay rights parades in Warsaw, Poland, to the murders of gay rights and AIDS activists in Jamaica.
The report also criticized Nigeria for health care and employment discrimination against HIV-positive people. The public, the report stated, believes HIV is "a result of immoral behavior."
The United Arab Emirates, recently in the news because of the attempted takeover of some U.S. port operations by the UAE-owned company Dubai Ports World, criminalizes homosexuality. The UAE was cited in the State Department report for arresting 26 gay men and reportedly giving them hormone treatments to change their sexual orientation.
While homosexuality is not illegal in Nepal, the report states, police still harass and abuse gays.
It is unclear what criterion is used to define abuse, as some human rights violations-—-like criminalizing sodomy-—-were the law of the land in a dozen U.S. states until a Supreme Court decision in 2003.
The State Department declined comment on the report.
The report’s inclusiveness of gay-related abuse can help asylum seekers who must prove persecution based on sexual orientation or gender identity in their home country, said Chris Nugent, a D.C. attorney who specializes in gay asylum cases.
The report "is a vital source of information concerning treatment," said Nugent. "It’s relied on by immigration adjudicators as evidence of human rights conditions abroad."
While the report may help asylum seekers, it is less clear what it will mean for U.S. domestic policy and relationships with other countries. The State Department is required by law to issue the reports, which are supposed to help determine funding granted to foreign countries, said Elisa Massimino, D.C. director of Human Rights First, a human rights advocacy group.
Countries with egregious records of human rights violations are not supposed to receive certain types of aid, she said.
"The consequences are what the U.S. government makes of them," said Human Rights Watch’s Long, who claimed his group helped compile some of the anti-gay abuses chronicled in the report.
The report’s inclusiveness of gay rights, Long said, "stands in conspicuous contrast to the vote at the U.N."
The U.S. recently sided with Iran and Cameroon to block two gay rights groups from having consultative status at the U.N., which allows involvement in discussions with member countries. Nearly 3,000 groups have consultative status, according to Human Rights Watch.
The report "doesn’t seem to conform with the administration’s own record," agreed Paula Ettelbrick, executive director of the International Gay & Lesbian Human Rights Commission.
While the report acknowledges the egregiousness of anti-gay abuses, Ettelbrick said, "the bad news is [the U.S.] doesn’t seem to be applying that standard to the U.S. government."
"The State Department report is enlightening but it won’t be effective if the U.S. government keeps siding with abusers like Iran in supporting silencing human rights watchers," HRC President Joe Solmonese said in a statement.
"Countries like the U.A.E. are abusing men and women and the best the U.S. government can do is give them a multimillion dollar contract to manage our ports," he said. "We should be demanding accountability for human rights violations, not simply turning a blind eye toward the problem."
There also is the problem of credibility because of the United States’ own human rights record, which is absent from the report, several activists noted.
In the past year there has been international outcry over U.S. policies to torture and indefinitely detain suspects, as well as the policy of "rendition," or sending a foreign suspect to a third ...
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