UK: Nigerian Lesbian Loses Asylum Battle, Faces Deportation

Prominent United Kingdom-based Nigerian lesbian and gay rights activist, Aderonke Apata, had her lengthy legal tussle to claim asylum in the country thrown out of the highest court of the land, the Royal Courts of Justice – after a judge ruled that she was pretending to be lesbian.

A Home Office barrister argued last month that Ms Apata cannot be a lesbian as she has children. He claimed that while she “indulged in same-sex activity” she was not “part of the social group known as lesbians”.

Ms Apata, 47, came to Britain in 2004 and has won awards for her gay-rights campaigning. She is engaged to her long-term partner Happiness Agboro, also from Nigeria, who has already been granted asylum based on her sexuality.  Read More

Russia: Court authorizes closure of LGBT teen support group's website

A court in St. Petersburg has authorized the government to block the social-network page of an online support group for LGBT teenagers in Russia.

A lawyer for Deti-404 (Children-404), Maria Kozlovskaya said that the group had been preparing for a court hearing on the issue on April 6.

But when the activists arrived in court on April 6, she said, they were told that a decision had already been made on March 25 to include the group's page on the social network VKontakte on a list of banned websites.  Read More

European Court Rules Turkey Cannot Make Sterilization A Requirement For Gender Reassignment

Europe’s top human rights court ruled Tuesday against the government of Turkey in a case brought by a trans man who was denied the right to gender reassignment surgery unless he agreed to be sterilized.

Twenty countries of the 47 states that signed the human rights charter that created the Strasbourg-based European Court of Human Rights impose sterilization as a requirement for people seeking legal gender change, according to the org. Transgender Europe. Tuesday’s ruling, which is technically binding on the courts of member states, comes as several European countries are overhauling their gender identity laws to give more control over gender identity to individuals.

“It’s absolutely thrilling and important to have this judgement now,” said Richard Köhler, Transgender Europe’s senior policy officer. Read More

Turkey: Council of State rules firings of gay teacher against the law

The Council of State has ruled that the dismissal of a teacher who has homosexual relations in their private life to be against the law. The Council of State has pointed to the lack of evidence, indication or witnesses to show that the plaintiff reflected homosexual tendencies in the school or engaged in such relations with students outside of the school.  Read More 

Germany: Court fines father who ‘tried to marry gay son off to Lebanese girl’

A court in Germany has handed out fines to the father and two uncles of a gay teenager after they abducted him and tried to marry him off to a Lebanese girl against his will. After a five-minute hearing in Berlin, the father and uncles were each fined 1,350 euros in absentia for depriving a minor his personal freedom by abducting him and taking him abroad.

Nasser El-Ahmad was 15 when he revealed to his family he was homosexual. The 18-year-old also alleges that he was subject to verbal threats and physical violence. The Berlin court did not handle these separate allegations of torture, but the abduction occurred after Nasser was put into care having run away from home.

Nasser, unlike the accused, was present at the hearing and wore a badge marked “STOP HOMOPHOBIA”. He told reporters afterwards: “At least this came to court and I am happy for that. I’m not someone who hides. I don’t want to suppress my homosexuality.” Read More 

Taiwan: Lesbian fights court over baby rights

A lesbian in Taiwan who was told that she could not adopt the children she parents with her partner because it would have a “negative impact” on them will appeal the landmark case. It is the first time that a lesbian has tried to adopt children her partner had through artificial insemination and comes as public support grows for gay rights and same-sex marriage in Taiwan, one of Asia’s more liberal societies.

Under Taiwanese law, the unmarried partner of a birth mother is not allowed to adopt their child — but the couple had applied as a “de facto” married couple, saying that they want to wed but are barred as same-sex marriages are illegal. Read More 

India: Snapdeal has just been taken to court for selling vibrators

A Delhi lawyer has just taken e-commerce giant Snapdeal to court for selling sex accessories because he wants to test the limits of India’s anti-homosexuality law. Suhaas Joshi, an advocate at India’s Supreme Court, has filed a complaint for abetting gay sex and for exhibiting obscene products. 

Joshi’s complaint, explains that products—such as anal lubes and massagers that are shaped like the male phallus—violate the section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, along with other acts such as section 292, 292 A, 293 and 294 which prohibit obscenity in public. 

Section 377 is the controversial anti-gay Indian law that criminalises any intercourse that is “against the order of nature.” The Delhi high court had earlier decriminalised the act, but India’s Supreme Court subsequently overturned the decision and has left it to the Indian parliament to take a decision on repealing section 377. Read More

Egypt: TV journalist faces trial over raid on 'gay' bathhouse

An Egyptian TV journalist will face trial for defamation and spreading false news after she orchestrated a raid on an alleged gay bathhouse in Cairo.

Mona Iraqi tipped off police before entering 'the den of male sex' on the night of 7 December. She filmed as 33 men were arrested and paraded naked out of the bathhouse. The footage was then broadcast on al-Qahira wal Nas news and made international headlines.

Twenty-six men, including the bathhouse owner and four employees, were tried for debauchery but cleared due to lack of evidence after undergoing humiliating anal exams. Read More

South Africa: Owners of gay 'cure' camp found guilty of killing teen

In 2013, 15-year-old Raymond Buys died after he was kept chained to his bed, beaten with planks and hoses at a training camp that boasted of "making men" out of its young recruits. In in 2007, 25-year-old Erich Calitz died from severe brain injuries and 19-year-old Nicholas van der Walt died at the same training camp.

Now “death camp” commander Alex de Koker's “pathetic” and “absurd” testimony has seen him branded a murderer. Read More

UK: Nigeria lesbian fleeing sharia court death sentence seeks asylum

A judge has adjourned court following an intense hearing of the highly publicized case of Aderonke Apata, a Nigerian lesbian fighting for asylum in the UK. The 47-year-old gay rights advocate and award-winner came to Britain from Nigeria in 2004 seeking asylum on religious grounds after her brother and 3-year-old son were murdered and she was sentenced to death.

Among their arguments prosecutors have denied her sexual identity, while her defense team has promised that she is ready to "debase herself to provide 'evidence' of a sexual nature." 

Protestors from around the world gathered in London to rally at the hearing. Just one petition calling for Apata's safety has over 230,000 signatures. Read More

Navajo Nation: Tlingit and Haida tribal council adopts statute allowing same-sex marriage

In a unanimous vote Friday, the Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska’s Executive Council adopted a new statute that allows same-sex couples to marry under tribal law.

“We are pleased to expand our Tribal Court to meet the needs of our tribal citizens,” said Tribal Court Chief Justice Debra O’Gara in a prepared statement. ”Our court can now be utilized by tribal citizens for the happy occasion of marriage without discrimination and regardless of gender.” Read More

Mexico’s quiet marriage equality revolution

Courts in more than two-thirds of Mexico’s 31 states have granted same-sex couples the right to marry over the past two years in a series of rulings that will likely make marriage equality a reality nationwide in the near future.

The wave of rulings throughout Mexico hasn’t caused the uproar that has followed rulings in the United States over the past year striking down state laws barring same-sex couples from marrying. Couples have not rushed to marry nor have conservatives organized major protests.
This is in part because the technicalities of Mexican law have meant these decisions have been much more narrow in their immediate impact. Each decision applies only to the individuals who have brought the cases, and other same-sex couples will still have to sue in order to marry.   Read More