Hong Kong: Gay woman challenges Hong Kong in landmark trial

Hong Kong bills itself as Asia's World City, a cutting-edge metropolis that effortlessly fuses the traditional and the modern. But on the subject of rights for sexual minorities, gay rights activists say the city is firmly stuck in the past. The High Court will hear a landmark judicial review challenge by QT, a British lesbian woman who is accusing the Immigration Department of discrimination.

She moved to Hong Kong in 2011 when her partner accepted a technology job. The couple are in a civil partnership in the UK and she applied for a dependant visa, granted to the husbands and wives of expatriates working in Hong Kong. Such a visa allows the bearer to work, to access public medical services and provides a path to permanent residency. But applications to the Immigration Department proved unsuccessful, because officials refused to recognise her UK-registered civil partnership. Read More

European Court of Human Rights: “Gender Identity” Protected Against Discrimination

In Identoba and Others v. Georgia, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) clarified that all trans people are protected against discrimination on grounds of gender identity under art. 14 of the Convention (ECHR). This is an important and awaited step.

On the occasion of IDAHOT in 2012, Georgian activists held a peaceful march in Tbilisi. When counter-demonstrators were attacking them, brutally assaulting and beating them, the police failed to protect the activists adequately. Therefore, the ECtHR condemned Georgia for degrading and inhuman treatment in a discriminatory manner.

The court says clearly that especially in a homo- and transphobic society the state has a “compelling positive obligation” to protect the LGBT community against such (foreseeable) discriminatory inhuman and degrading treatment and if such attacks happen it has to unmask the discriminatory motive behind the violence and brutality. For the whole LGBT community this is a significant judgment. Read More

Zambia: High Court confirms acquittal of HIV activist, Paul Kasonkomna

Paul Kasonkomona was arrested after he appeared on a MuviTV programme where he spoke about the need to recognise the rights of vulnerable groups such as LGBT persons and sex workers in order to comprehensively address the HIV pandemic. Kasonkomona was charged under section 178(g) of the Penal Code with the idle and disorderly offence of soliciting in a public place for immoral purposes. 

After his initial acquittal, the State appealed, arguing that it was justifiable to limit the right to freedom of expression where persons expressed their views on the rights of LGBT persons. However, High Court Justice Mulongoti confirmed the 2014 ruling that the State did not present sufficient evidence on all the elements of the offence.

“The judgment of the High Court is important because it confirms that it is not unlawful to lobby for law and policy reform and for the protection of the rights of marginalised groups,” says Anneke Meerkotter, from SALC. “It in unacceptable that the State doggedly pursued criminal prosecution of a human rights activist when they never had any evidential basis for such persecution.The outcome of this case is a victory for freedom of expression in Zambia.” Read More

Gay marriage friends, foes spar outside U.S. Supreme Court

After camping out for days, the scene was raucous outside the columned, white marble edifice, with the combined crowd from both sides of the issue estimated at more than a thousand gathered for the court's historic arguments on whether the U.S. Constitution guarantees a right to same-sex marriage.  Read More

US: Supreme Court hears same-sex marriage arguments

The United States Supreme Court heard arguments on Tuesday in Obergefell v. Hodges, a case that could determine whether same-sex marriage is a constitutional right. Justices appear to be divided, with Justice Anthony Kennedy returning to a familiar role as the court's pivotal vote. Speculation is that the case will come down to a 5-4 decision in favor of same-sex couples’ marriage rights. The court scheduled an extraordinary 2 1/2 hours of argument over the case and a decision is expected to come this June. 

Media coverage of the case has been equally split with some heralding success for marriage equality and others cautioning that the court remains divided. 

"I think it went really well," said Marc Solomon, national campaign director for the group Freedom to Marry. "What's so clear to me is how completely bankrupt our opponent's arguments are." Meanwhile opponents of same-sex marriage were buoyed because they believed the judges seemed skeptical of "redefining marriage."

Marriage Equality Arguments First Reaction: Ginsburg Strikes, Kennedy Wavers

Hear/Read excerpts from the case

Russia: Anti-gay gang from Barnaul faces criminal charges over sexual assault and torture of teenager

Four young people from 16 to 20 years old, residents of Barnaul, a city in the West Siberian Plain and the administrative center of Altai Krai, calling themselves “fighters against same-sex love,” are to stand in trial on charges of crimes committed against a 16 year old teenager under several articles of the Criminal Code: beating, sexual assault, extortion, robbery.

At the end of January 2015, an unnamed 16-year-old boy met became friends with a 20-year-old young man via social media. The two agreed to meet in person. When the teenager arrived, gang members attacked him, beat, and sexually assaulted the boy. Read More

Russia: Court won't reinstate fired lesbian teacher

A district court in St. Petersburg refused to reinstate a lesbian music teacher who was fired in December from a local school for “immoral conduct.” The teacher sued the school, seeking reinstatement to her job and 300,000 rubles (roughly $6,000) in compensation for moral damage. In its ruling, the court drew from an expert evaluation of the teacher’s photos from social networks.

The dismissal of the teacher was the result of efforts from anti-gay activist Timur Isaev, who was engaged in “forced outing.” This means he searched for lesbians and gay people on social networks and reported them to their employers. At least 29 teachers were dismissed as a result of his activities before he was arrested on charges of embezzlement.

Isaev repeatedly appealed to the principal of the school, demanding that the teacher be dismissed. In firing the teacher, her principal mention the the social media photos, given to him on a CD by Isaev.  Read More 

France: Possible ease ban on gay men giving blood after ECJ ruling

France could loosen its ban on gay men giving blood after the European court of justice ruled in favour of adopting less restrictive measures than excluding all gay men who have ever had sex.

France’s ban on gay men giving blood has been criticised by rights groups as discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation. Any potential male blood donor in France who admits ever having had sex with a man is automatically and permanently banned from giving blood. The ban came into force in 1983 because it was deemed that gay men were more likely than other groups to have HIV.

The ECJ has ruled that EU governments may be justified in banning gay men from donating blood but only under strict conditions. The court found that France’s law was “liable to discriminate against male homosexuals on the basis of sexual orientation”, which is against EU policy. Read More

South African Court declares religion no excuse to discriminate

In a groundbreaking settlement the Equality Court in Cape Town has agreed that owners of a guesthouse cannot use their religious beliefs to turn away gay customers.

Neil Coulson and his husband Jonathan Sedgwick were denied accommodation in November 2013 by the House of Bread because their sexual orientation was in conflict with the owners’ Christian views. The men, who are Christians themselves, wanted to be in the area to be near their son who was going to attend a school camp. They were humiliatingly told that the venue was “not gay friendly.”

This week the case was finally settled in the Equality Court, with the owners apologising for their actions and promising to not discriminate against LGBT people in future, failing which they will be in contempt of court. Triangle Project, the Cape Town based LGBT rights group, applauded the settlement for “protecting LGBTI rights from religious discrimination.”  Read More

Kenya: Court rules that Kenyan government can’t block gay rights groups

The National Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, has fought a long-running legal battle after being blocked from registering as an NGO – leaving them without a number of legal protections. The NGLHRC has had its application to register as an NGO blocked five times since 2012 – with a Non-Governmental Organizations Coordination Board finding that the name of the organisation was “unacceptable” as the Kenyan Penal Code criminalises “gay and lesbian liaisons”.

However, the High Court set a ground-breaking precedent in a ruling today, which found that the groups should be permitted – and that popular morality and religion should not be basis for limiting rights in Kenya. The panel of three judges found that blocking such groups violated Article 36 of the country’s Constitution, which provides Freedom of Association.

Eric Gitari of NGLHRC said: “This judgement from the constitutional court is ground breaking; it marks a historic momentum towards the inclusion of sexual and gender minorities into the Kenyan democratic space." Read more via Buzzfeed

Egypt: Deport me!

After the court ruled it is legal to deport LGBT people from Egypt, the story went viral abroad. It’s strange because LGBT Egypt has not been in the international news much for months. When you deal with the media, you get used to its collective movements, puzzling as tidal motions when it’s too cloudy to see the moon, or the startled shuddering of gazelles racing in unison through tall grass.

But other terrible things happened here recently. A man acquitted on charges of homosexuality tried to burn himself to death in despair. Police arrested an accused “shemale,” splaying her photos on the Internet. Egypt’s government threatened to close a small HIV/AIDS NGO because it gave safer-sex info to gay men. None of these got such press. The contrast is striking.

I learn three things from all this. First: our attention span isn’t what it used to be. The attention span of news consumers, and activists among them, shrivels; and that’s a problem. Read More 

US: In depth, How the religious right is conspiring to put discrimination back into law.

In 1983, in Oregon, two men were fired from their jobs as substance abuse counselors after they were discovered to be taking peyote. The drug counselors applied for unemployment benefits, but the state rejected their claim, citing work-related misconduct as taking peyote is illegal in Oregon. But the men were both members of the Native American Church, where peyote is used in religious ceremony, and the Oregon Court of Appeals reversed the decision, stating that to deny the men unemployment benefits based on the religious use of a controlled substance violated the men’s First Amendment right to free expression of religion. 

Oregon appealed, and the case went to the U.S. Supreme Court twice. The final 5-4 decision, in 1990, ruled in favor of the state and against religion. Simply put, the court said, if people are allowed to pull the God card when they break a law, absolute anarchy awaits everyone. “To permit this would be to make the professed doctrines of religious belief superior to the law of the land, and in effect to permit every citizen to become a law unto himself,” the decision read.

It’s difficult to imagine Justice Scalia would have felt the same had the case involved something like underage Catholics drinking wine at communion rather than Native Americans using peyote. The Smith decision was widely decried as a devastating blow to First Amendment rights and jolted all sides of the political spectrum into action. As a response, in 1993, New York Democratic congressman Chuck Schumer introduced the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). Read More