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

UK: LGBT asylum seekers face ‘bullying’ and ‘abuse’ in British detention centres

A cross-party group of MPs and peers has criticised the treatment of LGBT asylum seekers detained in immigration detention centres across the UK. The criticism is included in a joint inquiry into the use of immigration detention by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Refugees and the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Migration.

“We were extremely concerned to hear that LGBTI detainees face bullying, harassment and abuse inside detention centres,” the report states. “This is not acceptable."

The inquiry demands a fundamental change in the way that immigration detention is used in the UK and calls for a 28 day time limit on the length of time anyone can be held in immigration detention. The UK is one of only a few countries in the Council of Europe that has no upper time limit, meaning people can be detained for months or years. Read More

Arctic Pride - with joy and pride on behalf of equality

Organized for the third time Arctic Pride parade on Saturday attracted hundreds of participants. The organizers according to preliminary estimates of participants was about five hundred, the police parade, the population was estimated at about half smaller. 

Arctic Pride event is of great importance not only to sexual and gender minorities Lappish, but also the image of a matter of the entire region. Read More

Arctic Pride lights up Lapland

Lapland’s LGBTI community took to the streets over the weekend for the region’s annual Pride celebrations.  Arctic Pride, which takes place in Lapland’s commercial centre, Rovaniemi, was set up to provide a safe place for sexual and gender minorities to meet in one of Europe’s most northern cities, which lies just six miles from the Arctic Circle. 

The weekend offered attendees the chance to get a taste of LGBT theater, music, exhibitions and work shops, as well as the opportunity to take part in a Pride parade through the streets of Rovaniemi.  Read More

Kenya: Gay Rwandan refugee assaulted, blackmailed

A gay Rwandan refugee was brutally attacked and blackmailed in Pipeline estate. According to the victim, who cannot be named as his asylum process is underway, he was attacked by 5 men after meeting and agreeing to visit one of them in a house in Pipeline estate, Embakasi. Read More

India: Pride Parade Amid Fears Created by Return of Law That Bans Gay Sex

Hundreds of people turned out for Mumbai's annual Pride Parade on Saturday, demanding equality and rights for the LGBT community in India.

Wearing an array of outfits, participants danced under huge rainbow flags and carried multi-colored balloons through neighborhoods of India's financial capital chanting "Homophobia Bharat chorro," a slogan that translates in English to "Homophobia get lost from India." Read More

UK: Caseworkers ‘must not stereotype’ gay asylum seekers

The Home Office has published new guidance on the treatment of sexual identity issues in asylum claims following last year’s critical report by Borders and Immigration Chief Inspector John Vine.

The guidance states that Home Office caseworkers must conduct “a sensitive enquiry into the development and exploration of the claimant’s sexual identity and the extent to which it is relevant to the assessment of the need for protection. It should not be an enquiry into any explicit sexual activity.” Read More

Asylum seeker must prove he is gay to stay in the UK

A man who is seeking asylum in the UK has told how he must “prove” his claim to be gay in order to remain in his Leicester home.  John Ssenkindu fears he could be jailed for life or killed if he is forced to return to Uganda – a country with notoriously homophobic laws.

In 2013, more than 20,000 people applied for asylum in the UK. Of those cases, a total of 283 people did so on the grounds they were gay or bisexual and faced persecution. Of those cases, 113 people were granted asylum. People who were refused leave to remain in the UK tended to be from countries where the Home Office believed they could live “discreetly” or because officials did not believe the applicants’ claims about their sexual orientation. Read More

Embrace Diversity Festival 2014 honors LGBT community in Vietnam

Around a thousand LGBT people and their allies on Sunday flocked to HCMC's Labor Culture Palace in District 1 for the event titled “Embrace Diversity Festival 2014.”  The “Ngày hội Tôn Vinh Sự Đa Dạng 2014” was held by ICS Center, an organization supporting LGBT (lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender) community’s rights in Vietnam.  Read More

Thousands march in first Quezon City pride

More than 4,000 members and supporters of the LGBTI community took to the streets of Quezon City on Saturday (13 December) for the city’s first pride parade. The event commemorated the 20th anniversary of the first pride in the Philippines and was a ‘pet project’ of the recently formed Quezon City Pride Council (QCPC).

‘Our main goal is to deliver the message of equality,’ Jeffklein Glodove, secretariat of QCPC told GMA News Online. ‘QCPC defines equality in all aspect of life. Equality in the workplace, social services, and delivery of goods without any discrimination regardless of gender identity and sexual orientation.’ Read More

25 Powerful Pictures From India’s Largest Gay Pride Parade Since Section 377 Was Reinstated

In December 2013, India’s Supreme Court overthrew a 2009 ruling by the Delhi High Court that had decriminalised gay sex, effectively making homosexual sex illegal. On November 30, New Delhi saw the largest demonstration of gay pride since said ruling, and since Narendra Modi became Prime Minister of India. Below are some of the parade’s most poignant images. See more