human rights

Inter-American Commission on Human Rights creates LGBTI unit to protect rights

SDGLN Staff
November 4th, 2011

WASHINGTON — During its 143rd regular session, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) decided to create a Unit on the Rights of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, and Intersex (LGBTI) Persons, in order to strengthen its capacity to protect their rights.

In recent years the IACHR has closely followed the situation of the rights of LGBTI persons, primarily through precautionary measures, hearings, country visits, and promotional activities.

VIDEO: South African TV looks at plight of LGBT refugees

SABC via LGBT Asylum News
October 28th, 2011

A man carries the scars after a gang tried to hack his arms off with pangas and another was almost murdered by his own mother. Their crime? Being gay and born in countries that view homosexuality as an abomination. They have come to South Africa for refuge in fear of such persecution.

COMMENTARY: Sexual minorities persecuted in Iran

Voice of America
October 27th, 2011

International observers were recently alarmed by reports that three men were hanged in the Iranian city of Ahvaz for a series of crimes that included engaging in sodomy.

"LGBT rights should be non-controversial," UN human rights leader tells General Assembly

United Nations
October 24th, 2011

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay on Oct. 20 presented her annual report [PDF] to the General Assembly. The written report touched on SOGI [sexual orientation and gender identity] issues in the following section of text:

Did the UN just get a LGBT rights concession from Uganda?

Paul Canning – LGBT Asylum News
October 17th, 2011

Since the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) process began in 2007 at the Human Rights Council at the United Nations it has both forced governments to defend their polices as well as actually causing them to change them.

The current UPR session has already seen two countries agree to decriminalize homosexuality.

Ugandan lesbian activist wins human rights award

Jessica Geen - Pink News
October 14th, 2011

Kasha Jacqueline Nabagesera, the Ugandan gay rights campaigner, has been honored with a prestigious human rights award.

The activist, who has risked death to speak up for other LGBT people, received the Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders in Geneva on Wednesday.

The winner of the annual award is decided by 10 human rights groups.

Nabagesera is the founder of Freedom and Roam Uganda and award organizers commended her “rare courage” in a country which punishes homosexuality severely.

Seychelles to decriminalize homosexuality, other countries say no and not yet

Paul Canning – LGBT Asylum News
October 5th, 2011

The African country of The Seychelles has agreed to decriminalise homosexuality. The agreement is part of the country's feedback to the United Nations Human Rights Council as part of the Universal Periodic Review process.

In Ghana, LGBT people come out as civil society abandons them

Paul Canning – LGBT Asylum News
October 5th, 2011

Fed up with both day after day of nasty newspaper headlines and one civil society leader after another abandoning them, last Friday Accra's gay community came out, one-by-one, at a major "straight" forum.

Ghanian blogger Graham Knight described the collective coming out as "remarkable."

Hundreds protest lesbian killings in South African province

Mike Nkalane - Sowetan Live
October 5th, 2011

CAPE TOWN, South Africa -- Hundreds of people protested outside the Western Cape legislature on Tuesday over the cases of 10 lesbians who were raped and murdered in the province.

The perpetrators have allegedly never been successfully prosecuted.

Sexual Minorities Uganda, Frank Mugisha win Rafto Prize for human rights

Ken Williams - SDGLN Editor in Chief
September 29th, 2011

OSLO, Norway – The annual Rafto Prize for human rights was today awarded to Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG) and its leader Frank Mugisha for working to promote the rights of LGBT people in Uganda.

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