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04 Oct 2018 - NPWJ News Digest on on LGBTI rights
Articles
Lebanon: Security Forces Try to Close LGBT Conference
Human Rights Watch, 04 Oct 2018
Lebanese General Security officers unlawfully attempted to shut down a conference on the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people on September 29, 2018, Human Rights Watch said today. Human Rights Watch staff members were among the participants at NEDWA, a conference organized by the Arab Foundation for Freedoms and Equality (AFE), a group that works to advance LGBT and other human rights. General Security is an intelligence branch of Lebanese security forces and is the agency that oversees the entry and exit of foreigners into the country.
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Ukraine: Address Attacks against Activists and Human Rights Defenders
Human Rights Watch, 03 Oct 2018
More than 50 attacks on activists and human rights defenders in Ukraine have been recorded by local human rights organizations in just the last nine months, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Freedom House and Frontline Defenders said today. Those under attack include people working to defend the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people, protect the environment, and campaign against corruption. The organizations criticized the lack of effective investigations into these incidents and of prosecutions of those responsible, which heightens the risk to human rights defenders and sends a message that the authorities tolerate such attacks and assaults.
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U.S. Bans Diplomatic Visas for Foreign Same-Sex Domestic Partners
The Guardian, 02 Oct 2018
The Trump administration will no longer issue family visas to same-sex domestic partners of foreign diplomats or employees of international organizations who work in the United States, State Department officials said on Tuesday. The shift drew sharp criticism from gay rights advocates, including those who work for the United Nations and could be affected. It also applies to people working in the United States for the World Bank, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and other groups.
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Lesbian 'witches' chained and raped by families in Cameroon
Reuters, 02 Oct 2018
From South Africa to India and Ecuador, gay people are subjected to ‘corrective rape’ by their families, strangers and vigilantes who believe that homosexuality is a mental illness that needs to be ‘cured’. Sometimes it is done under the cover of darkness or when the pounding of rain on tin roofs muffles the screams, gay Cameroonians told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. Other times, it is arranged by family members who regularly take the law into their own hands, torturing, raping and murdering gay and lesbian relatives that they are convinced are witches or have been cursed.
Romania's vote to rule out same sex marriage stirs hate, say LGBT groups
Reuters, 02 Oct 2018
Gay bar owner and novelist Alex Andronic fears a referendum this weekend in Romania that aims to prevent same sex couples ever securing the right to marry not only darkens his future, it will also stir an intolerable level of hate and discrimination. Romania does not allow marriage or civil partnerships for same sex couples. Nonetheless, the country will vote on whether to narrow the constitutional definition of marriage from a union of spouses to one between a man and a woman. The referendum, which needs a 30 percent turnout rate was brought by a civil society group called the Coalition for the Family, which said the gender-neutral term “spouse” could see gay couples win the right to marry in the future.
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