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24 July 2014 - News Digest on LGBTI Rights
Articles
Nick Clegg: We must stand up for LGBT rights at the Commonwealth Games
By Pink News, 23 Jul 2014
Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg writes for PinkNews of the importance of standing up for LGBT rights at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow. The Commonwealth core values and principles which all Commonwealth countries sign up to are clear. They say that “We are committed to equality and respect for the protection and promotion of civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights” Yet almost 80 per cent of Commonwealth countries [42 out of 53 countries] that are represented here in Glasgow this week criminalise homosexuality in some way.
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Saudi man jailed and to receive 450 lashes over Twitter ‘homosexual contacts’
By Pink News, 23 Jul 2014
A man in Saudi Arabia has been jailed for three years and will receive 450 lashes for using his Twitter account to promote “homosexual contacts”. Gulf News reports the unnamed 24-year-old was arrested after he posted several tweets allegedly requesting to meet gay men. Saudi Arabia’s Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, otherwise known as the religious police, reportedly arrested the man using an undercover agent. It’s claimed his mobile phone was searched and several “immoral” pictures were discovered, prompting the Commission to refer his case to the public prosecution.
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US: Action to Help End LGBT Workplace Discrimination
By Human Rights Watch, 21 Jul 2014
An executive order signed by President Barack Obama on July 21, 2014, is a significant step toward ending discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender(LGBT) people in the workplace in the United States, Human Rights Watch said today. The executive order prohibits workplace discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation or gender identity by companies awarded federal contracts and outlaws discrimination based on gender identity for federal employees. The order does not include new religious exemptions, despite calls from some prominent faith leaders to include sweeping exemptions.
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Russia: “Foreign Agents” Law Hits Hundreds of NGOs: Updated July 21, 2014
By Human Rights Watch, 21 Jul 2014
In early March 2013 the Russian government launched an unprecedented, nationwide campaign of inspections of thousands of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to identify advocacy groups the government deems “foreign agents” and force them to register as such. The list below tracks the legal consequences of the law on dozens of NGOs. Since the beginning of the “foreign agents” campaign, various prosecutors’ offices and the Ministry of Justice filed nine administrative cases against NGOs and an additional five administrative cases against NGO leaders for failure to register under the “foreign agents” law. Prosecutors lost nine of these fourteen cases in courts. These were cases filed against the Perm Regional Human Rights Center, the GRANI Center for Civic Analysis and Independent Research, the Perm Civic Chamber, the Side by Side LGBT Film Festival and its director, Coming Out (an LGBT group) and its director, and the Memorial Anti-Discrimination Center and its director. The prosecutors won administrative cases against the Kostroma Center for Support of Public Initiatives and the center’s director.
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