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27 Sep 2018 - NPWJ News Digest on on LGBTI rights
NPWJ press release
Letter to President Weah: Endorsing Accountability for Past Crimes at the UN General Assembly
NPWJ, 26 Sep 2018
Liberian President George Weah should show leadership at the United Nations General Assembly by announcing his government’s endorsement of justice and reparations for victims of grave crimes during the country’s civil wars, 80 nongovernmental organizations (including No Peace Without Justice) said in a letter to the president released on 20 September.
Liberian, regional, and international groups sent the letter ahead of President Weah’s expected presentation on 26 September 2018 during the high-level segment of the General Assembly in New York.
Articles
Israel Refuses to Recognize LGBT Parents Living Abroad
Haaretz, 27 Sep 2018
Another obstacle to LGBT parenthood: Haaretz has discovered that the state refuses to register two women as mothers of their children only because they live abroad, claiming that residency is a condition for granting parenthood status. Meanwhile, the children of straight couples living abroad are registered without any residency condition.
When heterosexual parents who are Israeli citizens living abroad have a baby, there is no need for a legal proceeding to register the children, who can be registered in the Israeli consulate in that country. But the state opposes granting parenthood status to lesbians living abroad. This is a new demand that requires LBGT couples to live in Israel to be registered as parents.
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Gay Rights Activists Hail UN Chief's Support for LGBT Community
VOA, 26 Sep 2018
NEW YORK — Gay rights campaigners on Wednesday hailed a speech by U.N. chief Antonio Guterres in support of the LGBT community but said words must be followed by action.
In the first address by the head of the United Nations to the U.N. LGBTI Core Group — which was established in 2008 to oversee gay rights globally — Guterres said the multinational body would boost efforts to end anti-LGBT+ abuse and violence.
Concerns are rising about a possible rollback of hard-won LGBT+ rights worldwide — from a U.S. partial ban on transgender individuals serving in the military to a recent first punishment of a Russian minor under a law against so-called gay propaganda.
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Violence against the LGBTI community: UN focuses on ‘need to challenge hatred’
UN News, 25 Sep 2018
As the United Nations celebrates 70 years since the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a high-level event on extrajudicial, summary and arbitrary killings of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or intersex (LGBTI) persons around the world, heard event moderator and Executive Director of OutRight Action International, Jessica Stern, describe the challenges facing the community as nothing short of a “global crisis”.
“It should be obvious that there are many different ways to be a human being,” UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet, told the meeting. “We need to respect and embrace these differences – not criminalize them, not attack people, not deprive them of equal rights or the protection of the law, just because they are seen as ‘different’”.
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Will the new crimes against humanity treaty protect women and LGBTI persons?
OpenDemocracy, 21 Sep 2018
If you haven’t heard about the new treaty on crimes against humanity that the United Nations has in the works, you’re not alone. Most haven't. What you should know is that if this treaty goes forward for adoption in its current draft form, only some – not all – people will be protected from crimes against humanity like massacres, rape, torture and persecution. This is because the treaty adopts an outdated definition of gender that some states will inevitably use to shirk their responsibility for addressing gender-based crimes.
We need this treaty, first of all, because it could help bring such atrocities to light and perpetrators to justice. The only permanent court in existence for prosecuting such crimes, the International Criminal Court (ICC), doesn’t have a mechanism for interstate cooperation, and few states have crimes against humanity incorporated into their domestic legislation.
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Malaysia cannot accept LGBTI rights, says Prime Minister
Gay Star News, 21 Sep 2018
Malaysia cannot accept equal marriage or LGBTI rights, the country’s Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said on Friday (21 September). It was the latest blow to the increasingly persecuted minority in Muslim-majority Malaysia. ‘In Malaysia, there are some things we cannot accept,’ Mahathir told reporters, according to local media. ‘Even though it is seen as human rights in Western countries’, he reportedly explained. The Prime Minister’s comments came as he met the Human Rights Commission of Malaysia, known as Suhakam.
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