BRUSSELS – A legal challenge has been lodged at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) to decriminalize homosexuality in Northern Cyprus – the last place in the Council of Europe where being gay is a criminal offense.
Cyprus was required by the ECHR to decriminalize consensual sex between consenting adults in 1993, but Cyprus’ division has meant many of the island’s inherited British criminal laws – including the ban on homosexuality – remain in force in the North. This is despite repeated assurances by government authorities that these laws that violate human rights law would be repealed.
International human rights law protects identity which includes the right to a sexual identity. Therefore sexual activity in private between consensual adults is protected by human rights law.
The case – against Turkey, which is responsible for protecting and promoting human rights in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) – means that Turkey, which does not criminalize homosexuality, must now defend this British colonial legacy in the TRNC.
The challenge, brought anonymously by the plaintiff because of fears he will be prosecuted, asserts that his private and family life are violated by the existence of these laws.
The case has been brought on behalf of the applicant by the Human Dignity Trust, an international organization which uses law to decriminalize homosexuality across the globe.
Commenting, human rights barrister and chief executive of the Human Dignity Trust Jonathan Cooper said, “The fact that homosexual relations remain criminalized in Northern Cyprus is a violation of international law and the rulings of the European Court of Human Rights.
“Criminalization of identity puts people beyond protection of the law. This is not an issue of gay rights but one of upholding universal human rights.”
Turkey illegally occupies the northern part of Cyprus since it invaded the island and ethically cleased it of it;s legal inhabitants in 1974, These gentlemen are living there illegally as well because they took advantage of the this situation to buy some cheap property which was stolen from their rightful owners and sold to them illegally. the rightful government of all Cyprus is the Republic of Cyprus which is the only legal entity recognized by the rest of the world besides Turkey. Turkey being an Islamic and backwards country will never recognize homosexuality. Poetic justice.
It is recognised by everyone that Turkey’s intervention in Cyprus was to stop the massacre of Turkish cypriots by the Greeks led by the criminal Grivas. The Cypriot parliament had already been taken over by the Greeks and so can not be regarded as “legitimate”. Turkey’s government is secular, not Islamic and it has decriminalised homosexuality. The government of North Cyprus has not yet done the same.
The Republic of Cyprus hardly set a good example. Despite its keenness to shake off the last vestiges of British colonial rule, the Republic of Cyprus failed to decriminalize homosexuality until 1998, and then only because its membership of the EU was threatened.
I hope the north does the right thing and scraps this antiquated crime.