LOS ANGELES, Calif. – International human rights groups launched a global campaign today to support the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex community in Indonesia. Increasing homophobic and transphobic rhetoric by political and religious leaders has caused growing hostility toward members of the LGBTI community in Indonesia, the world’s fourth largest country by population. The…
A harrowing 65-page report made public this week by Human Rights Watch paints a terrifying picture of police corruption aimed squarely at gay men in this small, landlocked Asian nation of 5.5 million people. Entitled They Said We Deserved This: Police Violence Against Gay and Bisexual Men in Kyrgyzstan, the report details a pattern of physical,…
YAOUNDÉ, Cameroon – Activist and journalist Eric Ohena Lembembe has been found dead at his home in Yaoundé. Lembembe, executive director of the Cameroonian Foundation for AIDS (CAMFAIDS), was an outspoken activist who defended the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) people. According to Human Rights Watch, Lembembe’s friends discovered his body…
(CNN) – A Cameroon appeals court upheld a sentence against a man convicted of homosexuality for texting his male friend to say, “I’m very much in love with you.” Roger Mbede, a university student, was arrested in March last year after the man who received the message tipped off authorities, Human Rights Watch said. A…
BUDAPEST, Hungary – The Human Rights Watch (HRW) has urged Budapest police to immediately revoke their decision to refuse planners of the 2012 Pride march permission to pursue their chosen route. In a news release on their Web site, HRW said that the march, scheduled for July 7, should be allowed to go ahead as…
YAOUNDÉ, Cameroon – Authorities in Cameroon have illegally shut down a human rights workshop in Yaoundé that was to include discussion of the rights of LGBT people and arrested one of the workshop organizers. According to Human Rights Watch, the action violated rights to freedom of assembly and expression under both Cameroonian and international law….
