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12 Jan 2012 - NPWJ News Digest on LGBTI Rights
Articles
Muslims posted 'nasty and frightening' anti-gay leaflets demanding homosexuals 'turn or burn'
By Nick Britten, The Telegraph, 10 Jan 2012
Five Muslim men distributed “threatening, frightening and nasty” leaflets depicting gay men being executed in an attempt to encourage hatred against homosexuals, a court has heard. In the first prosecution of its kind after legislation covering hate crimes were amended in 2010 to take into account homophobia, the men are accused of stirring up hatred due to sexual orientation.
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Malaysian gay rights activists challenge government in court to quash ban on arts festival
By Washington Post, 10 Jan 2012
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia. Activists launched a rare legal case Tuesday aimed at fostering gay rights in Malaysia by challenging a police ban on an anti-homophobia arts festival.
The case highlights complaints about discrimination against gays at a time when international rights groups are urging authorities in Muslim-majority Malaysia to abolish laws criminalizing same-sex relations.
Liberia: Gay Rights vs Western Aid
by AllAfrica.com, 10 Jan 2012
Liberia is well noted for making rare history in Africa. It is the first country on the continent that announced independence without being colonized; it elected the first female President in Africa, and allowed a high school dropout football star to become a presidential candidate.
Now the country is on the way to holding Africa spellbound with campaign emerging, for the legalization of gay and lesbian rights, barely a month after western countries, particularly Britain and the United States announced that aid to Africa would be tied to African governments legalizing homosexuality or same sex marriage, a call that has received unreserved condemnations from several governments in sub-Saharan Africa, particularly Nigeria and Ghana.
Mohammad Javad Larijani, Iran Human Rights Official, Calls Homosexuality 'A Disease'
By Huffington Post, 09 Jan 2012
International lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights advocates are outraged after an Iranian human rights official slammed homosexuality as a "disease," and implied that same-sex marriage was "immoral."
As Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty is reporting, Iranian High Council for Human Rights Secretary-General Mohammad Javad Larijani made the offending remarks during a Tehran visit by German lawmaker Tom Koenigs. "The West says that the marriage of homosexuals should be allowed under the human rights charter," he is quoted as saying. "However, we think it is sexual immorality and a disease."
United Arab Emirates persecution of LGBT protested
By LGBT Asylum News, 07 Jan 2012
A group called Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual & Transexual Rights UAE has presented an open letter to representatives of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in London as well as to the Canadian PM and UNHCHR.
The letter details examples of the persecution of LGBT people in the UAE. It particularly targets the Emirates Psychological Association and says that "belief in God cannot be an excuse for oppressing and terrorizing citizens."
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