Author: Cécile Pillon-Hue

Tony Abbott jets to US to address abortion and gay-marriage opponents Alliance Defending Freedom

Fresh from giving new hope to disaffected conservative Liberals by staying in federal politics, Tony Abbott will fly to the United States on Tuesday to gee-up one of the religious right’s most reactionary bodies, the Alliance Defending Freedom.

Mr Abbott, who is being accompanied by wife Margie, will give a speech on the topic of “the importance of family” to the pro-Christian, Republican-aligned lobby, which opposes abortion, wants to end gay marriage and is pushing to roll back some feminist advances.

he speech comes as the primary race for the presidential nomination approaches fever pitch, with contenders on the Republican side scrambling to secure the overwhelmingly Christian “Tea Party” base.

The Alliance Defending Freedom’s founding president, Alan Sears, is a regular conservative voice on Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News channel and co-authored the 2003 book, The Homosexual Agenda: Exposing the Principal Threat to Religious Liberty Today.

With Craig Osten, Sears argued that America’s growing tolerance of homosexuality was being achieved through the indoctrination of children, tacit support of corporate America, and through “positive” television depictions of alternative family structures.

 

By Mark Kenny
Read the full article on the Sydney Morning Herald website

Parliament urges Member States to speak out for LGBTI Rights at UN Human Rights Council

In a resolution adopted today, the European Parliament has expressed its concern regarding “discriminatory laws and practices and acts of violence against individuals on the basis of their sexual orientation and gender identity.”

The adopted text is a recommendation from the Parliament to EU Member States to speak out for LGBTI people at the United Nations Human Rights Council.

The Parliament specifically expresses its concern over the situation of human rights defenders, which are in many states faced with unfair and restrictive legislation, such as the infamous Foreign Agents law in Russia.

In particular, it asks for increased support to LGBTI human rights defenders, who are additionally targeted through so-called anti-propaganda laws, which seek to obstruct the work of LGBTI civil society organisations.

Such laws are currently in place in Russia, Algeria, Nigeria as well as Lithuania, and under discussion in Kyrgyzstan.

Furthermore, MEPs reaffirmed their support for the work of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Reacting to the vote, Tanja Fajon MEP, Vice-President of the European Parliament’s LGBTI Intergroup, said: “The Parliament adopted a very strong resolution today, demanding nothing less than global equality for all.”

“Indeed, many countries are making incredible progress in respecting the human rights of LGBTI people. Yet, this progress may have overshadowed the lack of basic rights afforded to LGBTI people in other countries, who may even face a backlash. Even the EU itself still hasn’t achieved genuine equality in the struggle against homophobia and transphobia.”

Fabio Massimo Castaldo MEP, Vice-President of the European Parliament Intergroup on LGBTI Rights, added: “The United Nations have shown their clear commitment to universal and indivisible human rights, including for LGBT people.”

“Today the elected representatives of 500 million citizens aligned themselves with this commitment, raising their voice against violence and discrimination of LGBTI people anywhere in the world, and calling for full equality.”

 

Article originally published by the European Parliament’s Intergroup on LGBT Rights

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OURs - News piece

Protecting Pakistan’s Girls Isn’t ‘Blasphemy’

A female member of Pakistan’s parliament recently introduced legislation to set the minimum age for marriage at 18 for women as well as men. Under current Pakistani law, it’s 16 for women.

On January 14, her proposal was withdrawn by a parliamentary committee after the Council of Islamic Ideology, a body established in 1962 to advise the parliament on Islamic law, denounced the change as “anti-Islamic” and “blasphemous.”

This decision keeps Pakistan on the wrong side of human rights protections in the Islamic world. Change is happening on child marriage, including in countries that, like Pakistan, are committed to upholding Islamic values. In 2009, Afghanistan, an Islamic republic, set tough new penalties for child marriage. The prime minister of Bangladesh, another majority Muslim country, has pledged to end all child marriage by 2041.

Twenty-one percent of girls in Pakistan marry before age 18. Globally, 700 million women alive today married before they were 18, and almost half of all child brides live in South Asia.

 

By Heather Barr
Read the full article from Human Rights Watch

OURs - News piece

Fed-up Iranian women organize to take more seats in parliament

Nine women and 281 men. Such is the composition of the Iranian parliament. Rights activists believe this lopsided gender imbalance is one reason why so many discriminatory laws against women have been passed by the current legislature, in office since 2012.

Ahead of the upcoming Feb. 26 parliamentary elections, a group of women’s rights activists organized Changing the Male-Dominated Face of the Parliament, a campaign to address the dearth of women in the legislature.

The campaign criticizes incumbent female members of parliament’s failure to pursue women’s rights and also encourages Iranian women to participate in the next elections as candidates as well as voters. The goal, stated on the group’s website, is to win “at least 50 seats for egalitarian women.” To achieve this objective, members of the campaign have also formed committees such as Red Cards for Anti-Women Candidates, I Will Be a Candidate and 50 Seats for Egalitarian Women.

So far, the number of registered female candidates for this year’s election is three times greater than the number who registered to run in 2012. It is unclear, however, how many of the 1,234 prospective candidates will be disqualified by the Guardian Council, which vets all registered hopefuls. In addition, an unprecedented 16 women have also registered to run in Assembly of Experts elections, to be held concurrently with the parliamentary balloting.

In the 1980 legislative elections, the Islamic Republic’s first, only four women earned seats. Serving alongside 324 male counterparts, these female members of parliament comprised slightly more than 1% of representatives. More broadly, with the exception of the fifth parliament, which took office in 1996, the percentage of women members of parliament has never exceeded 6%. In the current parliament, only 3% of members of parliament are female.

 

By Zahra Alipour
Read the full article on the Al Monitor website

Anglican church avoids split over gay rights – but liberals pay price

Agreement to impose sanctions against liberal US church and issue a statement in support of ‘traditional doctrine’ of marriage staves off schism.

A permanent split in the global Anglican communion over gay rights has been averted after archbishops overwhelmingly agreed to impose sanctions against the liberal US church and issue a statement in support of the “traditional doctrine” that marriage should be between a man and a woman.

The punitive measures and conservative statement came after four days of “painful” talks in Canterbury aimed at moving the world’s 85 million-strong Anglican fellowship beyond deep divisions over homosexuality between liberals and conservatives.

An agreement, published on Thursday evening, said the US Episcopal church’s acceptance of same-sex marriage represented “a fundamental departure from the faith and teaching held by the majority of our provinces on the doctrine of marriage”.

In a passage that dismayed liberal Anglicans, the agreement explicitly added: “The traditional doctrine of the church in view of the teaching of scripture, upholds marriage as between a man and a woman in faithful, lifelong union. The majority of those gathered reaffirm this teaching.”

 

By Harriet Sherwood

Read the full article on The Guardian website

Jail Time for Being Gay in Russia

Russia is again making media headlines for all the wrong reasons.

On January 19, parliament will hold the first reading of another abusive homophobic law, which proposes jailing people for public displays of non-heterosexual orientation or gender identity.

The bill was first introduced in October 2015 by two Communist Party members, Ivan Nikitchuk and Nikolai Arefyev. It proposes fines of between four and five thousand rubles (US$53-$66) for “the public expression of non-traditional sexual relations, manifested in a public demonstration of personal perverted sexual preferences in public places.” If such public displays occur “on territories and in institutions, providing educational, cultural or youth services,” the offender could face an additional penalty of up to 15 days of administrative arrest.

It is hard to exaggerate the sinister absurdity and abusive intent of this bill – it would effectively outlaw being lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT) and penalize people for expressing their identity, a crucial part of anyone’s existence. If passed, it will put President Vladimir Putin in an uncomfortable situation. Talking about Russia’s anti-gay “propaganda” law a few weeks before Russia hosted the Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games, Putin insisted that Russia was a safe country for LGBT people: “We don’t ban anything, we don’t grab people, we don’t have any [criminal or administrative] responsibility for these type of relations, unlike many other countries […].”

 

By Tanya Cooper
Read the full article from Human Rights Watch

Lebanon grants trans people right to legally change their gender

The Court of Appeal in Lebanon has said trans people can legally change their gender.

Judge Janet Hanna in Beirut was examining the case of a trans man who had undergone gender surgery and wanted to be listed as a man, not a woman, in the official population register.

As it is a senior court, the judge’s ruling in favor of the man will now set a precedent confirming the legal rights of trans people in the Middle Eastern country.

Judge Hanna confirmed three basic rights in her ruling: The right to change gender to relieve psychological and social suffering, the right to access treatment for gender conditions and the right to privacy.

The court learned the trans man had ‘suffered since birth from gender identity disorder disease’ and had ‘masculine features in terms of external appearance, psychological and emotional characteristics.’

The man had got a medical report explaining his transition was a ‘mature’ and informed decision.

He was initially denied the right to officially change his gender by a lower court but appealed and the case was heard by the Court of Appeal last September. That judgment was announced today.

Judge Hanna ruled: ‘The person’s right to receive the necessary treatment to relieve the suffering from physical and mental illness is a fundamental and natural right, no one can deprive him of it.’

Bertho Makso, an LGBTI activist and director of Proud Lebanon, told Gay Star News: ‘There has been much suffering in the past because this right was not given to trans people.

‘This is a breakthrough for the trans community and all LGBTI people in Lebanon as we fight for our right to be treated with dignity and respect.’

 

By Tris Reid-Smith

Article originally published on the Gay Star News website

Lawyer faces death threats over petition for women to enter Sabarimala temple

The head of a lawyers group fighting for the right of women to enter the famous Sabarimala Ayyappa temple in Kerala said on Thursday he had received hundreds of death threats warning him to drop the petition in the Supreme Court.

The popular Hindu temple is one of a few in India which bar women of reproductive age, only allowing entry to girls aged under 10 and women over 50.

The ban came under legal scrutiny after the Indian Young Lawyers’ Association (IYLA) filed a petition in the Supreme Court seeking entry for all women, prompting the court on Monday to ask temple authorities to explain the ban.

IYLA President Naushad Ahmed Khan said he had since received over 300 death threats on his cell phone – prompting police to provide him with a personal security guard.

“I have received more than 700 telephone calls, including some calls from international telephone, since Wednesday. These callers are (trying to) force me to withdraw the petition,” Khan told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

“I am the president of the IYLA, and the plea has been filed by the organisation. I have never been personally involved with this petition,” he said, adding that the question of whether the petition would be withdrawn had not arisen.

 

Reporting by Suchitra Mohanty, writing by Nita Bhalla, editing by Tim Pearce.
Read the full article from the Thomson Reuters Foundation

Romanian Priests Push for Gay Marriage Ban

Romanian Orthodox clergy are drumming up support for a change to the constitution defining marriage as an union between a man and a woman alone.

The days following Christmas have been a good opportunity for Orthodox priests across Romania to encourage parishioners to back a campaign for a change to the constitution outlawing same-sex marriage.

Dozens of people on Wednesday attending the Epiphany Day service at the cathedral in Timisoara, in western Romania, queued to sign the initiative, after their Bishop, or Metropolitan, encouraged them to do so during the Christmas mass.

Priests in the Iasi region in the east of the country, while blessing people’s houses for the Epiphany Day – a common tradition in Romania – used the occasion to ask them to back amendments to the fundamental law, according to media reports.

 

By Marian Chiriac
Read the full article from the BalkanInsight website

Gay rights activist brings legal challenge to Jamaica’s anti-sodomy law

Maurice Tomlinson, a Jamaican gay rights activist and attorney, has filed a claim in the Supreme Court of Judicature, challenging the constitutionality of Jamaica’s laws criminalising consensual sex between men.

The legal challenge — which will be announced at a press conference tomorrow in Kingston, Jamaica according to a news release issued by the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network — is being supported by the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network and AIDS-Free World.

The release said in its arguments, the legal challenge outlines the ways in which the law violates the constitutional rights of Jamaicans.

The current law, Offences Against the Person Act of 1864, criminalises consensual sexual conduct between men. This includes not only a prohibition on “gross indecency” between men, but also a provision that outlaws the “abominable crime of buggery”, ie anal sex, including between any people of any sex,the release explained.

 

Read the full article on the Jamaica Observer website