LGBT Rights in the Commonwealth
Posted by AlexT - 23/11/09 at 11:11 amActivist Peter Tatchell tells the Commonwealth Conversation that the criminalisation of homosexuality is not consistent with the Commonwealths values of human rights and democracy.
Tatchell gained international celebrity for his attempted citizens arrest of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe in 1999 and 2001 on charges of torture and other human rights abuses.
Transcript:
Over 70 countries still criminalise homosexuality in all circumstances, with penalties ranging from a few years jail to life imprisonment and even execution.
More than half of these countries are members of the Commonwealth, and their anti-gay laws were originally imposed on those nations during the period of British colonial rule. They are not authentic national laws, they are imposed by imperialism.
I find it very strange that these now independent nations have retained the anti-gay laws that were imposed upon them by their former colonial masters. That is not consistent with national sovereignty and independence.
It?s also quite shocking that these countries have these homophobic laws because the Commonwealth is committed to democracy and human rights.
Persecuting and discriminating against citizens because of their sexuality or gender identification is not consistent with human rights. Moreover, all of these countries have signed international human rights declarations, pledging to observe equal treatment and non-discrimination. And those international instruments do not discriminate. They say that everyone in every country is entitled to equal rights and protection against discrimination.
Yet, in so many Commonwealth countries, we find that gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people are consistently and often viciously persecuted.
In a country like Uganda, male homosexuality is punishable by life imprisonment. In Nigeria it’s 14 years hard labour. And in the Islamic areas gay people can be stoned to death. In Jamaica it’s 10 years hard labour. In Malaysia it’s up to 20 years imprisonment.
These laws are all relics of colonialism. They are from the 19th century. They have no place in a modern 21st century state - and I just hope the Commonwealth will recognise that action needs to be taken so that all its member states conform to the principles or democracy and human rights. That they all give their lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender citizens full equality before the law.
We are not saying they should approve of homosexuality; we are not saying they should endorse, or encourage it - we are simply saying do not persecute your gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender citizens.
Rev Rowland Jide Macaulay, Director and Founder of the House Of Rainbow has responded to Tatchell’s comments:
To coincide with the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Trinidad and Tobago – Peter Tatchell has written an open letter to the Commonwealth Secretary General, lamenting the state of LGBTI rights in the Commonwealth.
Your Excellency,
Warmest greetings!
I am writing to inquire what the Commonwealth is doing to defend the human rights of millions of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) Commonwealth citizens who are sufffering great persecution on account of their sexuality and gender variance and identity.
Sadly, I can find no evidence that senior Commonwealth leaders are doing anything significant and public, despite the fact that many Commonwealth member states are actively persecuting their LGBT citizens with oppressive, discriminatory laws, which result in grave human rights violations, including arrest, torture, rape, imprisonment and extra-judicial murder.
This homophobic and transphobic persecution is in breach of international humanitarian law.
As Comonwealth Secretary-General, you are entrusted to defend and promote the Commonwealth’s humanitarian values.
What action do you propose to take at the forthcoming Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Trinidad and Tobago from 27 to 29 November, to address the issue of homophobic and transphobic persecution by Commonwealth member states?
I appeal to you to take a stand for justice and equality – to show true leadership and make your mark for human rights.
During your keynote speech, and in other CHOGM forums, I respectfully request you to:
1. Make it clear that the Commonwealth’s commitment to human rights includes respect for the human rights of LGBT people, and that persecution on the grounds of sexual orientation or gender identity violates the Commonwealth principles of equality and non-discrimination and violates the principles of universal human rights, as enshrined in the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
2. Call on Commonwealth member states to end the criminalisation of homosexuality, protect LGBT people against discrimination, harassment and violence, and recognise and consult with LGBT welfare and human rights organisations.
In particular, I request you to lobby the government of Uganda to withdraw the new Anti-Homosexuality Bill and cease its attacks on the human rights of LGBT Ugandans.
I regret that I need to make these requests. I realise that you have not been long in your post. But I hope that having had these issues drawn to your attention you will rise to the challenge and pursue them.
Some of the key principles of the Commonwealth are equality, non-discrimination, opportunity for all, liberty of the individual and human dignity.
http://www.thecommonwealth.org/Internal/191086/191247/the_commonwealth/
http://www.thecommonwealth.org/files/36123/FileName/harare.pdfIn the case of LGBT people, these principles are routinely violated by nearly all Commonwealth countries. They are violated with impunity and without rebuke by the leaders of the Commonwealth.
I am surprised that the Commonwealth’s most senior figures, such as yourself, are not, as far as I know, doing anything serious to dissuade the many member states which continue to outlaw consenting adult same-sex relations, which take no action against homophobic and transphobic violence, which deny gay and bisexual men safer sex education and HIV advice, and which fail to give LGBT people protection against discrimination in jobs, housing, education, health care and provision of good and services.
It is extremely disappointing that the Commonwealth leadership appears to not regard LGBT rights as human rights and that it has neglected to protect LGBT citizens in the Commonwealth family of nations. This inaction is de facto collusion with victimisation.
Around 80 countries worldwide continue to outlaw homosexuality, with penalties ranging from one year’s jail to life imprisonment – and even execution. More than half of these countries were former British colonies. Most are members of the Commonwealth.
Of the 53 Commonwealth member states, over 40 still criminalise same-sex relations, mostly under anti-gay laws that were originally imposed by the British government in the nineteenth century, during the period of colonial rule. These homophobic colonialist laws, which were retained after independence, are wrecking the lives of LGBT people throughout the Commonwealth. They criminalise otherwise law-abiding citizens and contribute to a hostile social atmosphere which demonises LGBT people as unnatural, abnormal and criminal. This renders LGBT people liable to blackmail, imprisonment, mob violence, rejection by their families, excommunication from their faith, eviction from their homes, dismissal from their jobs and this makes them high risk for depression, mental illness and suicide. Such rampant bigotry and ill-treatment of other human beings is a stain on the Commonwealth.
One of the worst current examples of a homophobic Commonwealth country is Uganda.
The Anti-Homosexuality Bill, currently under consideration by the Ugandan parliament, proposes the death penalty for “aggravated homosexuality…(and) serial offenders,” including same-sex acts involving people with HIV.
http://www.newvision.co.ug/D/8/12/697859It imposes a sentence of life imprisonment for merely touching a person with the intent to have homosexual relations. Membership of gay organisations and funding for them, advocacy of gay human rights and the provision of condoms or safer sex advice to gay people will result in up to seven years jail for “promoting” homosexuality. Failing to report violators to the police within 24 hours will incur three years behind bars. Astonishingly, the new legislation will also apply to Ugandans who commit these ‘crimes’ while living abroad, in countries where such behaviour is not a criminal offence.
See this appeal against the bill by Human Rights Watch and other human rights defenders:
http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2009/10/15/uganda-anti-homosexuality-bill-threatens-liberties-and-human-rights-defendersSee this briefing by the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission:
http://www.iglhrc.org/cgi-bin/iowa/article/takeaction/globalactionalerts/989.htmlThe Ugandan bill violates the equality and non-discrimination provisions of the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), to which Uganda is a signatory. These breaches of international humanitarian commitments set a dangerous precedent which undermines the right to privacy and to individual liberty and thereby threatens the human rights of all Ugandans.
http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/instree/z1afchar.htm
http://www2.ohchr.org/english/law/ccpr.htmThe Anti-Homosexuality Bill has been condemned by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, International Commission of Jurists and the World AIDS Campaign.
This legislation is, however, merely the latest in a series of state-sponsored persecutions of LGBT Ugandans, often at the behest of Christian leaders who are aided and funded by right-wing evangelical churches in the US.
Typical is what happened to gay rights advocate Kizza Musinguzi. He was jailed in 2004 and subjected to four months of forced labour, water torture, beatings and rape.
Any Ugandan who speaks out against anti-gay violence faces dire consequences. A heterosexual Anglican bishop, Christopher Ssenyonjo, was expelled from the Church of Uganda for defending the human rights of LGBT people.
In recent years, the Ugandan government has passed a law banning same-sex civil marriage, fined Radio Simba for broadcasting a discussion of LGBT issues, and expelled a UN AIDS agency director for meeting with LGBT campaigners.
Similar homophobic persecution is happening in other Commonwealth nations, including Nigeria and The Gambia, where President Yahya Jammeh has called for sexual cleansing. He has promised “stricter laws than Iran” on homosexuality, and has begun his witchunt by ordering gay people to leave the country and threatening to “cut off the head” of any homosexual who remains. It is truly shocking that the Commonwealth leadership has not condemned such murderous threats.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/7416536.stmWhile I realise that you are very busy, I would be most grateful if you could respond to my appeal for your intervention before the commencement of CHOGM.
Wishing you a successful CHOGM.
Yours faithfully,
Peter Tatchell
OutRage! – The LGBT Human Rights Campaign – London, UK
Human Rights Spokesperson for the Green Party of England & Wales
Category : homepage items, Human Rights
Tags: Commonwealth, Commonwealth Conversation, gay rights, LGBT, Mugabe, Nigeria, Uganda, Zimbabwe
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September 25th, 2009 at 1:32 pm
I beleive its about time that all colonial laws in AAfrica to be removed or improved. Imagine a criminal law for people in 1960 been used for people today.
Anyway, things are changing and things have change and Africa and its leaders also have to change their mind in terms of sex and sexuality.
Sexual rights are human rights whether we believe this or not.
September 25th, 2009 at 4:23 pm
Attempting to impose the hegelian idolatry of sexual liberation in countries which are still either christian or muslim is bound to fail. Idolatry is even less popular in such places than sodomy. It hasn’t really succeeded even in those countries where “gay marriage” has been imposed by the courts or, in Canada’s case, by a rump parliament with no mandate. It is not unlikely that the Canadian Human Rights Commission will be abolished, and has effectively ceased operations.
The Commonwealth itself now appears to be a relic of the Communist era with no place in the 21st century. Which now seems more likely? A.) The idiotic hippies who imposed hegelian idolatry and “human rights” upon the UK will succeed in imposing this madness elsewhere or B.) those same hegelians will soon find themselves living under sharia law in the UK.
My guess would be “B”. Might come as a bit of a shock to someone who thinks sodomy is either genetic, or some sort of “identity” rather than a habit less healthy than smoking. Like the demise of paper money, it won’t come as a shock to anyone who hasn’t fallen for french revolutionary or hegelian idolatry.
September 25th, 2009 at 5:37 pm
Thanks Peter for starting this discussion on this forum and hopefully issues of discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity will be among the important issues to the discussed at the commonwealth.
As Peter had said, I will like to reiterate that all we ask for is equality among all humans. Lesbian and Gay people should be treated equally and enjoy their rights as everyone else.
September 25th, 2009 at 5:51 pm
In so far as the persons to whom Peter Tatchell refers are human beings we should all behave towards them as we would towards all other human beings whatever their vices.
Who is the person who is without any vicious habit?
“Let him be the one to cast the first stone” as has been famously said;
September 25th, 2009 at 6:11 pm
It is indeffensible to argue two consenting, loving adults should be jailed for how they love one another. Or that Society should dictate to people their gender identity. To think otherwise is no different from hatred against women, hatred against any race, or hatred against a faith.
September 27th, 2009 at 11:17 am
CRJ – colonialists imposed the anti-sodomy laws on Africa when they brought their brand of Christian morality.
Africans have had same-sex relations long before this discussion started and without having to give it a name or an identity. In some African cultures, people who were perceived as being different (feminine men for example), where given special roles within the culture. It is not unusual for traditional priests to have sex with both genders.
It is unfortunate, but the North American model of identity politics is pervasive and persuasive in the way it frames the issues. In a sense, this model?s presentation of the subject leads to its conclusion.
Based on this, my proposals would be:
1. remove the colonial laws
2. undo the damage created by fundamentalist Christianity (now being imported from North America alongside their missionaries)
3. not try impose ‘gay’ identity politics (your notion of sexual liberation) in an African context.
September 27th, 2009 at 8:09 pm
Peter,
From your suggestion that these laws grew out of the British colonial system you seem to come dangerously close to suggesting that anti-homosexuality legislation arose from British influence rather than out of the broader western social mores.
It would be difficult to uphold this, given the very severe penalties for homosexuality enforced in Mauritania and Guinea, neither of which were British colonies.
Graham,
I think you seriously underestimate the degree to which intolerance of homosexuality has been culturally internalised by African populations.
To lay responsibility so squarely at the door of “Christian morality” seems to ignore the homophobic legislation active in countries where the legal tradition is Muslim rather than Christian, and to frame the debate as a dichotomy between “African” and “Western” values seems to completely ignore the important variety, contrast, and contradiction between African cultures, as well as the very different origins from which those diverse cultures arise.
September 29th, 2009 at 10:48 am
Invictus_88. Thanks for your comments which got me thinking.
I agree with you on many of your points but was attempting to reply directly to the politics of CRJ. In doing I wrote in shorthand and possibly over-generalised.
Of course it’s impossible to talk about Africa in a general way as it is such a varied continent. I’m only writing from my own experience of living in a West African predominately Christian country.
I agree with you about the internalisation of prejudice in many African countries. But it is very hard to change this without education. That is why I believe the key is first to change the law. Once the laws are changed, education becomes easier.
These laws often came from the colonialists and where I live they were from the British. The laws were foreign imports. The language of these laws is imbibed with their version of Christian morality (I accept that are different interpretations of Christianity which are inclusive but that is not what we are dealing with).
If you have seen articles on the web and in African newspapers, intolerance always comes couched in religious terms, both Christian and Islamic. It doesn’t have to be of course, but all we have, where I live, is fundamentalism.
My intention was not to ignore cultural differences between countries in Africa but to warn about the dangers of the debate being framed from, what I believe, is a Western perspective (here I have some sympathy with CRJ). I believe that ‘gay’ is a social construct originating from North American identity politics and has done great damage to Europeans. I do not wish that mistake to be repeated in Africa, especially as the social construction of same-sex behaviour in Africa is not in the slightest related to the European/North American experience.
October 1st, 2009 at 8:50 am
As we seek to evolve the constitutional structure towards the idea of a more perfect nation, we grapple with the need to strive to find balance between morality and the place of state in legislating that domain within the framework of a separation of church and state stance, and the human issues that leave us faced with quagmires such as abortion rights, same sex unions and the capital punishment.
In my humble estimation crimes must have a victim, some loss must be incurred, be it a loss of right or property, in the case of abortion one has to establish the definition of ?person? so as to clearly establish if an unborn ?child? is a ?person? hence deserving of rights, and in the issue of the capital punishment, the perceived threat to society which in my humble view must be demonstrative of systemic and repetitive behavior, or a direct lethal and grievous act against the law and its stewards, as for the issue of same sex union I am not sure that a state can argue any threat as in the above, the matter is clearly religious by my estimation and a matter of and for private discretion.
October 1st, 2009 at 5:04 pm
In Uganda criminalization of homosexuality is a residue law rooted in the colonial era punishable by a maximum sentence of life imprisonment . Uganda signed up to The Universal Declaration of Human Rights but still violates the human rights of the LGBT community. Human rights are inclusive of all citizens and therefore should include the LGBT community.
October 26th, 2009 at 3:21 pm
Systems of oppression (namely, white supremacy, capitalism, patriarchy, heterosexism) are always interconnected, in much the same way as prison bars are connected to provide an impenetrable barrier to freedom for those unfortunate enough to find themselves incarcerated. All of the above-named oppressive systems have three characteristics in common: generalization, dehumanization and destruction. a) Generalization ?Blacks are [fill in the damaging racial stereotype of your choosing].? ?I?m not surprised that a Black person committed that crime. After all, that?s just the way they are.? The idea here is that the targeted group is framed as being homogeneous and that no diversity can be found therein. b) Dehumanization This is very closely related to the above. ?These chicks ain?t nuthin! I find ?em, finger ?em, an? forget ?em!!? ?Women just aren?t suited for leadership. They?re too flighty and emotional. Besides, God made us first, not them. The Bible says this, so women need to submit and accept their place.? The idea here is that you effectively remove the oppressed group from the protected space granted to the privileged group (in this case, men). The intention of the preceding stances is to set the stage for the lethal action to be taken in the final stage. c) Destruction Having successfully lumped together and ritualistically debased the oppressed group, the privileged group now has all of its ideological weapons in place to explain away all manner of violence ? both psychic and physical – against the group identified as inferior. We see an outstanding example of this in that way that the western imperialist powers have chosen to blame Africa for its suffering, while conveniently ignoring their active and continuing participation in the atrocities of colonialism, resource rape, the promulgation of psychologically debilitating cultural propaganda and enforced cultural amnesia. Upon this blood-spattered earth, one can erect the racist histiography (as a result of the utilization of steps (a) and (b)) that makes the movement toward violence against the oppressed group in question inevitable. It is also unsurprising that when the oppressed rally together to champion their right to exist, those whose sense of themselves is predicated upon the dehumanization of said oppressed group are passionate and vociferous in their condemnations. This happened (and still happens) to women, poor people, peoples of colour and now gays and lesbians. We are walking on dangerous ground when we begin to employ the ideological framework that made possible ? and continues to make possible, I might add ? the devastation of our Black present and the erasure of our Black tomorrows. To put it bluntly, the minute we start to sound like racist white folks (using appeals to religion and natural order to justify our bigoted perspective), we are in effect sowing the seeds for the collapse of any united move to crush white supremacy. Generalization, dehumanization and destruction ? these are the tools of the oppressors. Leave their weapons in their hands if you are truly serious about constructing a revolutionary and liberatory movement amongst Africans in the united states and beyond. At this point, it would be prudent to reflect upon the words of Audre Lorde, the late master essayist, poet and relentlessly progressive human being: ?Master?s tools will never dismantle master?s house.? May we all take heed…..
November 27th, 2009 at 10:24 pm
Apart from upholding without fear or favour the human rights of all – not excepting those who have sex with and love members of the same gender (if the words gay and lesbian are too problematic for the selectively over-sensitive)the Commonwealth should also have been engaged for many years in a large-scale education campaign to eradicate the scourge and life-denying creed of homophobia.
That is has done neither in 60 years undermines its credibility severely.
It cannot begin to be an effective advocate for justice and human rights, let alone be intellectually coherent, until it takes these two indivisible steps.
Letting fundamentalists, or their apologists, determine policy in the Commonwealth will destroy it – and the world.
November 28th, 2009 at 6:17 pm
I think I do agree to what Prince and others have shared. Our society today seem to favour others and leave the minority. If I might not be wronge in saying this that selfishness is now governing the heart of those in power such that they turn to work on issues directly affecting them. If this country really belongs to all Ghanaian whether straight, gay or lesbien then all must have equal rights on all issues and stop the discrimination against certain sexual groups.
December 14th, 2009 at 11:16 am
Peter Tatchell wrote a piece for the Guardian Newspaper during the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Trinidad about Gay Rights – both the article, and the 151 comments underneath it, make a fascinating contribution to this important debate. You can read the article here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/nov/26/commonwealth-homophobes