Blog: Perspectives

Iranian authorities have long tried to justify the mistreatment of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) individuals under the ruse of cultural relativism. Under the Islamic Penal Code of Iran, sexual activity between people of the same gender is a crime punishable by death. The method of enforcing these laws is equally grotesque. According to documentation gathered by the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, individuals are forced to confess to same-sex relations under conditions that amount to torture. Those targeted may be members of the political opposition falsely accused by the government, or they may be individuals who are assumed to be guilty simply by virtue of their sexual identity or self-expression.

Iranians suspected of being lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender are targets of systematic discrimination by the government. Iranian authorities -- including the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance, the Office of Book Licensing, and the Monitoring Board of the Press -- have banned publication of material related to homosexuality. The ban extends to facts about sexual orientation and gender identity, safe sex and the history of homosexuality in Iran. Websites containing such information are summarily shut down; individuals who produce the website or simply visit are threatened with arrest. Public demonstration for LGBT rights is an impossible fantasy, and even private social events like birthday parties can be raided by the morality police, who arrest and charge attendees with criminal acts. Some Iranians are left with no choice but to leave their native country and embark on the arduous and often futile task of seeking asylum abroad.

The Education Committee of the Seoul Metropolitan Council in Seoul, Korea has singled out sexual orientation and gender identity for exclusion from the draft bill of Seoul Students Rights Ordinance that can become law on December 19 in Korea’s capital city unless human rights activists manage to delay the bill or change the minds of the Education Committee. If passed, the Students Rights Ordinance will be the first initiative to explicitly protect students’ rights in Korea.

The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission has sent an urgent letter (below) to the Korean Education Committee of the Seoul Metropolitan Council calling for reinstatement of the removed protections for LGBT students.

The letter states:

“By singling out sexual orientation and gender identity for exclusion, the Education Committee of the Seoul Metropolitan Council and the Seoul Metropolitan Council would contravene international human rights standards and state obligations that South Korea has agreed to uphold. These include rights enshrined in the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, and the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.

“The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) today honors the memory of the many trans men and women whom we have lost across the globe. From Latin America, to the Middle East, from Africa to Asia discrimination, ignorance, transphobia and violence have unduly taken the lives of innocent trans men and women who sought to live with dignity and respect. In remembering their lives and their sacrifice, we also honor the courageous work activists and allies around the world do each day to advance the human rights of all trans people.”

“While we remember and mourn the loss of Turkish trans women whose lives were brutally taken from us this year, we must recognize too, the courage of the activists who tirelessly work to advance the human rights of trans people in the Middle East."

Hossein Alizdeh, IGLHRC Coordinator Middle East and North Africa Program

During the past twelve months, the Turkish trans community has continued to be the target of fatal hate crimes. On April 19, a 36-year-old trans woman identified as R.B. was shot in Izmir, Turkey. She was rushed to the hospital, but she passed away before reaching the hospital. Two other trans women were injured during the shootout. On July 31, Didem, a trans woman, was brutally murdered in Istanbul, Turkey's most populated city. The assailants cut the throat of this 21-year-old trans woman. On October 6, a woman was shot to death in Gaziantep, one of the southern cities of Turkey.

In recent years there has been a growing campaign to recognize the citizenship of trans people in Latin America. Red Latinamericana y del Caribe de Personas Trans (REDLACTRANS), a regional network of trans activists from Latin America and the Caribbean, is one of the leaders of this effort. IGLHRC, with an office and regional director located in Argentina, works closely with REDLACTRANS. Over the past year, activists from the region organized with a diverse set of issues and actions including job training initiatives, establishment of work cooperatives and, above all, campaigning for legal recognition of gender identity. Through REDLACTRANS member organizations, this work spread in the region to Argentina, Bolivia, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Paraguay, and Uruguay. In Argentina, a bill for the recognition of gender identity is currently being debated in Congress.

The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) together with REDLACTRANS and Heartland Alliance was able to support all these regional advocacy initiatives at the Organization of the American States (OAS). Last June these organizations held a meeting in San Salvador with trans representatives from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama with the purpose of evaluating advocacy for the legal recognition of gender identity in the region.

Learn more about our advocacy at the Organization of American States and for an update about or work on trans issues in Africa, Indonesia and Turkey.

The Asia Pacific Forum (APF) is the first regional body in the world to lobby National Human Rights Institutions (NHRIs) to integrate the Yogyakarta Principles into their human rights work. It currently has 18 full member institutions from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Australia, India, Indonesia, Jordan, Malaysia, Mongolia, Nepal, New Zealand, Palestine, Philippines, Qatar, South Korea, Thailand and Timor Leste. Maldives and Sri Lanka currently have associate member status for failing to comply with the Paris Principles.1

In May 5-7 2009, the APF invited IGLHRC and several other international human rights experts2 to Yogyakarta, Indonesia for a historic workshop to consider what actions might be taken by NHRIs in Asia to prevent violence and discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI). My presentation provided an overview on the impact of criminalization and discrimination on LGBT people's lives in the API region. As part of this presentation, I offered the following recommendations from IGLRHC to the APF:3

I am writing this from a flight to Bogotá, Colombia on the week many of my friends are on vacation, the week I was supposed to ride my bicycle 100 miles as part of a lesbian gang out of my hot hometown of Brooklyn, New York to the breezy beaches of eastern Long Island. And yet, I cancelled what would have been my perfect vacation because of a woman I’ve never even met: Karen Atala. I am en route to a hearing of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights on the case of Karen Atala and Daughters Against the State of Chile. If Ms. Atala’s name seems familiar, that’s probably because you’ve heard it before. Ms. Atala is a lesbian mother and Chilean judge who lost custody of her three daughters — then ages 5, 6, and 10 years old — in a widely publicized case in 2003. Subsequent to their divorce, Ms. Atala’s ex-husband sued for custody, and Ms. Atala lost. In reference to Ms. Atala’s sexuality, the Supreme Court of Chile issued a homophobic verdict, plain and simple; it deemed Ms. Atala’s daughters to be in a “situation of risk” that placed them in a “vulnerable position in their social environment, since clearly their unique family environment differs significantly from that of their school companions and acquaintances in the neighborhood where they live, exposing them to ostracism and discrimination, which would also affect their personal development.”