"The Journalist": New York | US Ambassador Samantha Power Calls Denying LGBT People to Live Freely “Barbarism”

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U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power on Tuesday strongly criticized countries that deny LGBT people to live freely. She called the practice “barbarism.”
“To criticize the criminalization of LGBT status is not cultural imperialism,” said Power. “To deny gays and lesbians the right to live freely and to threaten them with discrimination and even death is not a form of moral or religious Puritanism. It’s in fact barbarism.”
At a strategy meeting with more than 30 LGBT rights advocates at the U.S. Mission to the U.N., Power specifically singled out Russia’s law that bans gay propaganda to minors as “outrageous” and “dangerous.”
“The recent enactment of Russia’s anti-propaganda law is as outrageous as it is dangerous,” she said as she opened a meeting with more than 30 LGBT rights advocates at the U.S. Mission to the U.N. “It is a reminder that whether the struggle of equality takes the form of equal employee benefits or protection from being imprisoned or executed, we have a long way to go.”
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Her speech also coincided with the 65th anniversary of the ratification of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Her remarks kicked off a roundtable strategy session on international LGBT rights at which Russian journalist Masha Gessen and Juliet Mphande, executive director of Rainka Zambia also spoke.
Gessen, who is also a gay right activist, read part of the Russian law on gay “propaganda” and said, “It actually enshrines second-class citizenship and makes it a crime to talk about equality.”
Zambian activist Mphande listened to Gessen’s comments and said, “I imagine Russia to be an African country right now.” She said at least six people from her country’s gay community had been arrested this year.
Among the other LGBT advocates who attended the panel were rights activists from Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean. This week, the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission hosting and facilitated a diverse delegation more 20 LGBT advocates and human rights defenders from Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean and the Middle East for inter-regional meetings in NYC with UN officials, government representatives and media.
Published on December 11, 2013 | OutRight Action International an LGBT human rights organization
