Travel Safety Report: 20 Worst Plac For Gay Travelers In 2021

Contents:

• THE UAE'S POSN ON GAY RIGHTS IS ACTUALLY SURPRISGLY PROGRSIVE – AND I SHOULD KNOW
• CAN I BE GAY DUBAI?
• DUBAI GAY TRAVEL
• PERIL AND PRIVILEGE: GAY EXPAT NIGHTLIFE DUBAI
• ONE OF THE MOST ANTI-GAY UNTRI IS ABOUT TO HOST A NFERENCE ON LGBTQ RIGHTS
• TRAVEL SAFETY REPORT: 20 WORST PLAC FOR GAY TRAVELERS IN 2021

THE UAE'S POSN ON GAY RIGHTS IS ACTUALLY SURPRISGLY PROGRSIVE – AND I SHOULD KNOW

Homosexualy⚢✖ Illegal (ath penalty as punishment)Censorship✖ State-enforcedNon-bary genr regnn✖ Not legally regnizedDiscrimatn✖ No protectnsEmployment Discrimatn✖ No protectnsHog Discrimatn✖ No protectnsDonatg Blood✖ Banned (fe ferral)Conversn Therapy✖ Not banned.

By The Numbers45% of Emiratis strongly or somewhat agree that beg LGBTI should be a crime32% of Emiratis strongly or somewhat disagree that beg LGBTI should be a crime23% of Emiratis neher agree nor disagree that beg LGBTI should be a crimeHistoryHomosexual activy Uned Arab Emirat? Homosexualy⚢✖ Illegal (ath penalty as punishment)Gay Marriage⚭✖ UnregnizedCensorship✖ State-enforcedNon-bary genr regnnUnknownDiscrimatn✖ No protectnsEmployment Discrimatn✖ No protectnsHog Discrimatn✖ No protectnsDonatg Blood✖ Banned (fe ferral)Conversn Therapy✖ Not banned. Sign up for the View om Wtmster email for expert analysis straight to your boxGet our ee View om Wtmster emailRecently, I was asked to fend my support of the UAE and expla why I am so enthiastic about a natn that is perceived to enforce torture, lengthy prison terms and even the ath penalty agast gay people.

And spe what some might thk, the ath penalty has never been voked or rried out as a punishment for homosexualy or sodomy the whole history of the there are thgs that are not nuanced at all. Dpe state-sponsored reprsn and social stigma, lbian, gay, bisexual and transgenr (LGBT) people the Middle East and North Ai are fdg ways to speak out. They are tellg their stori, buildg allianc, workg across borrs, velopg natnal and regnal movements, and fdg creative ways to bat homophobia and transphobia.

CAN I BE GAY DUBAI?

They relied on a “bchery” law that had been ed the early 2000s agast gay men and transgenr women and was revived wh a vengeance followg the 2013 up, when the ernment, led by Print Abl Fattah al-Sisi, appeared to embrace persecutn of gays and trans people as a polil strategy.

The majory of the terviewe intified as lbian, gay, bisexual, transgenr, or queer, while a few intified as heterosexual and cisgenr (see glossary) but were eply engaged activist work supportg LGBT people. One terviewee, om Bahra, intified as gay but did not intify as an activist; he spoke wh Human Rights Watch about the relative absence of an LGBT rights movement Bahra.

The report also builds upon prev rearch nducted by Human Rights Watch wh LGBT activists and other LGBT people Lebanon, Tunisia, Moroc, Egypt, Kuwa, Iraq, and the Uned Arab Emirat, and on Human Rights Watch’s prev reportg on vlatns agast LGBT people the regn, cludg the reports Digny Debased: Forced Anal Examatns Homosexualy Prosecutns (2016); “It’s Part of the Job”: Ill-treatment and Torture of Vulnerable Groups Lebane Police Statns (2013); “‘They Hunt Down for Fun’: Discrimatn and Police Vlence Agast Transgenr Women Kuwa (2012); “They Want Us Extermated”: Murr, Torture, Sexual Orientatn and Genr Iraq (2009); and In a Time of Torture: The Asslt on Jtice In Egypt's Crackdown on Homosexual Conduct (2004).

DUBAI GAY TRAVEL

[7] Egypt is a serial offenr terms of systematic e of such provisns agast LGBT people: a law prohibg “bchery, ” ially promulgated 1951 for the purpose of crimalizg sex work and then replaced by Law 10/1961 on the Combatg of Prostutn, has been ed by the thori sce the 1990s to prosecute homosexual nduct between men, rultg hundreds of arrts. Acrdg to one report, 127 people were arrted at an alleged “gay party” 2011, some drsed drag, spe of there beg no law that clearly punish beg gay or drsg drag.

PERIL AND PRIVILEGE: GAY EXPAT NIGHTLIFE DUBAI

However, Egypt, a provisn on “cement to bchery” the 1961 law on batg prostutn was ed September 2017 agast young people spected of raisg the rabow flag at a Mashrou’ Leila ncert, and agast other people who were prosecuted after g gay datg apps or chat rooms. Acrdg to an analysis by the Internatnal Lbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgenr and Intersex Associatn (ILGA), laws regulatg non-ernmental anizatns Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Moroc, Bahra, Jordan, Kuwa, Oman, Qatar, Sdi Arabia, and the Uned Arab Emirat make virtually impossible for anizatns workg on issu of sexual orientatn and genr inty to legally register. In Libya, the overthrow of Muammar Qaddafi rulted a power vacuum which ias wield signifint power; several of them have nducted arbrary arrts of men on spicn of homosexualy.

[31] The rise of the anizatn known as Islamic State (also known as ISIS), which killed dozens of gay men, as discsed below, has been creded part to s abily to “fill the power vacuum created by failg stat” the wake of the 2011 uprisgs. Mubarak’s ernment had overseen a massive crackdown on gay men the early 2000s, tend part, acrdg to one Egyptian activist, “to prent an image as the guardian of public virtue, to flate an Islamist opposn movement that appear[ed] to be gag support every day.

ONE OF THE MOST ANTI-GAY UNTRI IS ABOUT TO HOST A NFERENCE ON LGBTQ RIGHTS

At the same time, some activists have raised ncern that a narrow foc on ISIS’ horrific anti-LGBT ab may distract om ab by ernments and their proxi who are also rponsible for homophobic and transphobic vlence. In 2009, fighters spected of affiliatn wh Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi army, an armed group which publicly vilified gay and effemate men as “the third sex, ” kidnapped, tortured and murred as many as several hundred men a matter of months, most of them Baghdad. An Iraqi activist livg another untry the regn said that although he is “out” as gay to a broad circle of iends, he mt be ut when anizg events that uld out him more publicly—not out of fear of what might happen to him his host untry, but bee of what might happen if he is ever returned to Iraq.

Torture sometim tak the form of forced anal examatns, which often volve doctors or other medil personnel forcibly sertg their fgers, and sometim other objects, to the an of the acced to fd purported “proof” of homosexual nduct.

TRAVEL SAFETY REPORT: 20 WORST PLAC FOR GAY TRAVELERS IN 2021

[58] Human Rights Watch also received reports of police Syria and the Uned Arab Emirat orrg gay men to unrgo forced anal ttg, but has not penntly verified the allegatns. Gay men and transgenr women have also scribed other forms of torture and ill-treatment at the hands of police officers and other members of secury forc the regn: beg beaten wh electric bl and raped wh an iron rod (Lebanon)[60]; police who “took off their belts and put them around our necks and ma walk like dogs” (Egypt)[61]; beg raped by police and then thrown out of a movg police r to the street (Kuwa)[62]; and beg hung upsi down om a hook the ceilg (Iraq). Human Rights Watch has documented such vlence Kuwa, where men sexually asslt transgenr women wh impuny[64]; Moroc, where people perceived to be gay or transgenr have been subjected to mob vlence[65]; and Iraq, where gay men reported severe beatgs and ath threats at the hands of their own fay members.

On September 22, 2017, several young people attendg a ncert Cairo featurg Lebane band Mashrou’ Leila, whose lead sger is openly gay, waved the rabow flag–a symbol of LGBT pri and solidary wh LGBT people’s stggle for equaly. The followg day, the Egyptian police, g a tried-and-te strategy of entrapment through gay datg apps, ma a “date” wh a young man whom they had already been chattg wh for a week and then arrted him, acrdg to Egyptian activists. [80] Members of parliament proposed a ten- to 15-year sentence for homosexualy[81] and a new law that would ban any “gathergs of homosexuals” or “homosexual symbols.

In 2017, there are dozens of LGBT anizatns operatg throughout the regn, workg on issu cludg homophobic and transphobic vlence, crimalizatn, forced anal ttg, legal aid, HIV preventn, genr equaly, media trag, digal secury, and outreach through the arts. Abdullah, a gay activist om Oman, scribed his first nference wh other LGBT rights activists: “It was my first exposure to other gay activists om the MENA [Middle East and North Ai] regn.