Everythg you need to know about beg gay Mlim untri | LGBTQ+ rights | The Guardian

Contents:

• GAY PEOPLE ARE RECLAIMG AN ISLAMIC HERAGE
• EVERYTHG YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT BEG GAY MLIM UNTRI
• IN A SURVEY OF AMERIN MLIMS, 0% INTIFIED AS LBIAN OR GAY. HERE’S THE STORY BEHD THAT STATISTIC

GAY PEOPLE ARE RECLAIMG AN ISLAMIC HERAGE

Clearly Qatar, which is set to host the 2022 FIFA World Cup and has adhered to two major human rights treati, nnot rema an outsir to the velopments—pecially given that FIFA has now a tailed human rights policy and is particularly supportive of clive football associatns such as the Internatnal Gay and Lbian Football Associatn. 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 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).

[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. 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.

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.

EVERYTHG YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT BEG GAY MLIM UNTRI

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. 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. 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. In Libya, where a gay activist told Human Rights Watch that he only knew of two other people his untry that he would nsir to be LGBT rights activists, along wh about five other Libyans livg abroad, buildg muny is a prry—and the ter is regard as the saft place to do .

A study published 2017 by OutRight Actn Internatnal found that Arabic language media tend to e “gradg and rogatory terms” when discsg LGBT people, equently ed relign to jtify transphobia and homophobia, and often ed accatns of homosexualy “as a tool to reputatns of dividuals regardls of the actual sexual orientatn of the person who is beg targeted. To mark the Internatnal Day Agast Homophobia and Transphobia (IDAHOT) May 2017, the regnal MantiQna work ordated a multi-untry social media iative lled “Our Colours Are the Crime” which addrsed “persecutn, vlence public spac and on the streets jt for existg” Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Mrania, Moroc, Sudan, and Tunisia. Some social media iativ aim to challenge viewers to qutn their own beliefs: Lebanon, for IDAHOT 2016, Helem produced a vio that characterized anti-gay harassment as one of many exampl of police abe of thory, and qutned viewers’ reluctance to stand up for LGBT victims of such ab of power.

IN A SURVEY OF AMERIN MLIMS, 0% INTIFIED AS LBIAN OR GAY. HERE’S THE STORY BEHD THAT STATISTIC

Elie Ballan, an activist wh M-Coaln Beit, told Human Rights Watch that Lebanon, open discsn of LGBT rights first grew out of discsns startg the late 1990s about the HIV crisis and the need to target key populatns for preventn and treatment, cludg MSM (a term ed by HIV service provirs to clu not only men who intify as gay or bisexual, but also those who may not affirm such inti but neverthels engage same-sex relatns). Yoif Al Ghawas, a gay man om Bahra livg Lebanon, agreed that there is an urgent necsy for activism around HIV and health, and that might—even a nservative society ristant to almost all forms of activism—open doors to eper discsns of sexualy:.

” In 2019, Mlim Advot, MPAC, and CAIR-Oklahoma llectively submted an amic brief favor of gay and transgenr employment protectns alongsi the heretil “reformist” anizatn Mlims for Progrsive Valu (MPV)—a peculiar cln, particularly given MPV print Ani Zonneveld’s prr repudiatn of Yasir Qadhi, Hamza Yuf, the Council on Amerin–Islamic Relatns (CAIR), the Islamic Society of North Ameri (ISNA), Hsam Ayloh (Executive Director, CAIR-LA), Nihad Awad (-founr and Executive Director of CAIR), Zaytuna Instute, and the Islamic Circle of North Ameri (ICNA) as “homophobic. At no pot is there even implic support for homosexual relatnships all of this recent years, heterodox groups have emerged proposg reforms to this sexual ethic, argug that the Quranic msage has been misunrstood by jurists or that perhaps the language self is malleable enough to acmodate same-sex relatnships alongsi normative heterosexual on.

Attempts to approve homosexual acts not only vlate clear vers of revelatn (th nstutg a posn of disbelief, or ku) but also profoundly unrme the very soc-faial ethic whose prervatn is an sential prciple and one of the ma overridg objectiv of Islamic law, namely, the prervatn of leage (nasl).