Mauritania: Authorities arrest men over homosexualityhttps://t.co/6Ybkxo5gwi

— INEND (@INENDorg) January 29, 2020

Mauritania: 10 people imprisoned and facing trial for “gay wedding” video

Ten people have been sent to prison in Nouakchott after a video went viral on social media, seemingly showing two men undergoing a traditional Mauritanian marriage ceremony.

As ILGA World’s State-Sponsored Homophobia report points out, the country’s Penal Code criminalises same sex conduct for both sexes, but with different types of punishment. While adult Muslim men may receive a sentence of “death by public stoning”, women have a lower sentence of between three months to two years imprisonment, and a fine.

The State has observed a “de facto moratorium since 1987” on the death penalty, although media reports indicate that the accused will likely be prosecuted for "violating God’s prohibitions” and “drawing attention to an occasion of immorality."

There is as yet no planned date for the commencement of proceedings.

It’s an abusive practice and how any person or group can advocate for it is disgraceful https://t.co/myqx8BN0ME

— Being LGBTQ Podcast (@BeingLGBTQPod) January 29, 2020

Australia: religious groups oppose Queensland 'conversion therapy' ban

Religious schools and organisations are fighting a move by the Queensland government to make ‘conversion’ therapy a crime in the state.

In November 2019 the government of Queensland proposed new legislation which would make the discredited practice of trying to change a person’s gender identity or sexual orientation illegal – with a proposed punishment of up to 18 months in jail for transgressors.

In opposition to this, a number of coalitions of religious schools and organisations have undertaken a campaign against the law, and addressed a parliamentary committee on their concerns.

 “The Queensland government must guarantee that Christian schools can continue to teach a traditional Biblical sexual ethic and a biologically and medically accurate view of sexuality,” the committee was told. The proposed legislation, however, has the support of numerous medical bodies, such as the Australian Psychological Society, and the Queensland Human Rights Commission.

Organisations challenging the law also argued that Christian adults should have the right to freely consent to undergoing ‘counselling’ if they are “same-sex attracted but want to live according to their own personal definitions of their sexuality.”

‘Conversion’ therapies are being widely recognised as harmful and even ‘tantamount to torture’ by the United Nations. According to ILGA World’s latest State-Sponsored Homophobia report, only three UN Member States have nationwide bans on the practice, although considerable progress has been made elsewhere, especially at the subnational level.

Denunciamos ante la Comisión Interamericana de DDHH, @CIDH, 23 abusos policiales contra personas LGBTI en el marco del estallido social. ¡No más abusos de @Carabdechile https://t.co/K9ZWCQyj4z pic.twitter.com/CL5Bia5kO9

— Movilh Chile (@Movilh) January 27, 2020

Chile: violence against LGBTI persons on the rise as security forces clamped down on protests

For months, Chile has seen people in the street protesting against the rising cost of living, privatisation and inequality. The response to such unrest, however, has gone hand in hand with increased violence against LGBTI persons in the country.

According to Movilh, at least 23 instances of homophobic and transphobic violence by state forces have taken place over the past few months, ostensibly in response to the ongoing civil unrest across the country.

The organization's spokesman, Óscar Rementería, has stated that LGBTI people faced "torture, robbery, arbitrary detention, false accusations, insults based on sexual orientation or gender identity" at the hands of police and other state officials. At least half of the recorded cases are in Santiago, where most protests and demonstrations have taken place.

The National Institute of Human Rights in Chile has confirmed the arrest of 9,129 people during the protests, of which 1,445 suffered violations in the form of sexual violence, torture or excessive use of force. Movilh and other human rights groups have officially approached the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights  to denounce the ongoing violence.

Though no formal statistics on hate crimes in Chile exist, Movilh reported 17 more cases of violence against our communities in 2019 - a dramatic rise compared to the nine of 2018.

The TN adoption/foster care discrimination bill was signed into law today. Public funds can now be used to support agencies that will turn prospective parents away based on religious or moral reasons.

— TN Equality Project (@tnequality) January 24, 2020

United States: Tennessee passes anti-LGBT “Child Welfare” Bill

Tennessee Governor Bill Lee signed into law bill HB 836, thereby formally allowing private and publicly-funded child welfare and adoption agencies in the state to turn away LGBT couples, interfaith couples, single parents and divorcees - or anyone else to whom the agencies may take “religious objection” - from adopting or offering foster homes to children.

With an estimated two million LGBTQ people across the United States potentially interested in adopting, and a severe over-representation of youth of diverse sexual orientations, gender identities and expressions in the foster-care system who have been abandoned by their families, human rights defenders have heavily criticised this bill.

“It’s disturbing that Governor Bill Lee signed legislation that will harm children in Tennessee,” said Alphonso David, President of the Human Rights Campaign. “This bill does nothing to improve the outcomes for children in care, shrinks the pool of prospective parents and is a blatant attempt to discriminate against LGBTQ Tennesseans.”

Some are concerned that the wave of hostile sentiment won’t end here.

“As this bill becomes law, Tennessee's LGBTQ community is worried about the introduction of even more discriminatory bills,” said Chris Sanders, executive director of the Tennessee Equality Project. “The Governor and the Legislature must put a stop to this kind of demeaning public policy.”

India: Police block Mumbai Pride amid fears of “political sloganeering”

As civil unrest against India’s National Registry of Citizens (NRC) and Citizen Amendment Act (CAA) continues across the country, authorities have attempted to clamp down on public dissent.

The Mumbai Police have denied Mumbai Pride permission to go ahead with its march and celebrations just three days before the event was due to commence, taking queer and trans rights activists across the country by surprise.

One organiser spoke to local LGBTI media platform, The Lens, saying that “they (the police) were extremely apologetic about the inconvenience, but adamant about not giving us the permission to hold the rally”.

A police department official told the Mumbai Mirror that they had told organisers “the march could give a chance to others to infiltrate and mingle into the crowd and give it a political colour. That will ruin the very purpose of the march.”

Organisers claim that Pride has often been a space for political statements in the past, and that it is the backlash against the NRC and CAA in particular which the government seeks to quell.

A big win today for coalition of human rights orgs, incl ILGA-Europe as @CoE adopts resolution supporting protection of freedom of religion and belief, which protects human rights without laying the groundwork for legalisation of #LGBTI discrimination. https://t.co/IVc83ALsDF pic.twitter.com/XlWKDIWIWw

— ILGA-Europe (@ILGAEurope) January 29, 2020

Council of Europe votes to protect religious freedom, but bars LGBTI discrimination on those grounds

The Council of Europe has voted 76-65 to pass a resolution on protection of freedom of religion or belief in the workplace, while rejecting a recommendation to introduce the concept of the so-called “reasonable accommodation of religion or belief” in the law of member states. This comes as a major victory to a wide-range of advocacy groups, including those working in areas of reproductive rights and LGBTI equality.

The motion would have seen a broadening of the legal scope of conscientious objection, “in particular when it comes to women’s sexual and reproductive health rights, notably the access to safe and legal abortion or to contraceptives,” said the European Humanist Federation (EHF) in a statement. “Accommodating religious demands at the workplace could also come at the expense of the rights of LBGTIQ people, as religious claims are often used to discriminate against them.”

“This is a victory for those who protect and promote the human rights of vulnerable people, including the right of those without a religion not to suffer discrimination as a result of excessive exemptions for religious groups”, said Giulio Ercolessi, President of the EHF.