LGBTQ+

After CFJ Co-Founder George Clooney issued highly publicized calls for a boycott of hotels controlled by the Sultan of Brunei to protest new laws that would have allowed gay men to be stoned to death in Brunei, Brunei backed off on enforcement of the law.

In Nigeria, TrialWatch monitored the first case to be tried under the country’s draconian ‘Same Sex Marriage Prevention Act,’ which criminalizes direct or indirect “public show[s] of same sex amorous relationship[s]” with up to ten years imprisonment. While the case, brought against 47 men arrested at a hotel bar, was eventually struck out, TrialWatch reporting exposed its abusive nature.

Several defendants said they were mistreated in custody, and others were forcibly ‘outed’ by being paraded in public by the authorities. And despite being given numerous opportunities by the court, the prosecution produced no relevant evidence. Even though the case was ultimately dismissed, the defendants suffered serious consequences, including loss of their jobs, estrangement from their families, stigmatization, physical violence, and legal fees.

In Russia, TrialWatch published a preliminary report on the case against LGBTQ+ activist Yulia Tsvetkova, after which she was acquitted. Ms. Tsvetkova, a 26-year-old women’s and LGBTQ+ rights activist from Siberia, was charged with pornography for posting artistic images of female genitalia as part of a body-positive women’s empowerment campaign and faced up to six years in prison.

Our report details how the indictment against her was riddled with indicia of discrimination, suggesting for instance that the images she posted might create “a stereotype of female sexuality as an isolated phenomenon that exists outside of sexual relations with men.”  While the prosecution appealed her acquittal, and the Court of Cassation ultimately ordered her retrial, she was able to safely get out of the country in the meantime.