According to a report prepared by the International Association of Gays and Lesbians, with data updated until 2016, there are currently 72 countries where homosexuality is criminalized. In 13 of them, the crime can be punished with the death penalty and, in many of the others, it can lead to imprisonment. You can download the complete document here.
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Countries where you can be sentenced to death for being gay: Sudan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Mauritania, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Qatar, UAE, Iraq, parts of Syria, parts of Nigeria and parts of Somalia.
Countries where it’s illegal to be gay and you can be arrested:
Africa (33 nations; in 24 the law applies to women)
Algeria, Angola, Botswana, Burundi, Cameroon, Comoros, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Liberia, Libya, Malawi, Mauritania, Mauritius, Morocco, Namibia, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Sudan , Sudan, Swaziland, Tanzania, Togo, Tunisia, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
Asia (23 nations; in 13 the law applies to women)
Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Brunei, Gaza (in occupied Palestinian territory), India, South Sumatra and Aceh (in Indonesia), Iraq, Iran, Kuwait, Lebanon, Malaysia, Maldives, Myanmar, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Syria, Turkmenistan, United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan and Yemen.
Americas (11 nations; in 6 the law applies to women)
Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Grenadine, Guyana, Jamaica, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadine and Trinidad and Tobago.
Oceania (6 nations; in 2 the law applies to women)
Cook Islands (associated with New Zealand), Kiribati, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga and Tuvalu.
Below, we list 10 of the worst countries to be LGBT around the world, today.
1) Azerbaijan
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In this country, considered the worst in Europe for LGBTs, homosexuality was decriminalized in the year 2000. But, in practice, little has changed. You can be arrested and/or fined just for «looking» gay. Complaints filed in 2017 by the LGBTI Intergroup of the European Parliament stated that more than 100 community members reported being beaten, forcibly examined and forced to reveal their cell phone information to police. And that was just in 2017 – LGBT people have been victims of hate speech in this country for decades.
Prejudice is institutionalized. Ayaz Efendiyev, spokesperson for the Justice Party, claimed that “by defending these creatures, which are the source of immorality, dangerous diseases and which have been cursed by God, communities in the West are trying to destroy our national traditions under the guise of ‘human rights’. humans'».
In 2015, the European Parliament voted to condemn the “intimidation and repression” of LGBT people in Azerbaijan.
2) Chechnya
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Chechnya is technically part of Russia, but it has its own laws. In 2017, a newspaper report Novaya Gazeta denounced the creation of concentration camps, established in February of that year, where gay men were arrested and tortured with electric shocks, among other methods. Tortures occurred so that men would denounce other gays.
The country’s leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, said the allegation was false and claimed that there are no gays in Chechnya. He stated: «If there were such people in Chechnya, the authorities would not need to worry about them because their relatives would send them to a place from which they could not return.»
The repercussions were wide. The journalist responsible for the story, Elena Milashina, had to go into hiding after receiving death threats. Protests against LGBT persecution in Chechnya took place around the world and activist groups moved to remove gay people from the region. After the allegations, the organization Human Rights Watch published several reports confirming the persecution of gays in Chechnya, idealized by the high echelon of the government.
The Russian government was charged in this respect, but its position basically consisted of denying the accusations – showing not only its disregard for the LGBT, but also the attempt not to lose its ally in the region.
3) Iraq
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In this country, there are extermination groups that act with the connivance and support of the government. One such massacre took place in January 2017, and the group responsible is rumored to have a hit list of more than 100 names, according to the country’s only gay activist, Amir Ashour, founder of the advocacy group IraQueer.
LGBT people, especially gay men, have been persecuted in the country for decades, but the situation has worsened with the arrival of the Islamic State terrorist group. People become targets even through dating apps. In addition, physical spaces in the community are bombed, leaving members dispersed and unable to find each other.
In an interview, Ashour said that police stop individuals who look different, especially transgender people undergoing hormone treatment, and that these people are humiliated and physically abused. In 2017, Iraqi actor and model Karar Nushi was kidnapped, tortured and killed in Baghdad because he «looked gay».
4) Iran
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Amnesty International estimates that more than 5,000 gays and lesbians have been executed in the country since 1979 – the country is one of those that have capital punishment for homosexuality. Also under the law, the family can kill gay children, as a way to protect their honor. Thus, the country remains one of the most dangerous for gays in the world.
Interestingly, the legislation is much more permissive with transgenders. Since 1983, they have been accepted in society and can undergo sexual reassignment surgery without any problems – so much so that the country is the second where this type of surgery is performed the most in the world, behind only Thailand. Transgenders who don’t want to undergo surgery, however, are not accepted.
5) China
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Homosexuality ceased to be a crime in China in 1997 and also ceased to be considered a mental illness. The non-heteronormative culture has risen there, and nowadays Shanghai even has an LGBT pride parade.
However, the problem in China is not the laws, but the family culture. Over there, the ability to have children and form a family is highly valued. For this reason, homosexuality is seen as a shame and dishonor within the family, and it is common for fathers and mothers to hide their children from society because of this, especially in villages far from big cities. Many gay men and lesbian women end up being placed in arranged marriages and suffer for it.
A 2013 survey found that only 21% of the Chinese population were in favor of homosexuality.
6) Nigeria
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Several states in northern Nigeria have adopted sharia, Islamic law that criminalizes same-sex relationships. The maximum penalty for men who commit this offense is death, and for women it is flogging or imprisonment.
Outside these states, homosexuality is still prohibited by law and can carry imprisonment for up to 14 years, depending on the article applied to the «offender». Same-gender marriage is also expressly prohibited.
Nigeria is one of the most homophobic countries in the world – a 2016 poll found that 51% of the population strongly agreed with the statement that “being gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender should be a crime”.
7) Egypt
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Since 2013, when a military intervention brought General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi to power, at least 250 LGBT people have been arrested by the government. Homosexuality is not illegal in the country, but the government uses a 1961 law that condemns «customary debauchery» and is used to prosecute gay men and women prostitutes. Penalties reach 12 years in prison.
Before this offensive, which came along with the military government, the LGBT scene in Egypt was growing. But that has all changed now, with gay hangouts shutting down and police infiltrating dating apps to harass people. Grindr has even become such a frequent source for ambushes that it now warns its users that there may be undercover police posing as gay men.
Because of this new offensive, many LGBT people have left Egypt.
8) Uganda
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A 2013 poll asked the public, «Should society accept homosexuality?» 96% of people answered “no”. This is the social perception in this African country with 41.5 million inhabitants and laws that criminalize homosexuality and provide for imprisonment for this “crime”.
The situation has gotten worse over there. In the 2010s, the executive and legislative branches tried to pass several anti-LGBT laws, including life imprisonment for same-gender sex and a ban on “homosexual propaganda”. Several of these initiatives were blocked by organizations that defend human rights.
LGBT people are openly harassed in the country by both family members and police. Simon Lokodo, one of the country’s leading anti-LGBT activists and Minister of State for Ethics and Integrity, even said in 2014 that he would rather die than kiss another man, and compared the act to eating his own feces.
A 2015 survey named Uganda the worst country in the world to be gay.
9) Russia
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Homosexuality was decriminalized in Russia shortly after the fall of the Soviet Union, but the country maintains a very prejudiced view of LGBT people. The government of Vladimir Putin is openly anti-gay and, in 2013, passed a law banning “gay propaganda”, which prevented the distribution of material about LGBT rights, for example, and also prohibited the equality of same-sex and heterosexual marriages. .
This law is why gay parades are banned in Moscow, for example, although there are smaller demonstrations. In 2017, three gay activists sued the state and won the European Court of Human Rights, which ordered the Russian government to pay them compensation. The law was deemed “discriminatory”.
Since 2015, a new law has been discussed in parliament that will prohibit the display of affection between people of the same gender in public places. People could be arrested for kissing, holding hands or any other behavior that the authorities deem inappropriate.
The case of Chechnya, where the government…