Call from 137 organisations: 

Protect LGBTIQs in Afghanistan

"The Afghan LGBTIQ people have already been living in fear of violence and killings for a number of years, and we dread that this situation will escalate further."

Under the leadership of LGBTI+ umbrella organisation ILGA Asia, 137 rights organisations from all over the world called for the protection of LGBTI+s in Afghanistan.

The short text of the statement is as follows:

We, the undersigned organisations working to advance the human rights of persons of diverse sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, and sex characteristics (SOGIESC) call for the protection of women, children, LGBTIQ people and other vulnerable persons in Afghanistan.

Since 15 August, the Taliban-led takeover of Kabul’s Presidential Palace and the abrupt collapse of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan’s government raises concerns over human rights and the safety of marginalised groups in the country. Besides LGBTIQ people and people of diverse SOGIESC, women, persecuted religious minorities, journalists and human rights defenders have come under threat, and many have gone into hiding out of fear.

We are concerned with alleged reports of the Taliban already implementing their strict version of the Sharia law, and it has been reported that many women and girls fear participating in public life and face the risk of being banned from going to school and university again. We are saddened to see the decades of progress made by women’s groups be potentially reversed suddenly and disastrously.

We also fear that LGBTIQ people will be further criminalised and persecuted, as authorities in the Taliban have made recent statements that death sentences will be reinstated for gay men. The Afghan LGBTIQ people have already been living in fear of violence and killings for a number of years, and we dread that this situation will escalate further.

In ILGA World’s latest State-Sponsored Homophobia (2020) report, Afghanistan is listed among countries for which there is no full legal certainty that the death penalty is the established punishment for consensual same-sex sexual acts. The same report also updates on the explicit criminalising provisions of “same-sex conduct” under Section 646 of Afghanistan’s 2017 Penal Code and enforcement in recent years.

We call for the following:

• We urge the Taliban to respect the rights of all people granted by the Constitution of Afghanistan, the international covenants ratified by Afghanistan, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and international human rights norms, irrespective of their SOGIESC status.
• We demand that any effort to quell this political crisis will be made with the consultation of vulnerable people in Afghanistan including LGBTIQ persons and women. Their human rights must not be compromised for a political peace deal.
• We call on the international community to provide urgent humanitarian assistance and protection to all Afghans.
• We urge that countries open their borders and accept refugees and asylum seekers from Afghanistan. We commend Canada’s commitment to accepting 20,000 vulnerable Afghans and prioritising LGBTIQ persons, women leaders and other groups, and look to other countries to follow suit.

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