Global campaign to decriminalise homosexuality kicks off (Video)

Image via Wikipedia

By Paul Canning

A court case will start this week in the small Central American nation of Belize challenging that country's criminalisation of homosexuality. The case is supported by a new British-based group which hopes to challenge such laws throughout the world.

The Human Dignity Trust (HDT) was established by a high powered group, which includes the former attorney general of India; the former secretary general of the Commonwealth; Lord Woolf, former lord chief justice of England and Wales; and a former judge at the Intra-American court of human rights.

It says:

"Criminalisation causes misery to all of those affected, compromising people's identity through illegality. It also reduces human beings to their sexual acts."

"We hope to bring approximately five to 10 cases globally each year. Where necessary we will fund cases. In the event of a prosecution, we can assist lawyers in preparing a defence challenging those laws. If appropriate, we may bring cases in our own name."

Most such laws are a legacy of British colonial rule. Countries formerly ruled by Belgium, Portugal or France generally do not have such laws.

The former British attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, will be among the team of lawyers taking on the constitutionality of section 53 of Belize's criminal code, which says that: "Every person who has carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any person or animal shall be liable to imprisonment for 10 years."
The case has been brought by United Belize Advocacy Movement (UNIBAM) and its Executive President Caleb Orozco.

Local churches have united in their opposition to decriminalisation and will be present at the hearings. Amongst the evidence they say they will present will be that homosexuality can be "cured". They will also tout the 'foreign influence' line as well as the 'victimhood' line flowing from US evangelical objections to LGBT human rights, saying:

"In every country that has granted a new 'right' to homosexual behaviour, activists have promoted and steadily expanded this 'right' to trump universally recognised rights to religious freedom and expression."

Legal moves challenging criminalisation are already underway in Botswana and are being discussed in Kenya. HDT say they will next challenge sodomy laws in Northern Cyprus and Jamaica.

The legal challenge is on the basis of international agreements which states are party to and, according to the Trust's Chief Executive, Jonathan Cooper, a human rights barrister, mean that criminalising homosexuality is illegal.

"We hope there will be a domino effect eventually," Cooper added, "with countries recognising [that they will lose the test cases] and saying 'Why don't we just decriminalise?'"

Cooper told The Guardian that the Trust's patrons "are not pursuing this as part of a lesbian and gay agenda. It's an international rights law agenda."

The criminalisation laws were an issue at the recent Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting with the Commonwealth appointed Eminent Persons Group cited their abolition as a key recommendation in an extensive Commonwealth reform document.

At a regional consultation convened by the Caribbean Vulnerable Communities Coalition (CVC) in Montego Bay, Jamaica 28 August under the PANCAP Global Fund Project, leaders from more than 20 Caribbean organizations representing the LGBT community and other human rights entities unanimously voted to support their Belizean counterparts in the legal challenge.

Edited to add: Veteran Caribbean activist Colin Robinson of the Trinidad-based Coalition for Inclusion of Sexual Orientation (CAISO) has been highly critical of the HDT role with the case, pointing out that they have not developed it and are not representing the plaintiff.

He said:

"The case was the result of methodical strategic assessment done within the region by Caribbean lawyers and was supposed to be about Caribbean advocates using a Caribbean constitution and Caribbean postcolonial frameworks to expand the enjoyment of liberty and justice in a way that builds on a very Caribbean notion of freedom. The Trust's intervention turned the case into powerful alien gay interests using money and international law to leverage outcomes against the will of the Belizean people. And in my view it will set back the cause of building ownership of GLBT rights and related litigation for years. And now, they are deliberately claiming the case as the kickoff of their campaign, without a mention of the lawyers whose work the case in fact is."

Video: Belizean Prime Minister Dean Barrow comments on the government's position regarding UNIBAM lawsuit to legalise homosexuality in Belize.

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Video: In Caribbean, challenges mount to 'buggery' laws

By H, Editor Gay Jamaica Watch

Human Rights advocates and activists from across the Caribbean say they are in full support of a judicial review of the buggery law that is presently being mounted in Belize.

The case which has created strong public debate in Belize was initiated by United Belize Advocacy Movement (UNIBAM) and its Executive President Caleb Orozco in July 2010. Oral arguments are scheduled to be heard in the Supreme Court in early December this year. UNIBAM is a Belizean NGO established to defend the human rights of the Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) community.

At a regional consultation convened by the Caribbean Vulnerable Communities Coalition (CVC) in Montego Bay, Jamaica 28 August under the PANCAP Global Fund Project, leaders from more than 20 Caribbean organizations representing the LGBT community and other human rights entities unanimously voted to support their Belizean counterparts.

Recognized as a “test-case” and an example of litigation in the public interest by many, the Belize case is driven by the human rights principle that states that all people are equal and should have equality before the law. It seeks to challenge the failure of the Belize Government to acknowledge the human dignity of all persons regardless of their sexual orientation in an old colonial law that still exists in Belize and the failure to recognize the rights of all citizens, especially the most vulnerable, as Caribbean constitutions demand.

Implications for the region

In detailing this unprecedented show of support for this historic move, Colin Robinson of the Trinidad-based Coalition for Inclusion of Sexual Orientation (CAISO) stated:

“We want to send a clear message that we will be relentless in helping to change that situation. It shows that not only is there general dissatisfaction with this outdated legal framework throughout the region but that many persons are feeling the negative effects of these laws in their own countries”.

“CVC has a mandate and commitment to preserving the rights and dignity of populations that are marginalized and do not have voice in the national and regional dialogue and whose rights are regularly trampled on. We are therefore driven by a strong human rights framework,” noted Dr. Marcus Day, Co-Chair of CVC. In affirming that CVC will seek to bring to bear its skills and resources to giving voice to these communities he stated that “To have laws that criminalize person in same-sex relations really and truly negates the human rights of this population. This cannot be allowed to continue.”

Tracy Robinson, Senior Lecturer at the Faculty of Law, University of the West Indies (UWI), Mona noted that “The sodomy or buggery laws undoubtedly affect LGBTs disproportionately, but they also criminalize sexual activities between consenting adults who are heterosexual”.

According to Ms. Robinson,

"Some argue that because the law is rarely enforced against consenting adults it poses little harm. But it has been shown that the continued existence of the laws is used by some to sanction their violence against LGBTs, results in LGBT people fearing the police and not reporting serious crimes against them and impedes meaningful access to health care and other services to prevent and treat HIV.”

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At Trinidad airport, transgender Belizean told 'go stand in a corner'

Mia Quetzal

Source: Trinidad Express

By Joel Julien

A transgender person from Belize, who was on the way to a regional conference being held in this country, has claimed discrimination by immigration officers at the Piarco International Airport.

Mia Quetzal, a Belizean and regional coordinator of the Caribbean Regional Tran in Action was invited to attend an United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) meeting held in this country 12-13 April.

Quetzal arrived at Piarco International Airport around 4 p.m. on COPA Airlines 411 11 April.

Quetzal was wearing female garments at the time.

When Quetzal's passport was checked, immigration officers questioned why she was listed as a male.

"I am indeed male," Quetzal told the immigration officer.

Quetzal was told to "go stand in a corner" for more than an hour and a half before she was able to leave the airport.

The issue of the alleged discrimination meted out to Quetzal was aired on the Belize national television 7 News on 13 April.

"Recently, we've seen a lot of regional news about friction between Jamaica and Barbados. It's because Jamaican females claim they are being sexually harassed and accused of illicit activity by Barbadian Immigration authorities," the 7 News coverage stated.

"It's become a big deal, because as Caricom member states, Jamaicans should move freely into Barbados or any other Caricom country. And that's how it should be for Belizeans as well. But now, one Belizean gay activist group claims that a Belizean transgender person was sexually discriminated against at Piarco International Airport in Trinidad," the news programme stated.

Caleb Orozco, the executive president of the United Belize Advocacy Movement, has described the incident as "deliberate humiliation".

"This person had her documents together. She changed her picture to present how she looks in person, she had the correct name. Yet she was treated like a dog," Orozco stated in a letter yesterday.

"For us to simply allow another Belizean to be humiliated in another Caricom country is not only a disgrace but an insult to our national sovereignty," Orozco stated.

Colin Robinson, the spokesman for the Coalition Advocating for the Inclusion of Sexual Orientation (CAISO) of Trinidad and Tobago, described the incident as an "embarrassment to the country".

"It's an embarrassment to the country. Clearly unprofessional no need to shame and embarrass people for who they are," Robinson said in a telephone interview yesterday.

"My hope is that it will spur the Ministry of National Security to improve sensitivity to other Caricom nationals. Our hope is it is an opportunity for education for sexual and gender diversity and that the immigration officials appropriate training to deal with the issue," he said.

"The Prime Minister (Kamla Persad-Bissessar) needs to figure out if we want to be a first class nation or an international embarrassment," Robinson said.

Calls to Chief Immigration Officer Andy Edwards for a comment on the issue proved futile up to presstime.

Related articles

• In Trinidad and Tobago LGBT advocate for rights (madikazemi.blogspot.com)
• Persecution claims of Caribbean LGBT asylum seekers 'not exaggerated' (madikazemi.blogspot.com)

Resource: The Global Detention Project

Norway's Trandum Detention Centre

The Global Detention Project (GDP) is an inter-disciplinary research endeavour that investigates the role detention plays in states’ responses to global migration, with a special focus on the policies and physical infrastructures of detention. The project, which was initiated in October 2006 with funding from the Geneva International Academic Network, is based at the Graduate Institute’s Programme for the Study of Global Migration.

To assess the growth and evolution of detention institutions, project researchers are creating a comprehensive database of detention sites that categorises detention facilities along several dimensions, including security level, bureaucratic chain of command, facility type (is a given site an exposed camp, a dedicated migrant detention facility, or a common prison), spatial segregation (are there separate cells for criminals and administrative detainees, for women and men), and size. This data is gradually being ported to the GDP website in the form of maps, lists, and country profiles. Eventually, the project intends to make the entire database fully interactive with the website.

In December the project released five new reports covering Norway, New Zealand, Poland, Spain, Belize and detention at Europe's borders.

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