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Men rounded up by the police in Jakarta, Indonesia, this week. They were arrested \u201con the basis of their perceived sexual orientation,\u201d a United Nations official said.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>Credit<\/span>Beawiharta\/Reuters<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n
GENEVA \u2014 United Nations officials on Friday condemned the recent mass arrests of gay and transgender people in Azerbaijan, Egypt and Indonesia, saying that the authorities in those countries had violated international law by detaining, mistreating and torturing them.<\/p>\n
The roundups \u2014 of about 80 people in Azerbaijan, 50 in Egypt and 50 in Indonesia over the past few weeks \u2014 do not appear to be connected, but United Nations officials said they exposed patterns of discrimination and abuse that also damage broad development goals.<\/p>\n
The authorities in Azerbaijan\u2019s capital, Baku, have detained more than 80 people identified as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender since mid-September, reportedly subjecting some of them to beatings, electric shocks and forced shaving, Rupert Colville, a spokesman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, told reporters in Geneva.<\/p>\n
The police resorted to other forms of humiliation, including forcing many of those arrested to undergo medical examinations and then releasing the results or details of their medical status to the news media.<\/p>\n
The authorities in Baku said they were acting in response to public demands for a crackdown on prostitution, but lawyers for those detained said that most were not involved in the sex trade and that the charges were a pretext.<\/p>\n
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All of those detained in Azerbaijan have been released, but some served short sentences on charges of \u201chooliganism\u201d and \u201cresisting a police order,\u201d Mr. Colville said. He added that \u201cany arrest based on actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity is by definition arbitrary and violates international law.\u201d<\/p>\n
Egyptian authorities had arrested more than 50 people in recent weeks on the basis of their assumed sexual orientation or gender identity, some of them entrapped by law enforcement officials on websites and chat rooms, Mr. Colville said.<\/p>\n
Two people were arrested after they waved rainbow flags during a rock concert, he said. The flag waving, at a performance by a Lebanese band with an openly gay singer, was shown on social media sites and provoked criticism as an attempt to disgrace Egypt. The police interrogated the two on charges that included \u201cjoining an outlawed group that aims to promote homosexuality.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Charges against those detained included \u201chabitual debauchery,\u201d \u201cinciting indecency and debauchery,\u201d and \u201cjoining a banned group,\u201d Mr. Colville said. Some had been subjected to intrusive vaginal and anal examinations, he said, which have been condemned by the United Nations\u2019 anti-torture panel as cruel, inhumane and degrading.<\/p>\n
A few of those arrested in Egypt have been released, but 10 men were sentenced to prison terms of one to six years and others were being held pending trial, he said.<\/p>\n
Egyptian human rights activists, who say the government has arrested more than 300 gay and transgender people since 2013, condemned the arrests as an attempt to distract public attention from social problems.<\/p>\n
The Indonesian police arrested 50 people at a sauna in the capital, Jakarta, a week ago \u201con the basis of their perceived sexual orientation,\u201d Mr. Colville said. Many were released, but four men and one woman were charged under a \u201claw on pornography\u201d that Mr. Colville said had been used to punish people for same-sex relationships.<\/p>\n
He said the authorities in all three countries accused those arrested of being involved in sex work \u201calthough in almost all cases the accused have denied such allegations or indicated that they were coerced into confessing involvement.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr. Colville called on the three governments to release anyone detained on the basis of their actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity and drop charges based on vaguely worded and discriminatory laws.<\/p>\n
Twelve United Nations agencies called in June for an end to discrimination in health care and the elimination of laws that criminalize gender expression and relationships between consenting adults. They described such measures as violations of basic rights, as a threat to public health and as an obstacle to achieving development goals.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
OCT. 13, 2017 (NYTimes.com) Photo Men rounded up by the police in Jakarta, Indonesia, this week. They were arrested \u201con the basis of their perceived sexual orientation,\u201d a United Nations official said.\u00a0CreditBeawiharta\/Reuters GENEVA \u2014 United Nations officials on Friday condemned the recent mass arrests of gay and transgender people in… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6547"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6547"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6547\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6548,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6547\/revisions\/6548"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}