In a two-day span, supporters of LGBT rights are joining in protest marches Sunday in dozens of cities in the U.S. and abroad, and then observing Monday’s one-year anniversary of the mass shooting that killed 49 people at Pulse, a gay night club in Orlando, Florida.
The events come amid new political challenges for the LGBT-rights movement in the United States and numerous reports of anti-LGBT violence and persecution abroad. Some examples:
WORLDWIDE:
-According to multiple reports, scores of gay men have been detained and tortured in the Russian republic of Chechnya.
-In Indonesia, animosity toward the LGBT community has been whipped up by anti-gay comments from cabinet ministers and other public figures. In the capital, Jakarta, police detained 141 men in a May 21 raid on a gay gym and sauna. On May 23, on orders from an Islamic Shariah court, two men received more than 80 lashes of the cane for having sex together; hundreds of onlookers jeered at them.
-In Bangladesh, authorities made 27 arrests in a May 19 raid on a group of gay men at a community center near the capital, Dhaka. Last year, a leading LGBT activist, Xulhaz Mannan, was hacked to death in Dhaka by suspected militants.
-In Nigeria, police arrested more than 50 young men celebrating a gay wedding in April. Nigerian law bans gay marriage; violators can be punished by up to 14 years in prison.
-In Moldova, President Igor Dodon spoke out against an LGBT parade organized in the capital city, and said he did not consider himself to be president of the Eastern European country’s gays.
-In El Salvador, multiple killings of transgender women drew the attention of the United Nations human rights office, which urged Salvadoran authorities to investigate.
UNITED STATES:
-President Donald Trump’s administration revoked federal guidelines advising public school districts to let transgender students use the bathrooms and locker rooms of their choice.
-The Trump administration deleted questions about sexual orientation from two federal surveys.
-Nearly all of the Republicans who hold power in Congress have declined to back a Democratic-backed bill that would provide nationwide non-discrimination protections for LGBT people.
-Legislators in South Dakota, Alabama and Texas approved bills protecting faith-based adoption organizations that refuse to place children with gay parents.
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