Gay rights middle east

Which countries impose the death penalty on gay people?

Around the world, queer people continue to meet discrimination, violence, harassment and social stigma. While social movements have marked progress towards acceptance in many countries, in others homosexuality continues to be outlawed and penalised, sometimes with death.

According to Statistica Research Department, as of 2024, homosexuality is criminalised in 64 countries globally, with most of these nations situated in the Middle East, Africa and Asia. In 12 of these countries, the death penalty is either enforced or remains a possibility for private, consensual lgbtq+ sexual activity.

In many cases, the laws only apply to sexual relations between two men, but 38 countries own amendments that include those between women in their definitions.

These penalisations represent abuses of human rights, especially the rights to freedom of utterance, the right to develop one's have personality and the right to life.

Which countries enforce the death penalty for homosexuality?

Saudi Arabia

The Wahabbi interpretation of Sharia law in Saudi Arabia maintains that acts of homosexuality should be disciplined in the sa

Everything you need to know about entity gay in Muslim countries

When the US supreme court ruled in favour of same-sex marriage last year, the White House welcomed it with rainbow-coloured lights and many people celebrated by adding a rainbow tint to their Facebook profile.

For the authorities in Saudi Arabia, though, this was cause for alarm rather than celebration, alerting them to a previously unnoticed peril in their midst. The first casualty was the privately sprint Talaee Al-Noor academy in Riyadh which happened to own a rooftop parapet painted with rainbow stripes. According to the kingdom’s religious police, the college was fined 100,000 riyals ($26,650) for displaying “the emblem of the homosexuals” on its building, one of its administrators was jailed and the offending parapet was swiftly repainted to correspond a blue rainbow-free sky.

The case of the gaily painted school shows how progress in one part of the world can hold adverse effects elsewhere and serves as a reminder that there are places where the connection between rainbows and LGBT rights is either new or yet to be discovered.

In Afghanistan, only a few years ago, there was a craze for decorating cars with ra

How can a sense of belonging be forged in a setting where one’s existence is forbidden? That is the question that LSE’s Dr Centner and his co-author Harvard’s Manoel Pereira Neto explore in their groundbreaking analyze into Dubai’s expatriate gay men’s nightlife.

But it was not an easy topic to research. Dr Centner explains: “It's an illegal, or criminalised, identity and position of behaviours and practices, so in a very general feeling, it's a taboo. And taboo subjects are very often under-researched, sometimes because people have a hard time gaining access, gaining that trust, but also because, even if people gain that access, there could be significant repercussions for themselves as researchers, or for the people who are the research participants.

“As two queer researchers, we were fit to enter the worlds of relatively privileged Western gay expatriates. Secrecy is often the norm, but the field was familiar to us, through previous visits and research projects.”

These were indeed ‘parties’ ...[but] not bars identified as gay. Not a unattached venue’s webpage uses the synonyms ‘gay’ or related euphemisms, nor do they hint at targeting
International Federation
for Human Rights
International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia, and Biphobia: In the Face of Fundamentalism, Dignity, Struggle, and Courage. Living one’s sexual orientation without fear is a human right. Living one’s gender identity in safety is a human right. The rights of LGBTQI+ people are human rights.
17 May 2024. On this World Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia, and Biphobia, the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) reaffirms its unwavering support for LGBTQI+ people and rights defenders and continues the fight against all forms of discrimination and oppression.
The criminalisation of homosexuality and trans-identity is a devastating reality in over 60 countries. In these countries, the LGBTQI+ community is exposed to severe penalties, sometimes even up to the death penalty. These laws contribute to the marginalisation and stigmatisation of these minorities. In addition to criminalising sexual acts, gender expression is also criminalised.
In several Maghreb and Middle Eastern countries, the criminalisation of same-sex sexual relations and trans-identity is often rooted in a French or British colonial her