International LGBT News Roundup: Uganda One Step Forward, Ethiopia Two Steps Back

Ready for one last spin around the world for 2008?  Here's our last international LGBT rights roundup for the year.  And like Carmen Sandiego, we're traveling all over the place.  First stop, Africa.

Uganda: In what may have been the first ever LGBT lawsuit against the Ugandan government, a Uganda Court ruled in favor of two lesbians who were victims of a violent raid by government authorities, in which one of the women was taken into police custody and sexually assaulted.  The case involved Yvonne Oyoo, a Kenyan student, and Victor Juliet Mukasa, a lesbian who works for Sexual Minorities Uganda.  In 2005, police raided Mukasa's home, took Oyoo (who was staying there at the time) into custody, and sexually assaulted and harrassed her.  When Ugandan authorities failed to investigate the crimes committed against Oyoo, the two lesbians brought suit against the government.  And this week's historic verdict is the result.  The two women will be paid $7,000 as compensation for the violence done to them, although the case could have much broader implications for the future of LGBT rights in Uganda.  "The most important role that police can play is to protect people," said Mukasa. "This judgement is a serious reminder to the Ugandan police that all Ugandans, including LGBT people, should be handled with respect and dignity."  One step forward, Uganda.

Ethiopia: Religious leaders gathered in Addis Ababa last week to call for a revision to Ethiopia's constitution to ban homosexuality.  No word on whether Ethiopia will seek to ban other such natural phenomena like left-handedness, brown eyes, or ear lobes that are connected instead of detached.  But this is scary.  The Patriarch of Ethiopia's Orthodox Church, Abune Paolos, had this to say, which may be one of the more frightening quotes out there: "For people to act in this manner they have to be dumb, stupid like animals.  We strongly condemn this behaviour. They (homosexuals) have to be disciplined and their acts discriminated, they have to be given a lesson."  Homosexuality is already criminalized in Ethiopia, but a strict ban on it is not mentioned in the Constitution.  So in that respect, this is like Florida's Amendment 2 - an unnecessary law banning something that is already banned.

Hungary: The country of Hungary was supposed to see an historic domestic partnership bill take effect on January 1, that would have given many (but not all) of the rights that heterosexual married couples have to registered same-sex couples.  But not anymore.  Hungary's Constitutional Court ruled that the current version of the domestic partnership bill would have been too close to same-sex marriage, and ruled that the government would have to come up with an alternative bill.  I guess "separate but not equal" isn't strong enough here; it has to be "really separate and really unequal".  The Prime Minister instructed the Minister of Justice and Law Enforcement to come up with new legislation that would still give domestic partnership benefits to same-sex couples, but would not breach too close to the definition of marriage, per the Court's ruling.

Serbia:  Sticking with the courthouse, a court in Serbia issued its first ruling addressing violence toward the LGBT community, when it fined an offender 10,000 dinars for text messaging anti-gay and threatening messages to an activist with Serbia's Gay-Straight Alliance.  The Alliance was pleased with the outcome, but noted that this incident was just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to violence and threats toward Serbia's LGBT community: "Our activists have been under constant threat, facing daily verbal, but also physical attacks which for the most part are not investigated due to the negligence of authorised institutions," the Alliance said in a statement.  The Centre for Free Elections and Democracy recently found that 77% of Serbians think that homosexuality is unacceptable, although Serbia did endorse a UN statement last week calling for the worldwide decriminalization of homosexuality.  Further, in an effort to promote gay rights, the government of Serbia funded a gay rights group, Queer Serbia, this year.

Got another international news item?  Let us know in the comments section below, or email us at mjones @ change.org.