Azerbaijan worst area to be gay in Europe, locates LGBTI index

Azerbaijan: First ever gay pride 'mini rally' kept in nation funding without apprehensions or harassment

In what is believed to be the very first pride celebration in Azerbaijan, a group of gay marchers just recently paraded a \"miniature rally\" through the capital city Baku, with no arrests, reports of harassment, or physical violence at the presentation.

Oxu report that the event, arranged by gay rights lobbyists Ruslan Baluxin, happened \"in a pleasant ambience and without occurrences\" on Saturday.

According to Modern Azerbaijan, the advocates covered their faces, however also elevated rainbow pride flags high over their heads.

Although homosexuality was decriminalised in 2001, LGBT individuals in the Muslim nation are said to still endure oppression and harassment.

The 2012 Eurovision song competition, held in Azerbaijan, was implicated by Iranians of hosting a gay pride march to accompany the occasion. Nonetheless, Ali Hasanov attended to an interview to make clear the concern.

\" They are making declarations about something that does not exist. We are holding Eurovision, not a gay ceremony,\" he said.

He included: \"There is no word in the Azerbaijani language for a gay ceremony, unlike in their language.\"

Associated subjects: Anti-gay, Azerbaijan, Azerbaijan, baku, Civil partnerships, Discrimination, equivalent marriage, Europe, gay marital relationship, gay wedding celebration, harassment, Homophobia, lesbian marital relationship, lesbian wedding celebration, LGBT, LGBT legal rights, March, marital relationship, marriage equality, Muslim, oppression, Pride, exact same sex marriage,Same-sex wedding celebration, wedding event

Gay pair in Azerbaijan compelled to flee after engagement oath makes local news

Small event with pals triggers homophobic death threats after being reported by several media networks

A gay couple in Azerbaijan have received death hazards as well as been forced to go underground after getting engaged in a small event.

Javid Nabiyev and his partner exchanged promises in presence of a handful of buddies previously today in Sumqayit on the Caspian sea, a year after they first fulfilled.

But when numerous news networks in Azerbaijan got their private images on Facebook, they were inundated with hate mail from people that said they deserved to die.

\" We got homophobic spoken assaults,\" claimed Nabiyev, who is the head of the Azerbaijani gay civil liberties campaigning for team, Nafas Azerbaijan LGBT partnership. \"Some individuals claimed 'You need to die, I'll kick you in the street, I'll eliminate you',\" he told the Guardian on phone from Baku.

The 25-year-old said he had needed to leave house because individuals had collected outside as well as shouted homophobic misuse.

\" We were engaged; not in a large event. It took place in between our friends at my residence as well as just eight people were welcomed,\" he said.

\" At twelve o'clock at night the other day, I had to transform the place I was living in. People in my apartment had actually found out about the news and I listened to individuals collecting outside my home and also mocking us,\" he stated. \"It was extremely dreadful. However I'm now in a safe place in a close friend's house.\"

Homosexuality is lawful in Azerbaijan, but Nabiyev stated discrimination versus the gay and also lesbian community and homophobia was rife.

\" After the news companies released write-ups on the basis of my exclusive Facebook posting, people revealed extremely homophobic reaction,\" he said.

Nabiyev's 19-year-old companion, whose identification is withheld to shield his safety and security, specifically, is dealing with a predicament at home. His dad intimidated to send him to the military as opposed to college after hearing the news.

\" I do not know what has actually occurred to my partner. He is with his parents currently,\" Nabiyev stated. \"He sent me a short message that his daddy wants to send him to the army. His parents have also confiscated all our papers, which we would need to produce a key if we were ever to leave the nation.\"

Nabiyev claimed that his partner's mother had actually tossed gas on him as well as attempted to establish him on fire last month, yet the attack did not prosper.

In spite of climbing homophobic attacks, Nabiyev stated the police does not pay attention to their demands for safety.

Nabiyev's organisation have actually tried to lobby participants of the parliament to elevate the LGBT issues with Azerbaijan's head of state, Ilham Aliyev, but they have not gone also far.

\" Our government is likewise homophobic,\" the advocate said. \"We produced a campaign to increase LGBT concerns with the head of state and also one MP asked him regarding the situation of LGBTs in Azerbaijan, yet he didn't mention the LGBT neighborhood in all in his solution.\"

The 2012 Eurovision song competition, which took place in Baku, drew a great deal of interest towards civils rights abuses, consisting of those worrying the LGBT area, in Azerbaijan. The previous Soviet republic has a notorious record on human rights as well as freedom of speech.

Eurovision Glitz Is Assured, But also for Azerbaijan's Gays, It's Usual Track

Azerbaijan won hosting rights for this year's Eurovision Tune Contest after the nation's access into in 2014's competition, Ell and Nikki (over), took home top honors.

Lobbyist Ruslan Balukhin: \"Society does not approve you or your pals. Which's extremely hard to deal with.\"

The federal government in Baku invested $134 million to develop the 23,000-seat Crystal Hall for this year's Eurovision contest.

Narguiz Birk-Petersen (left), Eldar (Ell) Gasimov (facility), and also Leyla Aliyeva are this year's Eurovision hosts.

Being Gay in Azerbaijan

Sergey Bagirov is a 35-year-old gay guy from Baku. For the past twenty years, he has actually had no contact with his moms and dads.

\" My troubles with the household started when I recognized that I was gay,\" Bagirov stated. \"At the time, I was in some way ashamed of it and also confessed everything to my moms and dads, particularly due to the fact that it was required to clarify why I was beaten at institution every day ... My father threw me out of the house that same day. I was 14 years of ages. They did not also offer me my files. I am currently over 30 years old and also still do not have a passport.\"

Bagirov works as a plasterer and painter restoring apartments. He said that discrimination was likewise swarming in the office.

\" Occasionally those you work with figure out that you are gay and deny you. Then I needed to function alone, and also here once again there were problems. Sometimes clients have actually rejected to pay me as well as intimidated that they would certainly whine to the authorities. As well as the cops never help gays and also do not take their side,\" he claimed.

Homophobia in Azerbaijan is so extensive that the nation ranked as the worst place in Europe for lesbian, gay, bisexual and also trans (LGBT) individuals in a recent testimonial of 49 European countries by ILGA-Europe.

According to ILGA-Europe \u00b4 s 2016 Rainbow annual review as well as index released in May, Azerbaijan fulfilled only 5 per cent of the organisation \u00b4 s standards for lawful equal rights and also had a high incidence of homophobic as well as transphobic physical violence. There were countless attacks versus LGBT individuals in Azerbaijan in 2014, including several murders.

In February 2015, a gay guy in the Shamkir region was found dead in his level. One month later on, a 28-year-old transvestite was suffocated as well as stabbed to fatality in Baku. In June, a trans lady was killed complying with a quarrel in Baku \u00b4 s Sabail district. Her companion was also killed.

Matanat Azizova, that heads the NGO Women \u00b4 s Dilemma Centre and also lives in expatriation, claimed that LGBT individuals encountered severe troubles in Azerbaijan.

Mindsets were specifically extreme in the regions and also some residential areas of Baku, she added.

\" Standard and religious elements of life result in substantial mental troubles amongst LGBT people, approximately ideas of suicide,\" Azizova said. \"In Azerbaijan, there is still the Soviet technique of treating LGBT individuals with the assistance of injections and pills, frequently forced upon them by parents.\"

She remembered fulfilling a fellow Azeri that had actually been forced to flee the country to look for haven somewhere else in Europe.

\" His parents still call him and ask, \u00b4 Are you being dealt with there? \u00b4 \"Azizova said.

Gulnara Mehdiyeva is a representative of the Nefes LGBT Azerbaijan Partnership and editor of Minority, the country's initial on the internet LGBT publication.

\" Recently, we sent a problem to the ministry of education and learning regarding a book used in universities,\" she claimed. \"The book is called Family Psychology. It mentions that homosexuality is a disease, a pathology, and so on. Homosexuality is placed on a par with incest and also pedophilia.\"

In its issue, the organisation kept in mind that the World Health Organisation (THAT) had actually gotten rid of homosexuality from its International Category of Conditions in 1990.

In feedback the ministry of education recommended that Nefes approach the universities concerned, despite the fact that, as Mehdiyeva noted, \"there is a stamp in guide saying that it is approved by the ministry of education\".

Nefes additionally grumbled to the ministry of health, which responded that Azerbaijan approved the that's norms and that any type of so-called treatment of homosexuality was banned.

On May 17, the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia, the site bear-magazine.com provided a statement making clear that the LGBT area did not \"look for unique civil liberties or advantages.

\" They simply deserve to the exact same liberty and defense as everyone according to the international requirements of civils rights as well as the law.\"

Kamala Agazade, chairwoman of the Azerbaijan Children \u00b4 s Union, claimed that her organisation had actually regularly taken care of LGBT teenagers surviving on the roads due to the fact that their households did decline their orientation. Her organisation assisted them acquire identification cards since all they had were their birth certificates, and also offered psychological support.

\" Out of desperation, a lot of these young people offered sex-related solutions on the roads,\" claimed Agazade. \"We attempted to resolve them with their family members, however they [the households] constantly rejected.\"

Basic rights, such as dealing with a companion and also having youngsters, can be a struggle for LGBT individuals in Azerbaijan.

Sabina Rustamova, a 35-year-old lesbian living in Baku, stated she was cynical concerning her future as well as dreamt about transferring to a nation where LGBT individuals went to the very least endured.

\" I am currently at an age when it is time to start a household,\" she said. \"I desire a family. I want youngsters. However I comprehend that our society will certainly never ever approve me as I am. It is tough to visualize for me - a minimum of below, in Azerbaijan - to deal with a lady and to increase a youngster together.\"

Azerbaijan has no laws that victimize LGBT individuals, yet there are likewise no legislations to shield them.

\" It is needed today to embrace a regulation on preventing discrimination of LGBT individuals in the house, in institutions, at the workplace and also in culture,\" she added. \"Such a legislation could end up being an instrument where they might protect themselves at different levels of our society. \"

The next step, in her viewpoint, should be the capacity to register joint property, after that legalising same sex marital relationship and fostering.

\" Yet one can discuss this just after the various other LGBT problems have been dealt with,\" she claimed.

Azizova noted an extra trouble pertaining to a more basic diminishing of the autonomous room in Azerbaijan.

\" It is challenging to discuss the law on freedom of setting up for LGBT people, when already existing laws on liberty of assembly are broken,\" she stated.

Last September, a European Parliament resolution on Azerbaijan emphasized the severe treatment of LGBT people as well as condemned political hate speech against them.

But the authorities seem to be in denial concerning the situation. The press service of the indoor ministry informed IWPR that their office had actually never ever received any type of reports of discrimination versus LGBT individuals. Journalism office of the state board on the civil liberties of family, ladies as well as kids also claimed that they had actually never obtained any kind of problems.

Some political leaders are particularly forthright in their opposition to progressing LGBT legal rights.

Mubariz Gurbanli, a participant of parliament of the judgment New Azerbaijan Celebration, informed the news firm Pattern that same-sex marital relationship would never ever be permitted.

Gay Overview Azerbaijan

The age of authorization for heterosexuals and homosexuals is 16. In 2000, with the intro of the new criminal code, write-up 121, that had made homosexuality a culpable offence, was eliminated. This was a significant action in the direction of the security of civils rights. Previous president Heydar Aliyev feared to do all he might to make the nation a memeber of the European Council. Therefore, eliminating the criminalisation of homosexuals was an important step to dispel the issues against Azerbaijan. Gays and lesbians can still lose their tasks and homophobia is universal, since the majority of the population understand insufficient regarding homosexuality. Marriages or signed up collaborations for homosexuals are not feasible, there is no political LGBT organisation. Reports of authorities physical violence versus homosexuals, especially male prostitutes, are prevalent. The first information website (bear-magazine.com) in Azerbaijan and the Caucasus was launched in Might 2011. In January 2014 the openly homosexual owner of the organization AZAD LGBT, Isa Shahmarli, dedicated self-destruction. He hanged himself with a rainbow flag as well as charged the culture to be in charge of his act in his self-destruction note. His suicide resulted in boosted task in the Azerbaijanian LGBT scene. The day of his death is commorated as LGBT Pride Day as well as was very first identified in January 2015 with the release of a number of videos. Bordered by a steppe landscape at the oil-rich Caspian Sea lies the capital Baku, whose old town is part of the Unesco social heritage yet is bordered more and more by contemporary skyscrapers.

Area: South Caucasus region of Eurasia. Initials: AZE International nation code: 994 International gain access to code: 810 Language: Azerbaycani Money: Manat (AZN) Population: 9,624,900 Funding: Baku Religions: 85% Shia Muslims and also 15% Sunni Muslims. Climate: Summertimes are completely dry as well as hot while wintertimes experience modest temperatures and changeable, wet weather condition.

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Cobbs Creek Parkway, Course 3 (Gay Street) Restricted Next Week for Security Improvements in Philadelphia, Chester Counties

Vehicle drivers are advised to permit added time when traveling through the workplace because backups and hold-ups may take place. All arranged activities are climate reliant.

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The brand-new Chechnya? 100 gay and also transgender people reportedly apprehended and also hurt in Azerbaijan

A minimum of 100 gay and also transgender people have actually been jailed, hurt and beaten in Azerbaijan, according to neighborhood reports.

Cops conducted a variety of raids in the funding of Baku and required those that they detained to quit their buddies' addresses, protestors have said.

The apprehensions are horribly reminiscent of the gay purge in Chechnya, in which more than 100 people have been detained, over used and, in at least 26 cases, eliminated.

Police have actually said that their actions have nothing to do with any person's sexual orientation and accused the detainees of being engaged in prostitution, according to media site Eurasianet.

Various other reports from inside the nation state that the raids were accomplished for \"safeguarding nationwide moral worths.\"

Ayaz Efendiyev, replacement chairman of the Justice Celebration, replied to the reported arrests with a prejudice-filled diatribe.

\" Safeguarding these animals that are resources of immorality, dangerous conditions, as well as that have actually been cursed by God, Western circles are trying to destroy our national traditions under the name of 'civils rights,'\" he claimed.

This year, it was rated as the most awful place in Europe for LGBT civil liberties, with a 5 percent score contrasted to the UK's 76 percent.

In 2015, the European Parliament voted to condemn the \"scare tactics and also repression\" of LGBTI individuals in the country.

Homosexuality has actually been lawful in Azerbaijan considering that 2000, however LGBT individuals and also lobbyists in the nation still encounter routine and systematic injustice.

Javid Nabiyev, head of state of the prominent Nefes (' Breathe') LGBT Azerbaijan Partnership, stated that \"suddenly, without any clear reasons to us, law enforcement agents arranged raids versus gay and transgender people.\"

Talking With PinkNews, he said: \"It's vague what triggered the summary, or how many people have actually been impacted.

\" Legal representatives servicing the situations claim that at the very least 100 people have actually been restrained over a period of numerous days.

\" According to official declarations, police officers apprehended individuals after receiving problems of prostitution. The declarations state the measures were taken in full conformity with Azerbaijani law.\"

Nabiyev reported that an authorities speaker has actually declared that \"' people of non-traditional sexual orientation were gathered in the centre of Baku to engage in prostitution.

\"' People consistently attracted the authorities with a request to quit these prohibited actions. About this, the authorities have actually taken steps' he included, which is BULL S ***!\"

\" I believe the police are pushing a media narrative, mentioning that all those apprehended had AIDS as well as other Sexually transmitted diseases.

\" People are terrified ... the cops have some concept of being gay, and also they are arresting people without reason, requesting for addresses as well as taking cash to launch them.\"

He included: \"We are using all devices and also resources to educate all LGBT individuals to be careful ... [to] not have brand-new days, not come out with their sexual preference and also gender identity to people they do not understand well, not to response to unidentified phone calls, and to remain in the darkness for some time.

Related topics: anti-gay apprehension, apprehension, Azerbaijan, Azerbaijan, Chechnya, Europe, Europe, Gay, gender, Homophobia, homophobic, authorities, torture, Trans, Transgender

Eurovision 2012: Azerbaijan's gays not welcome at home

Nevertheless, such assurances jar with those that have had first-hand experience of just how homosexuals are dealt with in Azeri culture.

\" My bro has actually pledged to eliminate me, and afterwards kill himself,\" states Babi Badalov, a radical gay Azeri artist who has recently been given political asylum in France.

\" The day I was 'outed', my sister screamed at me on the phone and also informed me to stay out of Azerbaijan. I don't assume I will ever before be able to speak to any of them again.\"

Mr Badalov grew up in a remote area of Azerbaijan as well as transferred to Baku when he was 15.

There he lived in anxiety, hiding his sexuality from everybody, including his buddies.

\" However he never ever discussed it, so we didn't discuss it either. When he got wed everybody was shocked. He was trying hard to adjust, he was under a great deal of pressure.

\" In the end, he chose to stay true to himself, so he needed to leave. Like a cherry with a rock within, if you press it too hard, the stone will fly out.\"

After years of attempting to conceal his sexual preference, Mr Badalov tried to assert political asylum in the UK in 2008.

Yet his application failed on the grounds that homosexuality was not prohibited in Azerbaijan.

A project started in the UK in his support led to his outing back home, to the scary of his household that reside in the most traditional component of the country, on the Iranian border.

\" Homosexuality here is viewed as worse than prostitution,\" says Yadigyar Sadykov, a human rights lobbyist from Mr Badalov's indigenous region.

\" If a family chose to eliminate a gay family member, lots of people would certainly accept. I have actually heard of numerous self-destructions of suspected homosexuals - I have actually never ever fulfilled a honestly gay person around here.\"

\" During Eurovision, no-one will bother gay immigrants in Baku,\" claims Alekper Aliyev, an author and also a writer of a questionable book regarding a gay relationship in between an Azeri and a male from Armenia, the nation's historic opponent.

\" There are a number of openly gay celebs in Baku that have cash as well as bodyguards, as well as they are risk-free.

\" But nothing will change for the majority of gays, especially in the districts. This society will never ever accept them.\"

Azeri authorities differ, pointing out that Azerbaijan decriminalised homosexuality in 2001.

\" Lately there has actually been much ill-informed conjecture by some expatriates about how we treat our homosexual neighborhood,\" claims Elnur Aslanov, a senior authorities from the presidential administration.

\" We think about all this nothing more than an unsuccessful attempt by those cynics to gain a much better credibility in their particular nations in the light of the approaching Eurovision track contest in Azerbaijan.\"

\" Everybody recognizes that after twelve o'clock at night not far from this resort you can obtain gay sex with a drag queen prostitute.

\" I screamed, cried and rolled around the floor of the message office. I ran out control.\"

Although he is residing in a hostel, he is a well-known artist and also will quickly be totally free to travel around Europe showing his work.

\" Everyone's legal rights are broken in Azerbaijan,\" claims Mr Badalov, \"and gays are not an exception.

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Azerbaijan worst place to be gay in Europe, discovers LGBTI index

Constant homophobic hate criminal activities see country join Russia and also Armenia at the bottom of leading civils rights survey

Azerbaijan has actually been rated the most awful area in Europe to live as an LGBTI citizen, after fulfilling just 5% of a leading legal rights organisation's criteria for legal equality.

The ILGA-Europe Rainbow Index, launched today, rates 49 European nations according to the regulations, plans and also methods that impact LGBTI neighborhoods.

The countries with the three lowest scores are all post-Soviet: Armenia, Russia and also Azerbaijan. The countries leading the index-- Malta, Belgium as well as the UK-- all scored over 80%.

Although homosexuality is lawful in Azerbaijan, the 2016 index draws attention to the nation's failure to safeguard its LGBTI community from hate criminal activity and discrimination. The evaluation connects the reduced score to the high number of homophobic and transphobic violent attacks, as well as inequitable remarks made by political numbers.

\" Of all the social teams that are sufferers of violence as well as hatred, we are the ones that struggle most,\" states gay Azerbaijani lobbyist, Javid Nabiyev.

\" Each year, thousands of LGBTI individuals are subjected to physical, mental and also economic physical violence by their member of the family and also the people around them. They are eliminated, compelled to live a dual life, dedicate self-destruction or leave the nation.\"

Today, Nabiyev sits in a tiny box-room in a German evacuee shelter, the bare white walls are embellished just with the rainbow LGBTI flag as well as the national flag of Azerbaijan. Despite whatever that happened to him there, he claims: \"It's my homeland and also I miss it.\"

Nabiyev's life in Azerbaijan became intolerable after he proposed to his guy in 2014, as well as the pair became targets of a nationwide hate campaign. Images of their interaction ceremony published to Facebook found their way onto conventional information. The pair's individual information were published online and Nabiyev's neighbors ended up being harmful, he says.

The pair fled to Turkey prior to the stress of mistreatment lastly tore them apart. They went back to Azerbaijan separately, and Nabiyev continued with his advocacy.

Yet his benefit Nefes LGBT Azerbaijan Alliance-- the organisation he started-- made him a fresh target for the authorities. He can no longer count the variety of times he's been beaten by cops and also in the media, he was accused of being a western spy. Stressed he could be apprehended more permanently, he left to Germany.

Bjorn van Roozendaal, programme supervisor of ILGA-Europe, sees the stress between eastern and also west as key in the battle for LGBTI rights. \"We have actually seen a great deal of backlash in the area. One common measure is that Armenia, Azerbaijan, Russia all wish to distance themselves from the west and also the LGBTI struggle has been at the centre of that,\" he explains.

\" LGBTI legal rights are seen as a modern-day western worth that the west is attempting to enforce and this frame of mind actually comes with the expense of the LGBTI neighborhood.\"

Azerbaijan is a member of the Council of Europe, which describes itself as \"the continent's leading civils rights organisation.\" All CoE members have signed the European Convention of Civil Rights, in which write-up 14 bans discrimination \"on any type of ground such as sex, gender\".

In September 2015, the EU Parliament passed a resolution on Azerbaijan, condemning its therapy of civils rights protectors and also said it was \"very concerned over the scenario of LGBTI people\".

But van Roozendaal is not positive concerning the resolution's power. \"I don't think that a country like Azerbaijan truly cares what the EU assume. I do not assume they want to be seen to be promoting LGBTI rights,\" he claims. \"Modification is not going to happen in leading down way, it's going to come from bottom up-- from activists on the ground.\"

He can not speak honestly concerning the job ILGA-Europe is carrying out in Azerbaijan since \"any type of kind of visibility that we offer to the job we do, puts people in danger. This job is made very difficult by the government, which is really sad.\"

He can say that they are working to sustain the LGBTI areas to educate them on how to play it safe as well as record despise crime. But it's hard to sustain grassroots teams. \"There are rigorous controls on any kind of kind of money that goes into the nation, so it's difficult to fund also awareness campaigns,\" he claims.

Nabiyev's is simply among lots of tales to have leaked abroad in the past few years.

Among one of the most prominent was the fatality of Isa Shakhmarli in 2014, a leading LGBTI protestor that killed himself draped in the rainbow flag. He left behind a video clip in which he said: \"I attempted to describe that love is love as much as I might yet my friends and family never recognized.\"

After his death, his close friend Lala Mahmudova took control of his duty at the LGBTI organisation, AZAD. Mahmudova, that is straight as well as presently studying in Chicago, says she is commonly criticised for sustaining LGBTI equal rights.

\" On Facebook, a lot of my relatives and also good friends have obstructed me since I support LGBTI individuals. They say, 'You are violating our society's worths'.\"

Mahmudova sees violence and abuse by member of the family as a major problem. \"I recognize a great deal of transgender people who are defeated by their fathers, siblings and mothers. It begins with their family members,\" she states. However without any LGBTI sanctuaries in Azerbaijan as well as a greatly unsympathetic police, there is little Mahmudova or AZAD can do to assist people in this circumstance.

Given the risks, for many people coming out to friends and family is too hazardous. Ahmad-- not his real name-- a 21-year-old trainee living in the funding, Baku, discusses: \"If my brother and also my uncle find out [I'm gay], they will obtain extremely mad and I don't understand what could take place.\"

Ahmad doesn't feel like he has a family, and also states he can never come close to the authorities for help. \"As a nation, we have no depend on for our cops or our federal government,\" he states. \"I have actually always felt I have no person but myself to lean on.\"

Gay guys speak up regarding Azerbaijan's LGBT suppression: 'They offered me electric shocks'

Legal representatives and activists state dozens of gay and also transgender people have actually been arrested as well as restrained

Numerous men have stepped forward with firsthand accounts of an alleged crackdown on the LGBT community in Azerbaijan.

Among the guys, who remained confidential, claimed he was detained for nine days and tortured.

Lots of gay and transgender people in Azerbaijan have actually been jailed, detained as well as compelled to quit good friends to authorities, according to lawyers and also lobbyists in the nation.

Homosexuality was decriminalised in the majority-Muslim nation in 2000 and people are lawfully enabled to transform their gender, but bitterness in the direction of LGBT people still continues to be.

A few of those jailed have undergone beatings, abuse and required medical exams, attorneys stated, although these reports could not be independently verified.

Trans women have actually had their heads by force cut, according to a record by British gay rights charity Stonewall.

One Baku-based lobbyist, that favored to stay confidential, informed the Thomson Reuters Foundation that authorities were targeting \"major streets, city terminals as well as LGBT-friendly positioned like clubs, bars and also bars.\"

Authorities in Azerbaijan have actually affirmed that those detained were associated with sex work, although almost all cases the charged have denied such accusations.

One unnamed male told Radio Free Europe officials made him authorize papers that \"were already completed\" along with other blank files, prior to questioning him about seeing \"clients\".

Azerbaijan has a poor document when it involves securing lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex individuals.

Earlier this year, the nation was rated the most awful place in Europe for LGBT legal rights, with a 5 percent score contrasted to 76 percent in the UK.

The claims comply with an alleged anti-LGBT purge accomplished by authorities in Chechnya earlier this year, in which thousands of gay males were supposedly arrested, restrained and tortured in the traditional republic.

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Azerbaijan Detains Loads of Gay as well as Transgender Individuals

MOSCOW-- Greater than 50 gay and also transgender people in Azerbaijan's resources, Baku, were restrained and abused in a series of raids over the past week, attorneys and legal rights lobbyists stated.

The Azerbaijani government said the raids were motivated by several complaints from regional citizens, who had actually advised the cops to crack down on the unlawful sex trade in central Baku, a city of greater than two million.

Nonetheless, lawyers and activists stated that the majority of those detained were not engaged in prostitution which the complaints were used as a pretext for persecution.

Samed Rahimli, a lawyer assisting the targets, said the cops had \"targeted homosexuals as a whole, not prostitutes as they have actually asserted.\"

\" The detained underwent ruthless treatment as well as torture,\" he said. \"Their heads were shaved, some were electroshocked.\"

Lawyers and lobbyists said that sexual minorities have been bugged in the past, however that the current raids were without current criterion.

Speaking with the local APA information company on Tuesday, Ekhsan Zakhidov, a representative for the Azeri Inside Ministry, claimed the raids were \"warranted.\"

\" People, infected with AIDS as well as various other sexually transmitted diseases pose a danger to lives and health of youths, that get in call with them,\" said Mr. Zakhidov, claiming that 16 of those apprehended had help or syphilis.

The suppression evoked comparisons to tactics seen in the Chechnya area of Russia, where lots of gay men were restrained, and in some cases tortured and also some killed, in a suppression in April.

In Azerbaijan, Mr. Rahimli, the attorney, as well as various other supporters claimed their clients hesitated to be named publicly, to file grievances versus the cops or to review their experiences, sometimes because their families did not understand concerning their sexuality.

The Nefes LGBT Azerbaijan Partnership, an advocacy group for lesbian, gay, bisexual as well as transgender people, released an account online by one male, identified just as Hasan.

\" They were defeating me,\" the declaration said. \"The police informed me that I am doing prostitution as well as needs to provide information about clients.\" In the statement, Hasan stated he was not a woman of the street.

Homosexuality was decriminalized in Azerbaijan, a primarily Muslim former Soviet republic in Central Asia, in 2000, yet discrimination and even violence remain troubles.

Most of those detained were sentenced to up to thirty days behind bars, after being charged with disobeying police orders, said Javid Nabiyev, a neighborhood lobbyist who is helping lawyers appeal the sentences.

Several were restrained in your home or at the workplace, exposing their sexual preference to their households as well as coworkers, claimed Mr. Rahimli, one of the lawyers.

An activist and personnel of Minority, a publication in Azerbaijan that covers gay and also transgender concerns, that talked on the condition of anonymity for concern of reprisal from the government, stated lots of victims had been forced by the police to supply names of their friends and also associates.

Some victims were restrained after being lured to meet in the city by the police, who were positioning online as gay or transgender individuals searching for days, the activist added.

Many of those affected lived in rented apartment or condos, which their property owners informed them to abandon after the raids, the protestor claimed. Some fled for Turkey or went to conceal in other regions of Azerbaijan.

Authorities 'assembling and also tormenting' gay and trans individuals in Azerbaijan

Pictures posted on social networks revealed men and women being literally attacked as well as manhandled by police officers, mirroring behaviors seen in Chechnya earlier this year.

Regardless of homosexuality being legal in Azerbaijan, it appears clear that the legal rights of its LGBT people are hanging back European neighbors and with the UEFA Euro 2020 over the perspective, severe inquiries have been elevated concerning the nation's capacity to host the worldwide event.

Lobbyists are reporting that mostly gay males and also transgender women are being targeted, with Police them to shave their heads. Those arrested are being held for approximately thirty day and are being required to expose the names and address of various other LGBT individuals.

Homosexuality is not illegal in Azerbaijan, however the legalisation in 2000 leaves the country trailing behind its European neighbors when driving to LGBT equal rights. Additionally, there are currently no legislations that secure the rights of LGBT individuals and also offered recent events, numerous are being left in anxiety of their own lives.

The Azerbaijani capital Baku, where the apprehensions occurred, results from host the UEFA Euro 2020. It is just one of thirteen European cities to host the European Football Championships, with the city's National Arena being used for the group stage and quarter-finals.

It's not the very first time the city has actually organized an important European occasion. Baku was the host for the Eurovision Song Contest in 2012. The track competition brings in a really vast LGBT complying with, a lot of whom signed up with fellow Eurovision fans in Azerbaijan that year, happening against a backdrop of tension and also objections.

Iran withdrew its ambassador from Baku in the develop to the Eurovision Track Contest, asserting that Azerbaijan was engaging in \"anti-Islamic behavior.\"

There were additionally allegations from Iranian clerics and legislators that Baku would be hosting a \"gay ceremony\"; remarks which only worsened the currently established stress between both nations.

There are restored ask for UEFA to respond to current breaches in human rights, as a way of sending a message of acceptance and diversity within the sport.

Azerbaijan: Very first gay satisfaction 'mini rally' held in nation capital without arrests or harassment

In what is believed to be the very first pride celebration in Azerbaijan, a group of gay marchers just recently flaunted a \"small rally\" via the funding city Baku, with no arrests, records of harassment, or physical violence at the presentation.

Oxu news reports that the event, arranged by gay legal rights protestors Ruslan Baluxin, happened \"in a friendly atmosphere and also without events\" on Saturday.

According to Modern Azerbaijan, the advocates covered their faces, however also elevated rainbow satisfaction flags high over their heads.

Although homosexuality was decriminalised in 2001, LGBT people in the Muslim nation are claimed to still experience fascism and harassment.

The 2012 Eurovision tune contest, kept in Azerbaijan, was accused by Iranians of hosting a gay pride march to coincide with the occasion. Nevertheless, Ali Hasanov resolved an interview to clear up the issue.

\" They are making statements concerning something that does not exist. We are holding Eurovision, not a gay parade,\" he claimed.

He included: \"There is no word in the Azerbaijani language for a gay parade, unlike in their language.\"

Related subjects: Anti-gay, Azerbaijan, Azerbaijan, baku, Civil partnerships, Discrimination, equivalent marital relationship, Europe, gay marriage, gay wedding, harassment, Homophobia, lesbian marital relationship, lesbian wedding celebration, LGBT, LGBT rights, March, marriage, marriage equality, Muslim, fascism, Pride, very same sex marriage,Same-sex wedding, wedding

Gay couple in Azerbaijan compelled to take off after engagement pledge makes local information

Small ceremony with buddies stimulates homophobic death dangers after being reported by several media networks

A gay couple in Azerbaijan have obtained death dangers as well as been compelled to go underground after getting participated in a tiny event.

Javid Nabiyev as well as his partner traded promises in existence of a handful of close friends previously today in Sumqayit on the Caspian sea, a year after they initially met.

However when numerous information networks in Azerbaijan got their personal photos on Facebook, they were inundated with hate mail from individuals that stated they was worthy of to pass away.

\" We obtained homophobic verbal strikes,\" claimed Nabiyev, who is the head of the Azerbaijani gay legal rights advocacy group, Nafas Azerbaijan LGBT alliance. \"Some people stated 'You must pass away, I'll kick you in the street, I'll kill you',\" he told the Guardian on phone from Baku.

The 25-year-old claimed he had actually had to leave home since individuals had collected outdoors and shouted homophobic abuse.

\" We were engaged; not in a large event. It occurred between our close friends at my home as well as only 8 individuals were invited,\" he said.

\" At twelve o'clock at night the other day, I had to alter the place I was residing in. People in my apartment building had actually become aware of the news and I heard individuals gathering outside my residence and ridiculing us,\" he claimed. \"It was extremely dreadful. However I'm now in a refuge in a close friend's house.\"

Homosexuality is lawful in Azerbaijan, but Nabiyev claimed discrimination versus the gay and lesbian area and also homophobia was raging.

\" After the information agencies published short articles on the basis of my private Facebook publishing, people revealed extremely homophobic reaction,\" he stated.

Nabiyev's 19-year-old partner, whose identity is held back to protect his safety and security, particularly, is dealing with a predicament in the house. His dad threatened to send him to the army rather than college after listening to the information.

\" I do not understand what has actually occurred to my companion. He is with his parents currently,\" Nabiyev said. \"He sent me a quick message that his daddy wishes to send him to the military. His moms and dads have also taken all our files, which we would require to produce a key if we were ever before to leave the country.\"

Nabiyev stated that his companion's mommy had thrown fuel on him and also attempted to establish him on fire last month, however the attack did not be successful.

Regardless of increasing homophobic strikes, Nabiyev claimed the authorities does not pay attention to their demands for safety.

Nabiyev's organisation have actually attempted to lobby members of the parliament to increase the LGBT issues with Azerbaijan's president, Ilham Aliyev, yet they haven't gone as well much.

\" Our government is additionally homophobic,\" the campaigner said. \"We created a project to raise LGBT issues with the president and one MP asked him concerning the scenario of LGBTs in Azerbaijan, however he really did not mention the LGBT area whatsoever in his solution.\"

The 2012 Eurovision tune contest, which happened in Baku, drew a lot of attention towards human rights abuses, consisting of those concerning the LGBT area, in Azerbaijan. The previous Soviet republic has an infamous track record on civils rights as well as freedom of expression.

Eurovision Glamour Is Secured, However, for Azerbaijan's Gays, It's Usual Track

Azerbaijan won hosting rights for this year's Eurovision Tune Competition after the country's access right into in 2015's competition, Ell as well as Nikki (over), took residence leading honors.

Lobbyist Ruslan Balukhin: \"Culture doesn't approve you or your friends. And that's very challenging to handle.\"

The federal government in Baku spent $134 million to construct the 23,000-seat Crystal Hall for this year's Eurovision contest.

Narguiz Birk-Petersen (left), Eldar (Ell) Gasimov (center), and Leyla Aliyeva are this year's Eurovision hosts.

Being Gay in Azerbaijan

Sergey Bagirov is a 35-year-old gay guy from Baku. For the past 20 years, he has had no contact with his parents.

\" My troubles with the household started when I recognized that I was gay,\" Bagirov said. \"At the time, I was somehow ashamed of it and also admitted everything to my parents, specifically since it was required to clarify why I was beaten at institution every day ... My papa threw me out of the house that same day. I was 14 years of ages. They did not also give me my records. I am currently over thirty years old and still do not have a key.\"

Bagirov works as a plasterer as well as painter renovating apartments. He stated that discrimination was likewise raging in the office.

\" Sometimes those you work with find out that you are gay and deny you. Then I needed to work alone, and here once again there were problems. Occasionally clients have declined to pay me and also intimidated that they would certainly grumble to the police. And the authorities never ever assist gays and do not take their side,\" he said.

Homophobia in Azerbaijan is so prevalent that the nation rated as the most awful location in Europe for lesbian, gay, bisexual as well as trans (LGBT) individuals in a current testimonial of 49 European countries by ILGA-Europe.

According to ILGA-Europe \u00b4 s 2016 Rainbow annual evaluation as well as index published in May, Azerbaijan met just 5 per cent of the organisation \u00b4 s criteria for lawful equality as well as had a high occurrence of homophobic and also transphobic physical violence. There were various assaults against LGBT people in Azerbaijan last year, including numerous murders.

In February 2015, a gay man in the Shamkir area was discovered dead in his flat. One month later, a 28-year-old transvestite was suffocated and stabbed to death in Baku. In June, a trans lady was murdered complying with a brawl in Baku \u00b4 s Sabail district. Her companion was also killed.

Matanat Azizova, who heads the NGO Women \u00b4 s Dilemma Centre and lives in expatriation, said that LGBT people faced significant problems in Azerbaijan.

Attitudes were specifically harsh in the regions and also some suburban areas of Baku, she added.

\" Typical as well as religious aspects of life bring about huge mental troubles amongst LGBT people, up to thoughts of suicide,\" Azizova stated. \"In Azerbaijan, there is still the Soviet practice of dealing with LGBT people with the help of shots as well as tablets, usually forced upon them by parents.\"

She recalled meeting a fellow Azeri that had been required to run away the country to look for haven in other places in Europe.

\" His parents still call him as well as ask, \u00b4 Are you being dealt with there? \u00b4 \"Azizova claimed.

Gulnara Mehdiyeva is a representative of the Nefes LGBT Azerbaijan Alliance as well as editor of Minority, the country's first on-line LGBT magazine.

\" Lately, we sent out a problem to the ministry of education and learning about a book used in colleges,\" she said. \"The book is called Family Psychology. It points out that homosexuality is a disease, a pathology, etc. Homosexuality is placed on a the same level with incest as well as pedophilia.\"

In its grievance, the organisation noted that the World Health Organisation (THAT) had eliminated homosexuality from its International Category of Conditions in 1990.

In action the ministry of education and learning recommended that Nefes come close to the universities worried, although, as Mehdiyeva noted, \"there is a stamp in guide stating that it is approved by the ministry of education\".

Nefes likewise grumbled to the ministry of wellness, which reacted that Azerbaijan approved the WHO's standards and that any kind of supposed therapy of homosexuality was restricted.

On May 17, the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and also Biphobia, the internet site bear-magazine.com released a declaration clearing up that the LGBT community did not \"seek special rights or benefits.

\" They just can the same flexibility and also defense as everyone in accordance with the worldwide requirements of civils rights as well as the law.\"

Kamala Agazade, chairwoman of the Azerbaijan Children \u00b4 s Union, said that her organisation had actually often handled LGBT teenagers residing on the roads because their family members did not accept their alignment. Her organisation assisted them obtain recognition cards because all they had were their birth certificates, as well as also offered mental aid.

\" Out of desperation, a lot of these youths provided sex-related services on the roads,\" claimed Agazade. \"We attempted to reconcile them with their households, however they [the families] constantly declined.\"

Fundamental civil liberties, such as living with a companion as well as having youngsters, can be a battle for LGBT individuals in Azerbaijan.

Sabina Rustamova, a 35-year-old lesbian living in Baku, claimed she was pessimistic regarding her future and also dreamt regarding transferring to a nation where LGBT people went to the very least tolerated.

\" I am currently at an age when it is time to start a family,\" she stated. \"I want a household. I want children. But I understand that our society will never ever accept me as I am. It is difficult to picture for me - at least below, in Azerbaijan - to cope with a female as well as to increase a youngster together.\"

Azerbaijan has no laws that discriminate against LGBT individuals, however there are also no regulations to protect them.

\" It is needed today to embrace a regulation on preventing discrimination of LGBT people in your home, in colleges, at work and in society,\" she added. \"Such a regulation might become an instrument through which they might shield themselves at various levels of our culture. \"

The following action, in her viewpoint, need to be the ability to register joint property, then legalising very same sex marriage and adoption.

\" But one can discuss this just after the other LGBT problems have been solved,\" she stated.

Azizova noted an added issue pertaining to an extra general diminishing of the democratic space in Azerbaijan.

\" It is difficult to discuss the regulation on freedom of setting up for LGBT individuals, when currently existing laws on freedom of assembly are broken,\" she claimed.

Last September, a European Parliament resolution on Azerbaijan stressed the extreme treatment of LGBT people as well as condemned political hate speech against them.

Yet the authorities appear to be in denial about the scenario. The press solution of the interior ministry told IWPR that their office had actually never obtained any records of discrimination versus LGBT individuals. Journalism office of the state committee on the legal rights of family members, females and also children additionally said that they had actually never gotten any problems.

Some politicians are particularly outspoken in their opposition to progressing LGBT civil liberties.

Mubariz Gurbanli, a participant of parliament of the ruling New Azerbaijan Celebration, told the news firm Pattern that same-sex marital relationship would certainly never be permitted.

Gay Overview Azerbaijan

The age of approval for heterosexuals and also homosexuals is 16. In 2000, with the introduction of the brand-new criminal code, short article 121, that had actually made homosexuality a culpable offense, was eliminated. This was a significant step in the direction of the security of civils rights. Former head of state Heydar Aliyev was anxious to do all he can to make the country a memeber of the European Council. Consequently, abolishing the criminalisation of homosexuals was a vital action to eliminate the worries against Azerbaijan. Gays as well as lesbians can still lose their tasks as well as homophobia is omnipresent, because the majority of the population recognize inadequate regarding homosexuality. Marital relationships or registered partnerships for homosexuals are not possible, there is no political LGBT organisation. Reports of authorities violence against homosexuals, particularly male woman of the streets, are prevalent. The first news web site (bear-magazine.com) in Azerbaijan as well as the Caucasus was launched in Might 2011. In January 2014 the openly homosexual creator of the organization AZAD LGBT, Isa Shahmarli, devoted suicide. He hanged himself with a rainbow flag and implicated the society to be responsible for his act in his suicide note. His suicide led to boosted activity in the Azerbaijanian LGBT scene. The day of his death is commorated as LGBT Satisfaction Day as well as was initial identified in January 2015 with the launch of numerous videos. Surrounded by a steppe landscape at the oil-rich Caspian Sea lies the capital Baku, whose old community belongs to the Unesco cultural heritage but is surrounded an increasing number of by modern-day skyscrapers.

Location: South Caucasus region of Eurasia. Initials: AZE International country code: 994 International gain access to code: 810 Language: Azerbaycani Money: Manat (AZN) Population: 9,624,900 Capital: Baku Religions: 85% Shia Muslims and also 15% Sunni Muslims. Environment: Summer seasons are completely dry and also hot while winters months experience moderate temperatures as well as unpredictable, stormy climate.

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Cobbs Creek Parkway, Path 3 (Gay Street) Restricted Next Week for Safety Improvements in Philadelphia, Chester Counties

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The new Chechnya? 100 gay and transgender people apparently detained as well as hurt in Azerbaijan

A minimum of 100 gay and also transgender people have been arrested, hurt and defeated in Azerbaijan, according to neighborhood records.

Cops performed a variety of raids in the capital of Baku as well as forced those that they detained to surrender their friends' addresses, protestors have said.

The arrests are terribly similar to the gay purge in Chechnya, in which greater than 100 people have been apprehended, abused as well as, in at least 26 instances, killed.

Police have said that their actions have nothing to do with anybody's sexual preference and charged the detainees of being participated in hooking, according to media site Eurasianet.

Various other records from inside the country state that the raids were executed for \"safeguarding nationwide ethical worths.\"

Ayaz Efendiyev, replacement chairman of the Justice Celebration, replied to the reported arrests with a prejudice-filled diatribe.

\" Defending these creatures that are sources of immorality, hazardous illness, and who have been cursed by God, Western circles are trying to ruin our national customs as 'civils rights,'\" he claimed.

This year, it was ranked as the worst place in Europe for LGBT civil liberties, with a 5 percent score compared to the UK's 76 percent.

In 2015, the European Parliament voted to condemn the \"scare tactics and also repression\" of LGBTI individuals in the nation.

Homosexuality has actually been legal in Azerbaijan since 2000, yet LGBT people and activists in the nation still face routine and organized oppression.

Javid Nabiyev, head of state of the famous Nefes (' Breathe') LGBT Azerbaijan Partnership, claimed that \"all of a sudden, without any clear factors to us, police officers organised raids versus gay as well as transgender individuals.\"

Speaking to PinkNews, he claimed: \"It's unclear what motivated the summary, or how many people have actually been influenced.

\" Attorneys working with the cases claim that at least 100 people have actually been restrained over a duration of a number of days.

\" According to official statements, law enforcement officer apprehended people after obtaining complaints of prostitution. The statements say the steps were absorbed complete conformity with Azerbaijani law.\"

Nabiyev reported that a police spokesperson has actually asserted that \"' people of non-traditional sexual orientation were collected in the centre of Baku to participate in hooking.

\"' Citizens repetitively attracted the cops with a request to stop these prohibited actions. About this, the police have taken procedures' he added, which is BULL S ***!\"

\" I believe the cops are pushing a media story, mentioning that all those arrested had AIDS and other Sexually transmitted diseases.

\" People are frightened ... the cops have some principle of being gay, and also they are jailing individuals without reason, requesting addresses as well as taking cash to release them.\"

He added: \"We are utilizing all tools and resources to inform all LGBT people to be careful ... [to] not have new days, not bring out their sexual preference and also sex identification to individuals they do not understand well, not to solution to unknown phone calls, and also to remain in the shadows for a while.

Related topics: anti-gay apprehension, apprehension, Azerbaijan, Azerbaijan, Chechnya, Europe, Europe, Gay, gender, Homophobia, homophobic, authorities, torment, Trans, Transgender

Eurovision 2012: Azerbaijan's gays not invite at home

Nonetheless, such guarantees container with those that have had first-hand experience of how homosexuals are dealt with in Azeri society.

\" My bro has vowed to kill me, and then eliminate himself,\" claims Babi Badalov, a radical gay Azeri musician that has actually just recently been provided political asylum in France.

\" The day I was 'outed', my sis shouted at me on the phone as well as told me to stay out of Azerbaijan. I don't think I will certainly ever before be able to speak with any of them once again.\"

Mr Badalov grew up in a remote area of Azerbaijan and transferred to Baku when he was 15.

There he lived in concern, hiding his sexuality from everybody, including his friends.

\" Yet he never ever spoke about it, so we really did not discuss it either. When he obtained wed everyone was stunned. He was striving to conform, he was under a lot of pressure.

\" In the long run, he chose to stay real to himself, so he needed to leave. Like a cherry with a rock within, if you press it too hard, the stone will fly out.\"

After years of trying to conceal his sexual preference, Mr Badalov attempted to assert political asylum in the UK in 2008.

However his application fell short on the grounds that homosexuality was not illegal in Azerbaijan.

A project began in the UK in his support brought about his trip back home, to the scary of his family members that reside in one of the most conservative component of the country, on the Iranian border.

\" Homosexuality here is seen as even worse than hooking,\" states Yadigyar Sadykov, a civils rights protestor from Mr Badalov's indigenous area.

\" If a family members decided to eliminate a gay loved one, the majority of people would certainly approve. I have actually heard of lots of suicides of presumed homosexuals - I have never satisfied an openly gay individual around below.\"

\" Throughout Eurovision, no-one will bother gay immigrants in Baku,\" states Alekper Aliyev, an author as well as a writer of a controversial publication regarding a gay relationship between an Azeri and a male from Armenia, the country's historic adversary.

\" There are numerous openly gay stars in Baku that have cash and also bodyguards, and they are risk-free.

\" But nothing will certainly change for most of gays, specifically in the districts. This society will certainly never ever accept them.\"

Azeri officials differ, mentioning that Azerbaijan decriminalised homosexuality in 2001.

\" Recently there has actually been much ill-informed supposition by some expatriates regarding just how we treat our homosexual community,\" claims Elnur Aslanov, an elderly authorities from the governmental management.

\" We think about all this absolutely nothing more than an unsuccessful effort by those naysayers to get a better track record in their respective countries in the light of the forthcoming Eurovision tune contest in Azerbaijan.\"

\" Everybody knows that after midnight not far from this resort you can get gay sex with a transvestite woman of the street.

\" I screamed, sobbed and also rolled around the floor of the article office. I was out of control.\"

Although he is living in a hostel, he is a well established musician as well as will certainly quickly be free to circumnavigate Europe displaying his job.

\" Everyone's legal rights are breached in Azerbaijan,\" says Mr Badalov, \"and also gays are not an exemption.

\u00a9 2021 BBC. The BBC is exempt for the web content of exterior sites. Read about our technique to outside connecting.

Azerbaijan worst area to be gay in Europe, locates LGBTI index

Frequent homophobic hate criminal offenses see country sign up with Russia and also Armenia at the end of leading civils rights survey

Azerbaijan has actually been placed the worst location in Europe to live as an LGBTI resident, after fulfilling just 5% of a leading rights organisation's requirements for legal equal rights.

The ILGA-Europe Rainbow Index, released today, places 49 European nations according to the regulations, policies and techniques that influence LGBTI neighborhoods.

The countries with the 3 most affordable ratings are all post-Soviet: Armenia, Russia as well as Azerbaijan. The nations leading the index-- Malta, Belgium and also the UK-- all scored above 80%.

Although homosexuality is legal in Azerbaijan, the 2016 index accentuates the country's failing to shield its LGBTI area from hate crime and discrimination. The review links the reduced score to the high variety of homophobic as well as transphobic violent attacks, in addition to discriminatory remarks made by political numbers.

\" Of all the social teams that are victims of violence as well as hatred, we are the ones that battle most,\" says gay Azerbaijani activist, Javid Nabiyev.

\" Every year, thousands of LGBTI individuals are exposed to physical, psychological as well as economic violence by their family members and also individuals around them. They are eliminated, compelled to live a double life, commit self-destruction or leave the country.\"

Today, Nabiyev sits in a little box-room in a German refugee shelter, the bare white wall surfaces are decorated only with the rainbow LGBTI flag as well as the national flag of Azerbaijan. Regardless of everything that took place to him there, he claims: \"It's my homeland as well as I miss it.\"

Nabiyev's life in Azerbaijan came to be excruciating after he recommended to his guy in 2014, and the pair ended up being targets of a nationwide hate campaign. Photos of their involvement ceremony uploaded to Facebook discovered their method onto conventional news. The couple's personal details were released online as well as Nabiyev's neighbors became harmful, he claims.

The pair got away to Turkey prior to the stress of mistreatment lastly tore them apart. They returned to Azerbaijan separately, and also Nabiyev continued with his advocacy.

But his work for Nefes LGBT Azerbaijan Partnership-- the organisation he started-- made him a fresh target for the authorities. He can no longer count the number of times he's been defeated by police as well as in the media, he was implicated of being a western spy. Stressed he could be apprehended much more permanently, he left to Germany.

Bjorn van Roozendaal, program supervisor of ILGA-Europe, sees the tension in between eastern and west as key in the struggle for LGBTI legal rights. \"We've seen a lot of reaction in the region. One common measure is that Armenia, Azerbaijan, Russia all wish to distance themselves from the west as well as the LGBTI struggle has been at the centre of that,\" he clarifies.

\" LGBTI legal rights are seen as a contemporary western value that the west is trying to enforce and this frame of mind actually comes with the expense of the LGBTI neighborhood.\"

Azerbaijan belongs to the Council of Europe, which describes itself as \"the continent's leading civils rights organisation.\" All CoE members have actually signed the European Convention of Human Rights, in which article 14 forbids discrimination \"on any ground such as sex, gender\".

In September 2015, the EU Parliament passed a resolution on Azerbaijan, condemning its treatment of human rights defenders and claimed it was \"exceptionally concerned over the scenario of LGBTI people\".

But van Roozendaal is not optimistic about the resolution's power. \"I don't think that a country like Azerbaijan actually cares what the EU assume. I do not think they wish to be attended be advertising LGBTI civil liberties,\" he states. \"Change is not mosting likely to happen in top down means, it's mosting likely to come from bottom up-- from activists on the ground.\"

He can not talk openly about the job ILGA-Europe is doing in Azerbaijan since \"any type of sort of presence that we give to the job we do, puts people in danger. This work is made very difficult by the government, which is extremely depressing.\"

He can state that they are working to support the LGBTI neighborhoods to educate them on how to play it safe and record dislike crime. Yet it's hard to sustain grassroots teams. \"There are strict controls on any type of kind of cash that enters into the nation, so it's hard to money also recognition campaigns,\" he states.

Nabiyev's is simply among numerous stories to have actually leaked abroad in the past few years.

Among one of the most prominent was the death of Isa Shakhmarli in 2014, a leading LGBTI protestor that killed himself curtained in the rainbow flag. He left a video clip in which he said: \"I attempted to clarify that love is love as long as I can yet my friends and family never ever recognized.\"

After his fatality, his pal Lala Mahmudova took over his function at the LGBTI organisation, AZAD. Mahmudova, that is straight as well as presently examining in Chicago, states she is typically criticised for supporting LGBTI equal rights.

\" On Facebook, a lot of my relatives as well as friends have obstructed me since I sustain LGBTI people. They claim, 'You are going against our society's values'.\"

Mahmudova sees physical violence and also abuse at the hands of relative as a significant problem. \"I know a great deal of transgender individuals that are beaten by their fathers, sis and also mothers. It begins with their family members,\" she says. But with no LGBTI shelters in Azerbaijan and also a mostly unsympathetic police force, there is little Mahmudova or AZAD can do to aid people in this situation.

Offered the risks, for many individuals coming out to family and friends is as well dangerous. Ahmad-- not his genuine name-- a 21-year-old pupil living in the funding, Baku, clarifies: \"If my bro and my uncle discover [I'm gay], they will get really mad and I do not understand what can occur.\"

Ahmad doesn't feel like he has a family members, and also claims he could never ever come close to the authorities for assistance. \"As a nation, we have no count on for our police or our federal government,\" he says. \"I have always felt I have nobody however myself to lean on.\"

Gay guys speak out about Azerbaijan's LGBT suppression: 'They offered me electric shocks'

Attorneys and also activists say lots of gay and also transgender individuals have been detained and restrained

A number of males have actually come forward with firsthand accounts of a claimed suppression on the LGBT community in Azerbaijan.

Among the males, who continued to be anonymous, said he was detained for nine days and also hurt.

Lots of gay and also transgender individuals in Azerbaijan have been detained, apprehended and also required to quit friends to authorities, according to legal representatives and lobbyists in the nation.

Homosexuality was decriminalised in the majority-Muslim country in 2000 and people are legitimately allowed to change their gender, however animosity in the direction of LGBT people still stays.

Some of those jailed have actually been subjected to poundings, abuse and also required medical examinations, lawyers said, although these reports could not be individually confirmed.

Trans ladies have actually had their heads by force shaven, according to a report by British gay legal rights charity Stonewall.

One Baku-based activist, who chose to continue to be anonymous, told the Thomson Reuters Structure that authorities were targeting \"main streets, city terminals and also LGBT-friendly placed like clubs, pubs and bars.\"

Authorities in Azerbaijan have alleged that those apprehended were involved in sex work, although almost all instances the implicated have actually denied such claims.

One unnamed male informed Radio Free Europe authorities made him authorize records that \"were already filled in\" as well as various other blank files, before questioning him concerning seeing \"customers\".

Azerbaijan has an inadequate document when it comes to safeguarding lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex individuals.

Earlier this year, the country was rated the worst area in Europe for LGBT civil liberties, with a 5 percent rating compared to 76 percent in the UK.

The claims follow a claimed anti-LGBT cleanup performed by authorities in Chechnya earlier this year, in which hundreds of gay guys were reportedly arrested, restrained and tortured in the conventional republic.

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Gay Guide Baku

A place to dance located in a dark yet risk-free street with a very discreet entryway. Crowdy on weekend breaks. extra ...

Great environment, real-time songs Performances on Fri as well as Sat nights. frequented by gay people. much more ...

Among the most preferred bars as well as eating in restaurants locations. A location that draw in several area people. Online music on Thu. Friendly ... more ...

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