Which countries punish homosexuality with the death penalty and when was the last execution?

Two of the last people may have been Mehrdad Karimpour and Farid Mohammadi, executed in Iran at the end of January this year.

Karimpour was 32 and Mohammadi was 29. They were accused of sodomy by the Iranian authorities, for which they spent six years on death row, according to the group Human Rights Activists in Iran (HRAI), which reports on human rights abuses and violations in the country. .

The gallows awaited them on January 30 in the city of Maragheh, some 500km northwest of Tehran.

The difficulty in obtaining official data makes it difficult to know if Mehrdad and Farid are the most recent victims, but what is likely is that they will not be the last.

Last September, two lesbian womenZahra Sedighi-Hamadani and Elham Choubdar were also sentenced to death in Iran on charges of “corruption on earth” and human trafficking. At the moment it is unknown when the sentence, which has been condemned by the UN, will be carried out.

In Bauchi State, northern Nigeria, an Islamic court sentenced three men in July to die stoned for having homosexual relations, although nothing is known about the possible execution or not of the sentence.

Having consensual sexual relations with a person of the same sex can be punished with capital punishment in eleven countries of the worldaccording to different associations and human rights organizations.

The “crime” acquires different names depending on the country, which may consider it an “unnatural crime”, “sodomy” or “homosexual acts”. The punishment is also executed in different ways: hanging, beheading or stoning.

In some cases, it only applies to men.

In six countries –Brunei, Iran, Mauritania, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia and Yemen– there is legal certainty that capital punishment is the legally prescribed punishment for consensual same-sex sexual acts. This is stated in their respective penal codes, although, in the case of Nigeria, only 12 of the northern states of the country and, in Brunei, currently apply a moratorium.

In another five more –Qatar, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia and the United Arab Emirates-, the death penalty is a possibility, due to its interpretation of the sharia or Islamic law, although it is not a legal certainty and could be contested, according to the report “State Homophobia” of the International Association of Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals , Trans and Intersex (ILGA).

Iran and Saudi Arabia are the countries that apply it most frequently, Julia Ehrt, executive director of ILGA World, explains to BBC Mundo. However, of the countries that impose it, it is difficult to know how many actually carry it out.

In addition to the Iranian victims, there is data that in April 2019, at least five men were executed in Saudi Arabia for having consensual sex. They were part of a coordinated mass execution in public spaces across the country in which 37 men died.

Most were accused of being spies or terrorists working for Iran, a charge that ILGA and other organizations believe stems from their presence at an anti-government protest in 2012. According to documents seen by CNN, one of the men convicted of homosexuality, he confessed under torture to having had relations with the other four.

It is frequent, they assure from the associations, that the charges for maintaining homosexual relations are mixed with others.

Although the associations that defend the rights of this group end up finding out about arrests or cases of people being prosecuted, getting hold of proof of the application of these sentences is not easy.

“Getting rigorous data is very difficult because media coverage can be very limited, official records either do not exist or are very difficult to obtain,” explains Alistair Stewart, head of Defense and Investigation at BBC Mundo. Human Dignity Trusta London-based organization that provides legal support to local activists and associations.

To this is added that “the LGTBI and human rights organizations that monitor these cases often have very few resources and are under so much pressure that they cannot keep an updated and reliable record,” adds Stewart.

The number of countries that impose the death penalty on homosexual people has decreased in recent decades, but in recent years it has remained practically stable.

Sudan reformed its criminal legislation in 2020 and has stopped condemning homosexuality with the death penalty.

However, brunei it introduced this punishment in 2019 although, due to the international outcry it generated, the sultan announced a moratorium a month later. This suspension is, however, “de facto but not “de jure”, that is, it is applied in fact but remains in the law, so it could be revoked at any time. The moratorium, as Human Rights Watch points out in a report on Brunei, “is subject to the political whimand could be up at any time.”

Then there are the countries with conflict zones“such as Afghanistan or Iraq, where, depending on who is in power, although the death penalty is not a legal option, it can be used,” analyzes Alistair Stewart.

Examples of this are the kidnapping, torture and murder of a gay medical student in Afghanistan last October at the hands of a Taliban patrol, or the gay purges in Chechnya in 2017 and 2019, in which several people died. In 2016, the self-proclaimed Islamic State also executed 25 men for being gay.

Beyond capital punishment 68 countries around the world ban same-sex sexual relationswith sentences ranging from a few months to many years in prison, or even corporal punishment such as public flogging.

However, it is a figure that, according to Julia Ehrt, is decreasing every year.

“There is a progression in terms of penalties, the situation is improving, and this is a trend that we have seen in recent years and even decades,” explains the executive director of ILGA World.

In the last decade, 16 countries have stopped persecuting homosexualityincluding Antigua and Barbuda, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Angola, Mozambique and, most recently, Singapore.

The CaribbeanFor example, it is the only region in the entire American continent where there are still countries that punish homosexual relations, although, as Alistair Stewart affirms, “in each of them there are active legal cases challenging those laws, so in about five years there might not be any country left that criminalizes LGTBI people in all of America”.

Latin Americain fact, “is at the forefront of LGTBI rights,” acknowledges Julia Ehrt.

In the opposite direction it has moved, however, Indonesiaa country in which, with the exception of the territories in which the sharia is applied, such as Sumatra and Banda Aceh, it did not punish LGTBI relations.

However, the reform of the penal code approved at the beginning of December, which prohibits sex outside of marriagefully affects homosexual relationships since there is no gay marriage in that country.

According to ILGA’s count, 63 UN member states currently have laws that condemn homosexuality, to which must be added two territories that are not independent: Gaza and the Cook Islands. In addition, two other countries, Egypt and Iraq, punish it “de facto”. Indonesia is number 68, although it is not yet clear how the new legislation will be interpreted.

Although the associations agree that there is an improvement worldwide in terms of the rights of LGTBI people, the picture is uneven.

In Africa, where 35 countries still criminalize same-sex relationships, “and which is perceived as one of the most difficult places for LGTBI people, even there there has been a real improvement,” says Stewart, who mentions the cases of Angola, Leshoto, Botswana, Mozambique and Seychellescountries that have stopped punishing homosexuality.

However, Ghana, where it is already illegal, is considering a new law that goes even further, and that could prohibit not only homosexual relations but the simple fact of demonstrating gay or expressing support for the LGTBI collective. If it goes ahead, relatives, employers, landlords or friends of homosexual people could be sentenced if they do not report them to the authorities.

Even in regions where homosexuality is not persecuted and where LGTBI people have their rights guaranteed, a regression in the social climate is perceived.

According to Julia Ehrt, the European branch of ILGA began to observe a deterioration in the situation in the ranking that it annually draws up of the countries that belong to the Council of Europe, “and that only takes into account the legal situation, so on the ground It may be different and it may have gotten worse even earlier.”

Ehrt cites as examples “greater scrutiny of the trans communities in the US and UKor LGTBI people in countries like Poland and Hungary“.

To this is added Russiawhere a new law expands existing restrictions on activities perceived as “LGBTI propaganda.”

According to Alistair Stewart, this is part of the global rise of a certain right-wing that has opposition to the rights of LGTBI people as the cornerstone of its ideology.

Although the legal or social circumstances are very different in different countries, argues the Human Dignity Trust activist, those who oppose LGTBI rights use the same rhetoric and argumentsand this is seen in the fact that the law that is being considered in Ghana has very similar aspects to the one that has been approved in Russia, they are not isolated incidents”.

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