ILGA Call for action / Nepalese Sexual Rights Groups to be banned

On June 18th a private-practice lawyer petitioned the Nepalese Supreme Court to shut down the Blue Diamond Society, an NGO working on sexual-health issues and human rights. The petition accused the group of trying to “make homosexual activities legal,” and demanded that its activities be outlawed because “homosexual conduct is a criminal offense in Nepal.” However, there are no existing laws that currently forbid homosexual acts, yet the Nepalese Civil Code (Part 4, Chapitre 16) punishes “unnatural sexual acts”. This is regularly used as a pretext to justify the detention of men having sex with men or transgender individuals.

In response to the petition, the Supreme Court gave the Interior Ministry until July 27th to show why “openly homosexual activities” should not be banned in Nepal.

We ask you to send a letter of protest by fax or mail to the Nepalese embassies of your country. We have listed some of the main addresses on

Nepalese embassies
http://www.south-asia.com/showcase/Tour/add_out1.html


Here’s a link to get your own copy of a protest letter (in English) written by Human Rights Watch.
http://hrw.org/english/docs/2004/07/23/nepal9132.htm



Stephen Barris
Information Officer / ILGA
International Lesbian and Gay Association

For more info on Nepal, please visit
http://www.ilga.org/news_results.asp?LanguageID=1&FileID=276&FileCategory=51&ZoneID=3