In June 2021, Amani’s girlfriend ended their relationship. Amani told Human Rights Watch that for months prior to the breakup, her girlfriend’s parents had been “refusing to…
For many decades domestic politics in Kazakhstan has pivoted around monolithic state structures, dependent on such a concentrated leadership elite, that outside observers might surmise the country…
Amnesty International says groups that defend LGBT rights are facing a rise in hostility in parts of the former Soviet Union, fueled by discrimination, homophobia, and what…
In Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, homosexuality is still a crime punishable by a prison sentence. It’s not against the law in Tajikistan, but LGBT people have no legal…
AQTOBE, Kazakhstan — More than 100 people have protested in Kazakhstan’s northwestern city of Aqtobe against an event planned by LGBT activists. The protesters said at the…
A training seminar held this week by feminists and LGBT activists in a mining city in central Kazakhstan might have ended in violence but for the intervention…
Women have marched across Eastern Europe, the Western Balkans, and Central Asia demanding governments do more to respect their rights as the world marks International Women’s Day….
Many governments across Eastern Europe and Central Asia have pursued an “extensive offensive” against human rights, deploying draconian tactics and tools of the state to suppress protests,…
An appeals court in Kazakhstan on September 3 upheld a decision denying Feminita, a national feminist initiative, registration as a nongovernmental organization (NGO). The group’s focus includes…
While much recent attention has been focused on the LGBT community in Chechnya and the wider North Caucasus, sexual minorities in Central Asia live under significant pressure…
The Human Rights Watch lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights program has fought for over a decade to end human rights violations based on sexual orientation…
LGBT rights are human rights, period. Human Rights First works to ensure that these rights are incorporated into the United States’ foreign policy agenda and advanced on…
With more than 7 million supporters, activists and volunteers in more than 150 countries, and complete independence from government, corporate or ideological interests, we work to protect…