Kenya’s High Court on May 24, 2019 upheld laws criminalizing homosexual acts between consenting adults, a step backward in the progress Kenya has made toward equality in recent years, Human Rights Watch said today. The court was addressing a petition filed in 2016 by three Kenyan organizations that work to protect the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people. The groups said that the criminalization of same-sex conduct under articles 162 and 165 of the penal code violates the rights to equality, non-discrimination, human dignity, security, privacy, and health, all protected under Kenya’s constitution. “Kenya’s High Court has relegated people in same-sex relationships in Kenya to second-class citizenship, based on the absurd claim that the penal code is not discriminatory,” said Neela Ghoshal, senior LGBT rights researcher at Human Rights Watch.