Amnesty International put out the first world-wide report on torture and ill-treatment over sexual identity in Dublin this afternoon.
Director of the Irish Section Mr Seán Love said: "This is the first time there is a major focus on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in a world-wide Amnesty International theme campaign.
"It is also the first time an international human rights organisation has published a world-wide report on torture and sexual identity."
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"Tortured, ill-treated, sexually assaulted, forcibly subjected to medical or psychiatric treatment, forced to flee their home countries in terror ' the world over, lesbians, gay men, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people are at particular risk of human rights violations because of their sexual identity," said Mr Love.
The report documents physical, sexual, and psychiatric abuse of gays in 30 countries. It also highlights the fact that in over 70 countries same-sex relations are considered a crime and in some instances they incur the death penalty.
In Afghanistan at least six men have been publicly crushed to death since 1998 after sodomy convictions by an Islamic Taliban court.
"Despite being a widespread occurrence across continents and cultures, the torture and ill-treatment suffered by LGBT people is surrounded by a conspiracy of silence," the report said.
The report also says generalised tolerance of abuses against LGBT people, fear of retaliation and reluctance by the victims to gain exposure are some of the factors contributing to this silence.
Other incidents reported include:
- In addition to chronic beatings during the three-year imprisonment of a suspected Romanian lesbian in 1995, the woman was handcuffed to a radiator in a crucifixion position for 11 hours;
- In Jamaica, consensual male homosexuality is punished by up to 10 years' imprisonment with hard labour. A nurse authorised to distribute condoms was denied access to a lawyer during a nine-hour interrogation by Jamaican police in May 2000.
- In Uganda female human rights workers were imprisoned and "gang-raped" in the filthy cell they shared with bats in 1999.
- In November 2000 a man called Jeffrey Lyons was allegedly assaulted by at least eight off-duty Chicago police officers who saw him embracing a male friend. The 39-year-old heterosexual suffered broken facial bones and neurological damage.
The organisation urges a ban on discrimination based on sexual identity, including sodomy laws, and forced medical treatment to "cure"' homosexuality, asylum for those fleeing torture based on sexual identity and protection of human rights defenders working on issues of sexual identity.
