<
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/middle-east/kuwait-overturns-law-used-to-prosecute-transgender-people-1.4805167>
"Kuwait’s constitutional court has overturned a law that authorities had used
to prosecute transgender people, saying the statute violated Kuwaitis’ right to
personal freedom. Activists hailed the decision as a landmark for transgender
rights in the Middle East.
The law, known as Article 198, had criminaliwed “imitation of the opposite
sex”, giving Kuwaiti authorities free rein to stop, arrest and prosecute people
whose appearance did not match the gender marked on their official
identification card.
Transgender Kuwaitis and Kuwaiti activists say that the police often detain
transgender people at security checkpoints after inspecting their papers,
sometimes for little more than a man having what the officers consider a
feminine voice. During interrogations, they say, the police often sexually
harass or physically assault them and then jail them.
Wednesday’s ruling stood out as a rare advance for sexual rights in a region
where being gay or transgender, if not expressly against the law, is usually
treated as such. In most Arab countries, traditional attitudes about gender
norms merge with strict religious beliefs to make sexual variations largely
taboo.
As a tiny, oil-rich city-state in the Persian Gulf with slightly more open
politics than its authoritarian neighbours, Kuwait is not necessarily a
bellwether for the region’s sexual freedoms. Still, Lynn Maalouf, Amnesty
International’s deputy director for the Middle East and North Africa, welcomed
the ruling as a “major breakthrough”. But she called on Kuwait to ensure the
law was fully repealed and to end the practice of arbitrarily arresting
transgender people."
Via Future Crunch Mar 11, 2022:
https://futurecrunch.com/goodnews-bilharzia-europe-plastics/
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
