News
EU court rules homosexuality can be grounds for asylum
Decision comes in case of three Africans who sought refuge in the Netherlands
European Court of Justice (Photo by Stefan64; courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)
The ruling stems from the case of three people from Sierra Leone, Uganda and Senegal who sought asylum in the Netherlands in 2009, 2010 and 2011 respectively. Each of the applicants claimed they would face persecution in their African homelands because of their sexual orientation.
Homosexuality remains illegal in the three countries.
Sierra Leonean law punishes those found guilty of same-sex sexual acts with up to 10 years in prison, while those convicted under Senegal’s anti-sodomy law could face up to five years of incarceration. Gays and lesbians found guilty of same-sex sexual acts in Uganda could face up to life in prison.
Ugandan Parliamentarian David Bahati in 2009 sparked global outrage when he introduced a bill that would impose the death penalty upon anyone found guilty of repeated same-sex sexual acts.
The Dutch Ministry of Immigration and Asylum in 2010 and 2011 denied the asylum seekers’ request based on grounds they had not demonstrated they have “a well-founded fear of persecution by reason of their membership of a particular social group.”
A court in The Hague in 2010 and 2011 upheld the Sierra Leonean and Ugandan petitioners request for asylum. The same tribunal in 2011 dismissed the Senegalese asylum seekers’ appeal.
The Dutch Ministry of Immigration and Asylum appealed the ruling that overturned its previous decision in the case of the Sierra Leonean and Ugandan petitioners to the Dutch Council of State. The advisory body asked the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg to determine whether gays could be considered a “particular social group” and whether the criminalization of homosexuality is “an act of persecution.”
“It is common ground that a person’s sexual orientation is a characteristic so fundamental to his identity that he should not be forced to renounce it,” the European Court of Justice ruling reads.
“The criminalization of homosexual acts alone does not, in itself, constitute persecution,” it continues. “However, a term of imprisonment which sanctions homosexual acts and which is actually applied in the country of origin which adopted such legislation must be regarded as being a punishment which is disproportionate or discriminatory and thus constitutes an act of persecution.”
The ruling applies to all 28 EU member states, but it stipulates authorities in a particular country must determine whether an individual asylum seeker is facing persecution in their homeland. The Dutch government grants asylum based on sexual orientation on a case-by-case basis.
COC Nederland, a Dutch LGBT advocacy group, welcomed the European Court of Justice’s ruling.
“The current policy states that LGBT asylum seekers are to be expected to live in their country of origin with ‘a certain restraint’ when it comes to expressing their sexual orientation or gender identity,” the organization said. “This criterion is no longer valid in the light of this new European ruling. COC Netherlands has been advocating for such a policy for years.”
Livio Zilli of the International Commission of Jurists is among those who were critical of the decision.
“The court should have found that these laws, even when they have not recently been applied in practice are capable of giving rise to a well-founded fear or prosecution in lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex people and who accordingly should be recognized as refugees when they apply for asylum,” Zilli said.
Congress
10 HIV/AIDS activists arrested on Capitol Hill
Protesters interrupted Secretary of State Marco Rubio during hearing
U.S. Capitol Police on Tuesday arrested 10 HIV/AIDS activists who protested Secretary of State Marco Rubio during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing.
The activists from Housing Works, Health GAP, the Treatment Action Group, and ACT UP held signs and chanted “Rubio’s Cuts Kill People with AIDS, PEPFAR Saves Lives!” before officers removed them from Dirksen Senate Office Building room where the hearing took place.
A media advisory the Washington Blade received before the protest noted “mounting evidence of Rubio’s attempts to sabotage PEPFAR (the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, U.S. bilateral AIDS program) and vital global health programs.” The press release specifically highlighted three specific points:
• Eliminating Centers for Disease Control’s (CDC) lifesaving PEPFAR programs, which currently support approximately 12 million people on HIV treatment across 51 countries. Instead, Rubio intends to dismantle CDC’s current PEPFAR role and stamp out their global footprint in disease outbreak and surveillance for pandemics beyond HIV. Experts including eight former CDC Directors under Republican and Democratic administrations have spoken out against this effort to dismantle PEPFAR. Recent PEPFAR data showed sharp decreases in the numbers of people newly tested, diagnosed, and treated for HIV, but these data would have been even worse if not for CDC’s PEPFAR programs.
• Withholding $2 billion in Congressionally appropriated FY25 funding, including $330 million to combat HIV, $250 million to fight malaria, $320 million for maternal and child health programs, and nearly $650 million in global health security programs.
• Negotiating secret bilateral deals blackmailing African governments by demanding access to critical mineral wealth as a condition of access to HIV treatment and prevention funding.
The groups have staged several protests against the Trump-Vance administration’s HIV/AIDS policies since it took office.
Rubio on Jan. 28, 2025, issued a waiver that allowed PEPFAR and other “life-saving humanitarian assistance” programs to continue to operate during a freeze on nearly all U.S. foreign aid spending. HIV/AIDS service providers around the world with whom the Blade has spoken say PEPFAR cuts and the loss of funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development, which officially closed on July 1, 2025, has severely impacted their work.
The State Department last September announced PEPFAR will distribute lenacapavir in countries with high prevalence rates.
The New York Times last summer reported Vought “apportioned” only $2.9 billion of $6 billion that Congress set aside for PEPFAR for fiscal year 2025. (PEPFAR in the coming fiscal year will use funds allocated in fiscal year 2024.)
Bipartisan opposition in the U.S. Senate prompted the Trump-Vance administration last July withdraw a proposal to cut $400 million from PEPFAR’s budget. Vought a few weeks later said he would use a “pocket rescission” to cancel $4.9 billion for HIV/AIDS prevention and global health programs and other foreign aid assistance initiatives that Congress had already approved.
The White House in January expanded the global gag rule to ban U.S. foreign aid for groups that promote “gender ideology.” President Ronald Reagan in 1985 implemented the original regulation, also known as the “Mexico City” policy, which bans U.S. foreign aid for groups that support abortion and/or offer abortion-related services. Advocacy groups insist the expanded rule will adversely impact HIV prevention efforts around the world.
“Congress must stop Secretary Rubio before he dismantles PEPFAR,” said Treatment Action Group’s Kendall Martinez-Wright. “Rubio continues to defy the will of Congress and the American people who want this program restored and repaired. Under his leadership he is diverting funding and trying to eliminate the essential role of technical experts in global HIV and global health, while program performance is flailing.”
District of Columbia
JR.’s hosts meet & greet for mayoral candidate Janeese Lewis George
Event organized by Capital Stonewall Democrats, Queers for Janeese
D.C. mayoral candidate Janeese Lewis George spoke to a crowd of LGBTQ supporters on June 1 at a meet & greet event held at JR.’s on 17th Street in the Dupont Circle neighborhood.
The event, organized by Capital Stonewall Democrats, which has endorsed Lewis George for mayor, with support from a group called Queers for Janeese, was followed by a “get out the vote” canvassing endeavor in which several of those attending the meet & greet visited the homes of nearby residents known to be Lewis George supporters.
The purpose of the canvassing was to remind Lewis George supporters to return their mail-in ballots or go to the polls on June 16 to elect Lewis George as the city’s next mayor, according to Matthew Kavanagh, one of the leaders of Queers for Janeese who attended the meet & greet event at JR.’s.
Local political observers consider Lewis George, a Ward 4 D.C. Council member, and former At-Large D.C. Council member Kenyan McDuffie, to be the two leading candidates in this year’s race for mayor. The two are among seven mayoral candidates competing in the city’s June 16 Democratic primary.
Lewis George told those attending the meet & greet, which was held on the JR.’s outdoor patio, that she has a long record of advocating for and initiating city polices and laws in support of the LGBTQ community. She said large corporate donors were backing her opponents and urged her LGBTQ supporters to help raise funds for her in the remaining days of the campaign.
Among those attending the meet & greet was gay longtime Dupont Circle civic activist Randy Downs who last November opened a nearby eatery called Protest Pizza. “I am queer and I am a Janeese supporter,” Downs told the Blade.
Stevie McCarty, president of Capital Stonewall Democrats, who also spoke at the meet & greet event, said his group would organize events in support of Lewis George in the remaining days of the campaign. Among them, he said, was an LGBTQ bar crawl in which supporters of Lewis George, including the candidate herself, would visit LGBTQ bars to promote her candidacy.
Virginians for Marriage Equality on Monday launched a campaign in support of repealing Virginia’s constitutional amendment that defines marriage as between a man and a woman.
Equality Virginia Executive Director Narissa Rahaman, former state Sen. Adam Ebbin, former state Del. Mark Sickles, and American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia Executive Director Mary Bauer are among those who spoke at the launch that took place in Richmond. State Del. Kirk McPike (D-Alexandria), who co-chairs the campaign, also participated.
“This amendment is about making clear that the government has no business deciding which marriages or which families are worthy of recognition,” said Bauer. “The ACLU of Virginia has been fighting for Virginians’ right to marry who they love since the landmark case, Loving v. Virginia, which struck down the ban on interracial marriage. Now we are proud to carry that legacy forward by standing with our coalition partners in the fight to pass this amendment and finally enshrine the right to marriage equality in the commonwealth’s constitution.”
Voters in 2006 approved the Marshall-Newman Amendment.
Same-sex couples have been able to legally marry in Virginia since 2014. Former Gov. Glenn Youngkin, who is a Republican, in 2024 signed a bill that codified marriage equality in state law.
Two successive legislatures must approve a proposed constitutional amendment before it can go to the ballot.
Democratic Gov. Abigail Spanberger in February signed a bill that finalized the referendum’s language.
The referendum will take place on Nov. 3.
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