World
Nicaragua seeks to shut down country’s oldest LGBTQ rights group
Fundación Xochiquetzal formed in 1990
The government of Nicaragua has sought to shut down the country’s oldest LGBTQ rights group.
Confidencial, an online newspaper that is critical of the government, reported the Interior Ministry has asked the National Assembly to “annul the legal non-profit status” of Fundación Xochiquetzal and 14 other non-governmental organizations. Assemblyman Filiberto Rodriguez on Aug. 18 introduced a bill that would dissolve the 15 NGOs for “holding activities outside the law and acting expressly against the law.”
Paul Canning, a London-based writer and activist, in a tweet notes Fundación Xochiquetzal formed in 1990 and has worked to fight HIV/AIDS in Nicaragua. Canning also said the group has been offering COVID-19 tests to LGBTQ people who live in Managua, the country’s capital.
The Nicaraguan government has banned its first LGBT NGO, Fundacion Xochiquetzal. Its a small, long standing (since 1990) group that works on HIV/Aids & has promoted covid testing to LGBT Managuans. Its backed by global funders like @AstraeaUpdates https://t.co/EgMQ44H9b9
— Paul Canning (@pauloCanning) August 23, 2021
The Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice is among the groups that have funded Fundación Xochiquetzal.
The government of President Daniel Ortega and his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo, in recent months have targeted opposition leaders and other groups — journalists and human rights activists — and NGOs ahead of national elections that are scheduled to take place on Nov. 7.
Confidencial reported the government this month has sought to close 45 NGOs.
The U.S. since July has sanctioned more than 100 officials and their immediate family members who the State Department says are “believed to be responsible for, or complicit in, undermining democracy, including those with responsibility for, or complicity in, human rights abuses such as suppression of peaceful protests.”
“For the past three months, President Daniel Ortega and his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo, have intimidated anyone opposed to their efforts to entrench their power in Nicaragua, including through the arrest of dozens of political candidates, journalists, student and business leaders, NGO workers, and human rights advocates, and through the disqualification of any candidate seeking to run against them in the Nov. 7 elections,” said the State Department in an Aug. 20 press release that announced sanctions against 19 election officials and members of the ruling Sandinista National Liberation Front party.
A Nicaraguan LGBTQ activist who now lives in Costa Rica told the Washington Blade on Tuesday described the government’s decision to shut down Fundación Xochiquetzal and other NGOs as “shameful.”
“It doesn’t want organized groups and above all feminist and LGBTIQ+ groups that have been in long-term struggles,” said the activist.
The Blade has decided not to publish the activist’s name in order to protect their identity.
Hungary
Hungarian authorities lift Budapest Pride ban
Country’s new government took office last month
Hungarian police on May 29 announced they will allow the annual Budapest Pride march to take place.
“The Budapest Metropolitan Police has approved the 2026 Budapest Pride Parade and also has issued restrictive orders in relation to three counter-demonstrations,” a Budapest Metropolitan Police spokesperson told Politico.
Budapest is Hungary’s capital and largest city.
Hungarian lawmakers last year passed a bill that banned Pride events and allowed authorities to use facial recognition technology to identify participants. MPs later amended the Hungarian constitution to ban public LGBTQ events.
More than 100,000 people defied the ban and participated in last year’s Budapest Pride parade. The event became one of the largest protests against then-Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and his government since he took office in 2010.
Prime Minister Péter Magyar took office last month after his center-right Tisza party ousted Orbán’s Fidesz-KDNP coalition in elections that took place on April 12. The European Union’s top court, the EU Court of Justice, days after Orbán’s ouster struck down Hungary’s anti-LGBTQ propaganda law that MPs approved in 2021.
The EU on May 29 announced it will release more than €16 billion ($18.59 billion) in funds to Hungary that it withheld while Orbán was in office.
The Budapest Pride march will take place on June 27.
“We will march freely in fresh air for our rights, for the democratic Hungary,” said Budapest Pride on its Facebook page.
Colombia
Claudia López comes up short in Colombian presidential election
Former Bogotá mayor would have been country’s first lesbian head of government
Former Bogotá Mayor Claudia López on Sunday finished fifth in the first round of Colombia’s presidential election.
López, a centrist who ran as an independent, received 225,517 votes. This figure is .95 percent of the total votes cast.
López was the Colombian capital’s mayor from 2020-2023. She was a member of the Colombian Senate from 2014-2018. López, whose wife is outgoing Colombian Sen. Angélica Lozano, would have become the country’s first female and first lesbian president if she would have won the election.
The LGBTQ+ Victory Institute honored López in D.C. in 2024.
“We need to listen to each other again, we need to have a coffee with each other again, we need to touch each other’s skin,” she told the Washington Blade during an interview. She hadn’t yet declared her candidacy, and did not specifically discuss her plans to run.
Runoff to take place June 21
Abrelardo de la Espriella, a far-right lawyer who has praised U.S. President Donald Trump and Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, on Sunday finished first with 43.74 percent of the vote. Senator Iván Cepeda, a member of outgoing President Gustavo Petro’s Historic Pact party, came in second with 40.9 percent of the vote.
Neither men received a majority of votes. A runoff between them will take place on June 21.
Ghana
Ghanaian lawmakers approve anti-LGBTQ bill
Measure that would criminalize allyship awaits president’s signature
Ghanaian lawmakers on Friday approved a bill that would, among other things, criminalize LGBTQ allyship.
Reuters reported MPs approved the Human Sexual Rights and Family Values Bill, 2025, in a voice vote after parliament’s Constitutional and Legal Affairs Committee backed it.
MPs in 2024 approved a similar bill, but it faced legal challenges and then-President Nana Akufo-Addo didn’t sign it. Lawmakers last year reintroduced the measure after President John Dramani Mahama took office.
The bill awaits his signature.
Rightify Ghana, a Ghanaian LGBTQ advocacy group, in a series of social media posts notes MPs passed the bill days before the 4th African Inter-Parliamentary Conference on Family Values and Sovereignty will take place in Accra, the country’s capital.
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