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Out in the World: LGBTQ news from Europe and Asia
Qatari authorities give suspended sentence to British Mexican man arrested in Grindr sting
QATAR
A British Mexican man who was arrested in a Grindr sting operation has been given a six-month suspended sentence and will be deported — although the state has 30 days to launch an appeal, during which he is not allowed to leave — the BBC reports.
Manuel Guerrero Aviña, 44, was arrested on what his family are calling trumped up drug charges in Doha in February, after being lured to a fake meeting on the gay cruising app Grindr. This week, he was handed his sentence, which includes a fine of approximately $2,700.
Guerrero, who has lived in Qatar for seven years and works for an airline, has told the BBC he is considering an appeal.
His family has previously told the BBC that he was approached online by a man named “Gio,” who also used the screen name “Mike” on both Grindr and Tinder. Guerrero invited “Gio” to his apartment, but when he went to the lobby to let him in, police were waiting and arrested him.
Police searched his apartment and allegedly found amphetamine and methamphetamine. They later administered a drug test which they say show evidence he had used the substances.
Guerrero says the drugs were planted as part of a sting operation targeting queer people. Under threat of torture and without a translator or lawyer, he was coerced into signing a document written in Arabic, a language he doesn’t read, admitting his possession of the drugs.
He spent 42 days in pretrial detention before being given provisional release, during which time police attempted to coerce him into naming other queer people.
Complicating his situation is the fact that he lives with HIV. While in detention, guards frequently withheld his medication, which could have enabled the virus to build up a resistance to it. He ran out of his prescription, which is not available in Qatar, in April, and has had to use a local substitute.
Several human rights groups have criticized the lack of due process in Guerrero’s case, the evidence that he was targeted for his sexual identity, and the implication that a wider crackdown on queer people is in the works.
“This has been about his LGBT status from the start and his desire to express that status and his identity, and that’s what this case is about,” James Lynch, co-director of the human rights organization Fair Square, told the BBC. “He’s an LGBT person and he was targeted through a dating app. You don’t do that, unless that’s the thing you are focused on.”
Qatari officials deny that Guerrero was targeted for any reason other than the possession of illegal substances.
Following Guerrero’s arrest, Grindr began displaying a warning to users in Qatar that “police are known to be making arrests on the app.”
Same-sex intercourse between men is illegal in Qatar, with potential sentences of up to three years. The law also allows a death sentence to be imposed for unmarried Muslims who have sex regardless of gender, though there are no records it has ever been carried out.
UKRAINE
The Kyiv City Council denied a organizers of Kyiv Pride a permit to hold the annual human rights demonstration on the city’s metro system, citing security concerns and the need to maintain service on the subway network, the Kyiv Post reports.
Kyiv Pride organizers say they still plan to go ahead with their march in the metro on June 16 even without a city permit.
Kyiv has not held a Pride festival since the latest Russian invasion began in February 2022. The organizers of Kyiv Pride say they were inspired to hold their march on the metro system by a similar event held in the war-torn eastern city Kharkiv in 2022, where the metro was the safest place to gather during Russian bombardment.
It’s partly because the metro is used as a bomb shelter during Russian attacks that the city denied a permit for the event. The city released a statement on June 3 calling on organizers to find another venue.
“In order not to endanger the participants and passengers, and to avoid possible provocations, the city authorities cannot allow the Equality March to take place in the metro,” it said.
Organizers expect up to 500 people to take part in the Pride march this year. They’re asking participants to register in advance in order to limit the number of participants who show up at metro.
In a lengthy post on Kyiv Pride’s Facebook page, the organizers underscore the importance of holding a highly visible Pride festival, even during the upheaval of wartime.
“It is our obligation before Ukrainian queer soldiers who are also supporting the March to ensure that they return from the frontlines to a more just legal environment,” the post says.
“Backed by society, the historic same-sex partnerships law and the law on hate crimes dropped from the parliament’s priority list. We must seize the opportunity to remind the government that ensuring dignity and equality for all Ukrainian citizens is not a second-tier priority. Organizing an LGBTQ+ civil rights march in Ukraine amid the ongoing Russian [sic] invasion is a complex and courageous endeavor.”
ITALY
An Italian couple is planning to challenge social conventions even as they challenge the bonds of the earth itself, by becoming the first gay couple to get married in outer space.
Alessandro Monterosso, a 33-year-old health software entrepreneur, and Alec Sander, a 25-year-old recording artist, will exchange vows in 2025 aboard a private spaceflight offered by the U.S. company Space Perspective.
Space Perspective is not yet in commercial operation, but its website says it will offer bespoke experiences aboard a luxury capsule that is lifted to the edge of space by a hydrogen-filled balloon at a speed of 12 miles per hour.
Monterosso and Sander have booked a whole capsule for them and six guests at a cost of $125,000 per person, an even $1,000,000 total. They say they are not seeking sponsors.
Monterosso and Sander first met in Padua in 2017, and they dated for four years until Sander broke it off because it was difficult to date while Monterosso was still in the closet. A year later, they met up again and Monterosso asked Sander to marry him. Sander agreed, but he didn’t immediately know that his fiancé wanted to hold the wedding in space.
“I was planning the trip as a civilian, to fulfill my childhood desire to become an astronaut. When I came into contact with the aerospace agency we relied on, it came naturally to me to ask: but can I also get married in space?” Monterosso told the Corriere della Sera newspaper.
“It seemed like such a romantic idea. I had struggled so much to accept myself as homosexual, not because I wasn’t sure, but because of the social context, and I told myself that now I would have to tell the whole world how I felt. Firstly because I know that there are many people who experience what I experienced, and then to confirm the infinite love I feel for Alec,” he says.
But Monterosso and Sander have a political message behind their space wedding as well. Same-sex marriage is not legal in Italy, and its current far-right government has cracked down hard on same-sex parents.
“Couples like us are not always well regarded in Italy. In other places in the world, they are even illegal. In Russia we are considered terrorists. Well, we just want to say that it’s time to normalize everything and amplify this message as much as possible. And if it is therefore so difficult to get married on Earth, then we are going to do it in space, with a galactic wedding whose aim is precisely to normalize these loves,” Monterosso says. “The message is aimed at people, because even today we still feel eyes on us if we hold hands while walking down the street. But if people normalize, politics must adapt.”
Monterosso and Sander already have their sights set on more distant shores.
“For our 20th anniversary, we are aiming for Mars,” Monterosso says.
AUSTRALIA
The government of New South Wales issued a historic apology this week to queer people who were persecuted under old laws that criminalized same-sex intercourse.
New South Wales decriminalized same-sex intimacy in 1984, one of the last Australian states to do so. Forty years later, it has become the last state to issue an apology for criminalizing queer people, after all other states did so in 2016 and 2017.
Delivering a speech in the state parliament, New South Wales Premier Chris Minns said he “recognizes and regrets this parliament’s role in enacting laws and endorsing policies of successive governments’ decisions that criminalized, persecuted and harmed people based on their sexuality and gender.
Minns’s apology acknowledged people were harmed by these laws even if they weren’t directly charged or convicted under them.
“To those who survived these terrible years, and to those who never made it through, we are truly sorry. We’re sorry for every person convicted under legislation that should never have existed. For every person that experienced fear as a result of that legislation.
“Everyone who lost a job, who lost their future, or who lost the love of family and friends. We are very sorry for every person, convicted or otherwise, who were made to live a smaller life because of these laws,” he said.
People who had been convicted under New South Wales’s old sodomy laws have been eligible to have the convictions expunged since a law change in 2014.
Minns’ government recently passed a ban on conversion therapy in March, making New South Wales the fourth jurisdiction in Australia to do so.
The state’s only openly gay MP, Independent Alex Greenwich, says that the apology has to be followed by more action to promote equality.
He’s put forward his own bill that would close a loophole in anti-discrimination law to ban discrimination by religious schools against LGBTQ students and teachers, and would allow trans people to change their legal gender without having to undergo a medical procedure.
“I rise as the only openly gay member of the Legislative Assembly to contribute to this apology,” Greenwich said in the state parliament. “I am one of only two in this chamber’s 186-year-old history. This in itself shows how much work we need to do.”
Venezuela
AHF client in Venezuela welcomes Maduro’s ouster
‘This is truly something we’ve been waiting for’ for decades
An AIDS Healthcare Foundation client who lives in Venezuela told the Washington Blade he welcomes the ouster of his country’s former president.
The client, who asked the Blade to remain anonymous, on Thursday said he felt “joy” when he heard the news that American forces seized Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, at their home in Caracas, the Venezuelan capital, during an overnight operation on Jan. 3.
“This is truly something we’ve been waiting for for 26 or 27 years,” the AHF client told the Blade.
Hugo Chávez became Venezuela’s president in 1999. Maduro succeeded him in 2013 after he died.
“I’ve always been in opposition,” said the AHF client, who stressed he was speaking to the Blade in his personal capacity and not as an AHF representative. “I’ve never agreed with the government. When I heard the news, well, you can imagine.”
He added he has “high hopes that this country will truly change, which is what it needed.”
“This means getting rid of this regime, so that American and foreign companies can invest here and Venezuela can become what it used to be, the Venezuela of the past,” he said.
The AHF client lives near the Colombia-Venezuela border. He is among the hundreds of Venezuelans who receive care at AHF’s clinic in Cúcuta, a Colombian city near the Táchira River that marks the border between the two countries.
The Simón Bolívar Bridge on the Colombia-Venezuela border on May 14, 2019. (Washington Blade video by Michael K. Lavers)
The AHF client praised U.S. President Donald Trump and reiterated his support for the Jan. 3 operation.
“It was the only way that they could go,” he said.
The Venezuelan National Assembly on Jan. 4 swore in Delcy Rodríguez, who was Maduro’s vice president, as the country’s acting president. The AHF client with whom the Blade spoke said he is “very optimistic” about Venezuela’s future, even though the regime remains in power.
“With Maduro leaving, the regime has a certain air about it,” he said. “I think this will be a huge improvement for everyone.”
“We’re watching,” he added. “The actions that the United States government is going to implement regarding Venezuela give us hope that things will change.”
Colombia
Colombians protest against Trump after he threatened country’s president
Tens of thousands protested the US president in Bogotá
BOGOTÁ, Colombia — Tens of thousands of people on Wednesday gathered in the Colombian capital to protest against President Donald Trump after he threatened Colombian President Gustavo Petro.
The protesters who gathered in Plaza Bolívar in Bogotá held signs that read, among other things, “Yankees go home” and “Petro is not alone.” Petro is among those who spoke.
The Bogotá protest took place four days after American forces seized now former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, at their home in Caracas, the Venezuelan capital, during an overnight operation.
The Venezuelan National Assembly on Sunday swore in Delcy Rodríguez, who was Maduro’s vice president, as the country’s acting president. Maduro and Flores on Monday pleaded not guilty to federal drug charges in New York.
Trump on Sunday suggested the U.S. will target Petro, a former Bogotá mayor and senator who was once a member of the M-19 guerrilla movement that disbanded in the 1990s. Claudia López, a former senator who would become the country’s first female and first lesbian president if she wins Colombia’s presidential election that will take place later this year, is among those who criticized Trump’s comments.
The Bogotá protest is among hundreds against Trump that took place across Colombia on Wednesday.
Petro on Wednesday night said he and Trump spoke on the phone. Trump in a Truth Social post confirmed he and his Colombian counterpart had spoken.
“It was a great honor to speak with the president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, who called to explain the situation of drugs and other disagreements that we have had,” wrote Trump. “I appreciated his call and tone, and look forward to meeting him in the near future. Arrangements are being made between Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the foreign minister of Colombia. The meeting will take place in the White House in Washington, D.C.”
Colombia
Gay Venezuelan man who fled to Colombia uncertain about homeland’s future
Heberth Aguirre left Maracaibo in 2018
BOGOTÁ, Colombia — A gay Venezuelan man who has lived in Colombia since 2018 says he feels uncertain about his homeland’s future after the U.S. seized now former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
“On one hand I can feel happy, but on the other hand I feel very concerned,” Heberth Aguirre told the Washington Blade on Tuesday during an interview at a shopping mall in Bogotá, the Colombian capital.
Aguirre, 35, is from Maracaibo, Venezuela’s second-largest city that is the heart of the country’s oil industry.
He developed cultural and art initiatives for the Zulia State government.
“Little by little, I suddenly became involved in politics because, in a way, you had to be involved,” recalled Aguirre. “It was necessary to be involved because the regime often said so.”
“I basically felt like I was working for the citizens, but with this deeply ingrained rule we had to be on their side, on the side of the Maduro and (former President Hugo) Chávez regime,” he added.
Maduro in 2013 became Venezuela’s president after Chávez died.
“There are things I don’t support about the regime,” Aguirre told the Blade. “There are other things that were nice in theory, but it turned out that they didn’t work when we put them into practice.”
Aguirre noted the Maduro government implemented “a lot of laws.” He also said he and other LGBTQ Venezuelans didn’t “have any kind of guarantee for our lives in general.”
“That also exposed you in a way,” said Aguirre. “You felt somewhat protected by working with them (the government), but it wasn’t entirely true.”
Aguirre, 35, studied graphic design at the University of Zulia in Maracaibo. He said he eventually withdrew after soldiers, members of Venezuela’s Bolivarian National Guard, and police officers opened fire on students.
“That happened many times, to the point where I said I couldn’t keep risking my life,” Aguirre told the Blade. “It hurt me to see what was happening, and it hurt me to have lost my place at the university.”
Venezuela’s economic crisis and increased insecurity prompted Aguirre to leave the country in 2018. He entered Colombia at the Simón Bolívar Bridge near the city of Cúcuta in the country’s Norte de Santander Province.
“If you thought differently, they (the Venezuelan government) would come after you or make you disappear, and nobody would do anything about it,” said Aguirre in response to the Blade’s question about why he left Venezuela.
The Simón Bolívar Bridge on the Colombia-Venezuela border on May 14, 2019. (Washington Blade video by Michael K. Lavers)
Aguirre spoke with the Blade three days after American forces seized Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, at their home in Caracas, the Venezuelan capital, during an overnight operation.
The Venezuelan National Assembly on Sunday swore in Delcy Rodríguez, who was Maduro’s vice president, as the country’s acting president. Maduro and Flores on Monday pleaded not guilty to federal drug charges in New York.
President Donald Trump on Tuesday in a Truth Social post said Venezuela’s interim authorities “will be turning over between 30 and 50 million barrels of high quality, sanctioned oil, to the United States of America.”
“This oil will be sold at its market price, and that money will be controlled by me, as president of the United States of America, to ensure it is used to benefit the people of Venezuela and the United States,” wrote Trump.
Trump on Sunday suggested the U.S. will target Colombian President Gustavo Petro, a former Bogotá mayor and senator who was once a member of the M-19 guerrilla movement that disbanded in the 1990s.
Petro has urged Colombians to take to the streets on Wednesday and “defend national sovereignty.” Claudia López, a former senator who would become the country’s first female and first lesbian president if she wins Colombia’s presidential election that will take place later this year, is among those who criticized Trump’s comments.
“Let’s be clear: Trump doesn’t care about the humanitarian aspect,” said Aguirre when the Blade asked him about Trump. “We can’t portray him as Venezuela’s savior.”
Meanwhile, Aguirre said his relatives in Maracaibo remain afraid of what will happen in the wake of Maduro’s ouster.
“My family is honestly keeping quiet,” he said. “They don’t post anything online. They don’t go out to participate in marches or celebrations.”
“Imagine them being at the epicenter, in the eye of the hurricane,” added Aguirre. “They are right in the middle of all the problems, so it’s perfectly understandable that they don’t want to say anything.”
‘I never in my life thought I would have to emigrate’
Aguirre has built a new life in Bogotá.
He founded Mesa Distrital LGBTIQ+ de Jóvenes y Estudiantes, a group that works with migrants from Venezuela and other countries and internally placed Colombians, during the COVID-19 pandemic. Aguirre told the Blade he launched the group “with the need to contribute to the general population, not just in Colombia.”
Aguirre met his husband, an American from California, at a Bogotá church in December 2020 during a Christmas event that SDA Kinship Colombia, an LGBTQ group, organized. A Utah judge virtually officiated their wedding on July 12, 2024.
“I love Colombia, I love Bogotá,” said Aguirre. “I love everything I’ve experienced because I feel it has helped me grow.”
He once again stressed he does not know what a post-Maduro Venezuela will look like.
“As a Venezuelan, I experienced the wonders of that country,” said Aguirre. “I never in my life thought I would have to emigrate.”
The Colombian government’s Permiso por Protección Temporal program allows Aguirre and other Venezuelans who have sought refuge in Colombia to live in the country for up to 10 years. Aguirre reiterated his love for Colombia, but he told the Blade that he would like to return to Venezuela and help rebuild the country.
“I wish this would be over in five years, that we could return to our country, that we could go back and even return with more skills acquired abroad,” Aguirre told the Blade. “Many of us received training. Many of us studied a lot. We connected with organizations that formed networks, which enriched us as individuals and as professionals.”
“Returning would be wonderful,” he added. “What we’ve built abroad will almost certainly serve to enrich the country.”
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