QATAR

A British-Mexican man who was arrested in a Grindr sting operation in Qatar has been released and has returned to the U.K., following more than six months in and out of prison while his case was heard and appealed.

Manuel Guerrero Aviña, who had lived in Qatar for seven years, was arrested in February after arranging to meet a man on the Grindr app. When he went down to his lobby to meet the man, he was detained by police, whom he says planted meth amphetamines on him and charged him with drug possession.

Guerrero says his arrest was due entirely to his being a gay man — gay sex is illegal in Qatar and carries a possible penalty of up to three years imprisonment, with a death sentence possible if the accused is a Muslim. However, Qatari authorities say that the arrest was strictly due to the alleged possession of drugs.

While in detention, Guerrero says was denied access to a lawyer or translator and was pressured into naming other gay men with whom he had relations. 

He was also kept in solitary confinement once authorities learned he is HIV positive, and denied regular access to his medication.

His case generated international headlines and saw intervention by politicians from both the UK and Mexico, as well as several human rights and civil society groups.

In June, he was given a 6-month suspended sentence and ordered deported, a decision that Guerrero appealed unsuccessfully.

On Aug. 11, a group lobbying for Guerrero’s release posted a statement to X, saying that Guerrero was “flying free” to London.

“As we write these letters, Manuel flies free to London, far from the Qatari dictatorship that tortured and criminalized him for being gay and living with HIV,” the statement from QatarMustFreeManuel says.

“To the people of Mexico and the people of the United Kingdom, to the LGBT community, to the media, to the solidarity and hearts that accompany us, the Manuel Guerrero Committee, Manuel and his family thank you for your tireless support in this emblematic struggle against injustice, against homophobia, and in favor of human rights for all people.”

Guerrero is in London undergoing medical treatment for the abuse he suffered in Qatari prison, including possible complications related to being denied his HIV medications. After that, he plans to return to Mexico.

BULGARIA

President Rumen Radev has signed a controversial bill banning “LGBT propaganda” in schools into law, sparking international condemnation and multiple protests across the country.

The bill, which was rushed through parliament with minimal consultations earlier this month, bans “propaganda, popularization, and encouragement, directly or indirectly, of ideas and views connected to nontraditional sexual orientation or to gender-identifying different from the biological,” in Bulgarian schools. The law does not prescribe any specific punishment for infractions. 

The new law has clearly been inspired by similar laws enacted in Russia, Lithuania, and Hungary in recent years, and was pushed by a political party with strong ties to Moscow.

The law has drawn criticism from NGOs and multinational organizations, including the Council of Europe, the UN Human Rights Office, the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee, and ILGA-Europe.

Sofia, the Bulgarian capital, has seen multiple protests against the law since it was passed on Aug. 7. Including from LGBTQ groups, feminist organizations, health organizations, and human rights groups.

Some activist groups opposed to the bill are calling on the European Union to take action against Bulgaria over the bill, calling it a violation of the fundamental rights and values of the union. They’re seeking to have the EU freeze funds that would normally go to Bulgaria, including for education and culture. 

“This law is not just a Bulgarian issue — this is a Russian law that has found its way into the heart of Europe,” Rémy Bonny, executive director of the LGBTQ rights group Forbidden Colours, told Politico. “The European Commission must step in and hold Bulgaria accountable.”

Last year, 15 EU countries joined a lawsuit against Hungary over its similar anti-LGBTQ law. 

So far, the European Commission — the executive branch of the EU — has requested more information on the law from the Bulgarian minister of education.

Friction with the EU could also stall Bulgaria’s long-hoped dream of joining the Eurozone, which it was hoping to do next year.

Bulgaria is heading to new parliamentary elections in October, after politicians elected in June were unable to form a government. It’ll be country’s fifth election in three years.

RUSSIA

A Russian artist who was released during the Aug. 1 prisoner exchange between Russia and Western countries has announced plans to marry her long-term partner now that they are settled in Germany, where same-sex marriage is legal.

Sasha Skochilenko, 33, was arrested in St. Petersburg weeks after the start of the Russia-Ukraine war, for replacing price tags in stores with anti-war messages. She was charged with extremism and making false statements about the military and eventually sentenced to 7 years in prison.

At the beginning of her detention, she was denied visitation or communication with her partner Sofya Subbotina. As they weren’t married, Russian authorities deemed her a witness to Skochilenko’s supposed crimes. 

Eventually, she was allowed brief visitation rights, which became a lifeline for Skolichenko, who suffers from several medical conditions that were exacerbated by her stay in prison. Skolichenko has celiac disease and couldn’t digest the food she was given in prison. 

Skolichenko was finally convicted and sentenced to seven years in prison in November 2023. She had filed an appeal and a request for a presidential pardon but made no progress with either.

In July, she was suddenly transferred to a prison in Moscow, and then on Aug 1, she was flown to Ankara, Turkey, where the prisoner exchange was made. 

In all, Russia and Belarus released 16 people, including Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, U.S. Marine Paul Whelan, and several of Russia’s opposition figures. In turn, eight Russians were released by the United States, Germany, Poland, and Norway, most of whom were known Russian spies. 

From Turkey, Skolichenko was flown to Germany. Subbotina followed the next day, as soon as she heard the news.

The pair are settled for now in Koblenz but have not yet decided where in Germany they’d like to settle permanently. 

Skolichenko plans to return to making art, while Subbotina wants to join a human rights organization to continue to work for political prisoners in Russia.

They had talked about getting married back in Russia, but that wasn’t possible as Russia does not recognize same-sex unions and has led a severe crackdown on LGBT rights advocacy in recent years.

Now that they live in Germany, they finally plan to tie the knot.

“We don’t know how or in which city we will do it, but that’s the plan,” Skochilenko told The Associated Press.

CHINA

In what some are hailing as a historic decision, a Chinese court for the first time recognized that a child can have two mothers in awarding visitation rights to a child born to a lesbian couple that since broke up.

The two women married in the U.S. in 2016 and conceived two children via IVF the following years. The embryos were made from one of the women’s eggs and donor sperm, and each woman carried one of the children. 

When the couple broke up in 2019, the woman who is the children’s genetic mother denied her former partner, Didi, visitation rights and moved from Shanghai to Beijing.

Didi, sued for custody in 2020. She finally won a partial victory in May.

Chinese law does not recognize same-sex couples or same-sex parents, so children of same-sex parents are generally only recognized as belonging to the biological parent. But because Didi gave birth to her daughter, she was recognized as her mother, even though she has no genetic link to her. 

The court granted her the right to make monthly visits to her daughter, and she made her first visit to her in more than four years this month.

But because she shares no genetic link to the child her former partner carried – her daughter’s brother – she was denied any visitation rights to him.

While the decision is bittersweet, LGBTQ activists have hailed the decision as a big step forward in recognizing the possibility of same-sex parents. 

Didi says she hopes the legal system will catch up to the growing social acceptance of queer people in China by recognizing that same-sex couples exist and have children.“It’s very simple, other families have one father and one mother. We have two mothers,” she told the Guardian