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Capital punishment as a criminal punishment for homosexuality has been implemented by a number of countries in their history. It currently remains a legal punishment in several countries and regions, all of which have sharia–based criminal laws, except for Uganda.
Gay people also face extrajudicial killings by state and non-state actors in some states and regions of the world. Locations where this is known to occur include Iraq, Libya, Syria and the Chechnya region of Russia. Imposition of the death penalty for homosexuality may be classified as judicial murder of gay people.
Further information: LGBT rights by country or territory, LGBT in Islam, Capital punishment in Islam, Sodomy law, and Sharia § Islamization |
The International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA) reported in 2020 that in at least six UN member states—Brunei, Iran, Mauritania, Nigeria (some states in northern Nigeria), Saudi Arabia, and Yemen—homosexual activity is punishable by death.[1] These six were joined in 2023 by Uganda, which became the only Christian-majority country with capital punishment for some consensual same-sex acts.[2] Excepting Uganda, all countries currently having capital punishment as a potential penalty for homosexual activity base those laws on interpretations of Islamic teachings.[3][4]: 25, 31 One source states that in 2007 alone, five countries had carried out executions for homosexuality.[5] In 2020, the ILGA stated that Iran and Saudi Arabia were the only countries in which government-sanctioned executions for consensual same-sex sexual activity had taken place since 2000.[4]: 38, 49, 74
For the countries listed below, no dispute or uncertainty regarding the legal status of capital punishment as a possible penalty for same-sex sexual conduct exists. While clearly allowable, the application or enforcement of the legally-sanctioned death penalty varies across the jurisdictions, with some not having imposed or enacted the penalty for many years or decades, and some never having done so, while others have carried out executions recently and some do so regularly.[1]
As of March 2023, the following jurisdictions allow the death penalty to be imposed for homosexual conduct:
According to the ILGA, there are five UN-member countries where the status of the death penalty as a punishment for same-sex sexual conduct is uncertain. This may be because experts or legal scholars dispute the effect of legal provisions, or because the laws relied upon to potentially sanction the death penalty are the zina provisions which relate to all sexual behaviours outside marriage, with applicability to homosexual relations uncertain, and so far, only theoretical.[4]: 25
As of 2020[update], these jurisdictions are:
Further information: Social cleansing, Honor killing, Significant acts of violence against LGBT people, and Persecution of gay and bisexual men by ISIL |
In some regions, gay people have been murdered by Islamist militias and terrorist groups, such as Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in parts of Iraq, Libya, and Syria, the Houthi movement in Yemen, Hamas in the Gaza Strip as well as in Malaysia.[10][34][35]
See also: Anti-gay purges in Chechnya |
Anti-gay purges in Chechnya , a predominantly Muslim region of Russia, have included forced disappearances—secret abductions, imprisonment, and torture—by local Chechen authorities targeting persons based on their perceived sexual orientation.[36] Of one hundred men, whom authorities detained on suspicion of being gay or bisexual, three have reportedly died after being held in what human rights groups and eyewitnesses have called concentration camps.[37][38]
See also: Extrajudicial killings in Iraq |
Extrajudicial killings have occurred in Iraq.[39] Cases include abductions, torture, rape and murder by vigilante mobs, militia and other perpetrators. LGBT people living in fear of their lives, campaigners Human Rights Watch (HRW) and IraQueer found. HRW's LGBT rights researcher Rasha Younes said: "LGBT Iraqis live in constant fear of being hunted down and killed by armed groups with impunity, as well as arrest and violence by Iraqi police, making their lives unliveable."[40]
See also: LGBT rights in Malaysia |
In Malaysia, extrajudicial murders of LGBT people have also occurred.[41][42][43] There are no Malaysian laws that protect the LGBT persons from discrimination and hate crimes.[43]
Reports of killings by mobs and vigilantes, family violence, and other abuse from the community towards LGBT persons[44][45][46][47] have been reported in regions of Africa heavily influenced by conservative Christianity and Islam. Such incidents have occurred in: Algeria,[48] Uganda,[49] South Africa,[50] Kenya,[51] Liberia, Ghana, Cameroon, and Senegal. In some locations, police may be unlikely to intervene in incidents or take action on reported abuse;[45][52] they are at times complicit in the anti-gay violence.[53]
See also: Gay gang murders |
Reports of extrajudicial killings of homosexuals have also occurred in the Western world, but are less common;[54] for example, an Australian study, published in 2000 by the Australian Institute of Criminology, found that of the 454 male homicides between 1989 and 1999 in the state New South Wales, at least 37 were verifiably fuelled by homophobia.[55]
During the Israel–Hamas war, a video described as “Hamas executes people by throwing them off a roof of a building!” circulated on social media.[56] Some derivatives of the meme claimed the men were executed for being gay. But the video was from 2015 and not from Palestine.[56] A July 2015 report from Al Arabiya, included identical images and states that they were originally shared by the so-called Islamic State, and showed the execution of four gay men in Fallujah, Iraq.[56]
In February 2016,[60][61] the Al-Qassam Brigades (the militant wing of the Hamas movement, who control the internal governance of the Gaza Strip) executed Mahmoud Ishtiwi, the commander of Al-Qassam's Zeitoun Battalion.[62] The alleged offences were described evasively, the stated reason was Arabic: تجاوزاته السلوكية والأخلاقية التي أقر بها, lit. 'for behavioral and moral violations, to which he confessed',[63][64][58] which some western news media interpreted as a euphemism for homosexual activity.[65][66]
Local sources clarified that Shteiwi was convicted of spying for Israel.[67] The Qassam Brigades alleged that Ishtiwi had been executed by firing squad,[68][58] but people who saw his body before burial alleged that he might have died in custody and been shot after death.[69][58]
The Lions' Den militant group in Nablus in the West Bank executed one of their members for sharing information with the Israeli security services that led to the assassination of several leaders of the group. The young man had been bribed and blackmailed by Shin Bet allegedly using a video of if him having sex with a male partner.[70][57][59][71] . .
See also: Violence against LGBT people in Palestine, Executions in the Gaza Strip, and Pinkwashing (LGBT) |
Stories about killings of LGBT people in Palestine are frequently exaggerated, over simplified, or misappripriations of stories that actually occurred elsewhere.[56] Two members of Palestinian nationalist militant groups have been accused of espionage and killed by their comrades in situations that included rumours about homosexuality or bisexuality.[57][58][59] There has also been one vigilante killing in the West Bank.
See also: List of people executed for homosexuality in Europe |
See also: Homophobic vigilante killings in Sydney |
Australian states and territories first passed laws against homosexuality during the colonial era, and nineteenth-century colonial parliaments retained provisions which made homosexual activity a capital offence until 1861.[72] Most jurisdictions removed capital punishment as a sentence for homosexual activity, although in Victoria it remained as such when committed while also inflicting bodily harm or to a person younger than the age of fourteen until 1949.[72] The last person arrested for homosexual sex in Australia was a man in 1984 in Tasmania.[73] The last part of Australia to legalise consensual homosexual sex between adults was Tasmania in 1997. In 2017, same-sex marriage was legalised by the Australian government.[74][75]
Main article: Persecution of homosexuals in Nazi Germany § Death penalty |
During the period of Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945, homosexual men were persecuted with thousands being imprisoned in concentration camps (and eventually extermination camps) by the Nazi regime. Roughly 5,000–15,000 were sent to the concentration camps, with the death rate being estimated to be as high as 60%. Homosexuals in the camps suffered an unusual degree of cruelty by their captors, including being used as target practice on shooting ranges.[76][77][78]
In a 1937 speech, Himmler argued that SS men who had served sentences for homosexuality should be transferred to a concentration camp and shot when trying to escape. This policy was never implemented, and some SS men were acquitted on homosexuality charges despite evidence against them.[79] A few death sentences against SS men for homosexual acts were pronounced between 1937 and 1940.[80] In a speech on 18 August 1941, Hitler argued that homosexuality should be combatted throughout Nazi organizations and the military. In particular, homosexuality in the Hitler Youth must be punished by death in order to protect youth from being turned into homosexuals, however the Hitler Youth never implemented this policy.[81]
After learning of Hitler's remark, Himmler decided that the SS must be at least as tough on homosexuality and drafted a decree mandating the death penalty to any member of the SS and police found guilty of engaging in a homosexual act. Hitler signed the decree on 15 November 1941 on the condition that there be absolutely no publicity, worried that such a harsh decree might lend fuel to left-wing propaganda that homosexuality was especially prevalent in Germany. Since it could not be published in the SS newspaper, the decree was communicated to SS men one-on-one by their superiors. However, this was not done consistently and many arrested men asserted that they had no knowledge of the decree.[81]
Even after the decree, only a few death sentences were pronounced.[82][83] Himmler often commuted the sentence especially if he thought that the accused was not a committed homosexual, but had suffered a one-time mistake (particularly while drunk). Many of those whose sentence was commuted were sent to serve in the Dirlewanger Brigade, a penal unit on the Eastern Front, where most were killed.[82] After late 1943, because of military losses, it was the policy to recycle SS men convicted of homosexuality into the Wehrmacht.[84]
The 1933 law on habitual criminals also allowed for execution after the third conviction.[85] On 4 September 1941 a new law allowed the execution of dangerous sex offenders or habitual criminals when "the protection of the Volksgemeinschaft or the need for just atonement require it". This law enabled authorities to pronounce death sentences against homosexuals, and is known to have been employed in four cases in Austria.[86][87] In 1943, Wilhelm Keitel, head of the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, authorized the death penalty for soldiers convicted of homosexuality in "particularly serious cases".[88][89] Only a few executions of homosexual Wehrmacht soldiers are known, mostly in conjunction with other charges, especially desertion.[88] Some homosexuals were executed at Nazi euthanasia centers, such as Bernburg or Meseritz-Obrawalde. It is difficult to estimate the number of homosexuals directly killed during the Nazi era.[90]
From 1533, under the Buggery Act 1533, capital felony for any person to "commit the detestable and abominable vice of buggery with mankind or beast", was enacted, repealed and re-enacted several times by the Crown, until it was reinstated permanently in 1563. Homosexual activity remained a capital offence until 1861.[91] The last execution took place on 27 November 1835 when James Pratt and John Smith were hanged outside Newgate Prison in London.
See also: Sodomy laws in the United States |
During the colonial era of American history, the various European nations which established colonies in the Americas brought their pre-existing laws against homosexuality (which included capital punishment) with them. The establishment of the United States after their victory in the Revolutionary War did not bring about any changes in the status of capital punishment as a sentence for being convicted of homosexual behavior. Beginning in the 19th century, the various state legislatures passed legislation which ended the status of capital punishment being used for those who were convicted of homosexual behavior. South Carolina was the last state, in 1873, to repeal the death penalty for homosexual behaviour from its statute books. The number of times the penalty was carried out is unknown. Records show there were at least two executions, and a number of more convictions with vague labels, such as "crimes against nature".[91]
In July 2020, the sodomy law that previously punished gay men with up to 100 lashes for the first offence, five years in jail for the second and the death penalty the third time around was abolished, with new legislation reducing the penalty to prison terms ranging from five years to life. Sudanese LGBT+ activists hailed the reform as a 'great first step', but said it was not enough yet, and the end goal should be the decriminalisation of same-sex sexual activity altogether.[92]