Qatar
A British-Mexican man arrested in Qatar in a Grindr sting operation has been released and returned to the UK after 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. He said he went to the lobby of his house to meet the man, but police detained him, planted amphetamines on him, and charged him with drug possession.
Guerrero says he was arrested solely because he is gay — homosexuality is illegal in Qatar and can be punished with up to three years in prison or the death penalty if the defendant is Muslim — but Qatari authorities say he was arrested solely on suspicion of drug possession.
While in custody, Guerrero says he was denied access to a lawyer or an interpreter and pressured to name other gay men he had had relationships with.
After authorities learned he was HIV positive, they placed him in solitary confinement and refused to allow him to take his medication regularly.
His case has attracted international attention and led to intervention by politicians in both the UK and Mexico, as well as several human rights and civil society organisations.
In June he was given a six-month suspended sentence and ordered deported, but Guerrero unsuccessfully appealed the decision.
On August 11, a group calling for Guerrero's release posted a statement to X saying that Guerrero was “free” to travel to London.
“As we write these letters, Manuel flies freely to London, far from the dictatorial regime in Qatar where he was tortured and criminalised for being gay and HIV positive,” the QatarMustFreeManuel statement said.
“The solidarity and hearts of the Mexican people, the British people, the LGBT community, the media and our Manuel Guerrero Committee are with you, Manuel and his family, and we thank you for your tireless support in this symbolic fight against injustice and homophobia and in support of the human rights of all people.”
Guerrero is currently undergoing treatment in London for the ill-treatment he suffered in a Qatari prison, including possible complications from being denied HIV medication, before returning to Mexico.
Bulgaria
President Rumen Radev signed a controversial bill banning “LGBT propaganda” in schools, sparking international condemnation and multiple protests across the country.
The bill, rushed through parliament with minimal consultation earlier this month, bans “the direct or indirect promotion, dissemination or promotion of ideas or views related to non-traditional sexual orientation or gender identity different from biological sex” in Bulgarian schools. The law does not provide specific penalties for violations.
The new law was apparently inspired by similar laws enacted in Russia, Lithuania and Hungary in recent years and was pushed by political parties with strong ties to Moscow.
The law has been criticised by NGOs and multinational organisations such as the Council of Europe, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee and ILGA Europe.
Since the law was passed on August 7, there have been multiple protests in Bulgaria's capital, Sofia, led by LGBTQ groups, feminist groups, health groups and human rights organisations, against the law.
Some activist groups opposed to the bill have called on the EU to take measures against Bulgaria, saying it violates fundamental rights and values. They want the EU to freeze funds that would normally go to Bulgaria for education, culture and other areas.
“This law is not just a Bulgarian issue. It's a Russian law being pushed into the heart of Europe,” Remy Bonny, executive director of LGBTQ rights group Forbidden Colors, told Politico. “The European Commission must step in and hold Bulgaria accountable.”
Last year, 15 EU member states joined a lawsuit against a similar anti-LGBTQ law in Hungary.
So far, the European Commission, the EU's executive body, has requested more information on the law from Bulgaria's education minister.
Friction with the EU could also thwart Bulgaria's long-held dream of joining the eurozone, which it had hoped would come true next year.
Bulgaria is set to hold new parliamentary elections in October, the country's fifth in three years, after politicians elected in June failed to form a government.
Russia
The Russian artist, who was released in a prisoner swap between Russia and the West on August 1, has announced plans to marry his longtime partner now that he has settled in Germany, where same-sex marriage is legal.
Sasha Skochlenko, 33, was arrested in St. Petersburg a few weeks after the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine war for replacing price tags in a shop with anti-war messages. She was charged with extremism and making false statements about the military, and was ultimately sentenced to seven years in prison.
During her initial detention, she was barred from seeing or communicating with her partner, Sofia Subotina, because the two were not married and Russian authorities viewed her as a witness to Skochlenko's crimes.
She was eventually granted short-term visiting rights, which proved a lifeline for Skorichenko, who suffers from several medical conditions that were exacerbated by prison life. Skorichenko has celiac disease and could not digest the food he was given in prison.
Skorichenko was eventually convicted and sentenced to seven years in prison in November 2023. She had filed an appeal and a request for a presidential pardon, but neither have progressed.
In July she was suddenly transferred to a prison in Moscow, then on August 1 she was flown to Ankara, Turkey, where she was part of a prisoner swap.
Russia and Belarus released a total of 16 people, including Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, U.S. Marine Paul Whelan and several Russian opposition figures, while the United States, Germany, Poland and Norway released eight Russians, most of whom were known Russian spies.
Skorichenko was flown from Turkey to Germany, and Subotina followed him the next day as soon as she heard the news.
For now, the couple lives in Koblenz, but have not yet decided where in Germany they will live permanently.
While Skorichenko plans to return to her artistic career, Subotina wants to join a human rights organisation and continue working for Russia's political prisoners.
The couple had talked about getting married in Russia, but that was not possible because Russia does not recognize same-sex marriage and has cracked down on LGBT rights activism in recent years.
They now live in Germany and are finally planning to get married.
“We don't know how or in which cities, but that's the plan,” Skochlenko told The Associated Press.
China
In awarding visitation rights to a child born to a since-separated lesbian couple, a Chinese court for the first time acknowledged that a child could have two mothers, in a decision hailed as historic.
The two women married in the US in 2016 and had two children together over the next few years through IVF: embryos were created from one of the women's eggs and donor sperm, and each woman carried one child.
When the couple separated in 2019, the children's biological mother denied her ex-partner Didi visitation rights and moved from Shanghai to Beijing.
Diddy sued for custody in 2020 and finally won a partial victory in May.
Chinese law does not recognise same-sex couples or parents, so children of same-sex parents are generally only recognised as the children of their biological parents, but because Didi gave birth to a daughter, she was recognised as her mother, despite there being no genetic connection.
The court granted her monthly visitation rights to her daughter, and she saw her this month for the first time in more than four years.
However, she was denied any visitation rights to the child her ex-partner conceived (her daughter's younger brother) because she was not genetically related to him.
While the decision is bittersweet, LGBTQ activists have hailed it as a major step forward in recognizing the possibility of same-sex parenthood.
Didi says she hopes the legal system will catch up with China's growing social acceptance of queer people by allowing same-sex couples to exist and have children. “It's very simple. Other families have one father and one mother. We have two mothers,” she told the Guardian.
