Uzbekistan police torture, extort and threaten LGBTQ+ people with rape – PinkNews

Uzbekistan LGBT+ continue to face violent human rights violations. (Photo by Monirul Bhuiyan / AFP) (Photo by MONIRUL BHUIYAN/AFP via Getty Images) A new report has found that the LGBTQ+ community in Uzbekistan is under renewed threat as many face persecution, imprisonment, abuse, and brutal human rights violations. Thirty-six LGBTQ+ people were convicted under the Article 120 of the Uzbek Criminal Code, which criminalises homosexuality in the majority Muslim country, in 2021, found a new report by the International Partnership for Human Rights, Association for Human Rights in Central Asia (AHRCA), and the Eurasian Coalition on Health, Rights, Gender and Sexual Diversity (ECOM). Twenty-five of them were imprisoned. Police play a key part in the persecution of queer folk, demanding money in exchange for not outing people to relatives, and torturing and humiliating them. One young man recounted his experience in a detention centre in the report, and said: “They suspended me from the ceiling using handcuffs, beat me severely, and tried to rape me with a truncheon. “I have never been beaten and intimidated like that in my entire life. I wanted to die to free myself from this torture.” The police told him to pay $2,000 (£1,623) or face imprisonment…
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