Fighting for Gay Rights Across South East Asia

I joined a new project team at the Cambodian Center for Human Rights (CCHR) at an exciting time. The SexualOrientation and Gender Identity (SOGI) Project works to help the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community in Cambodia, particularly those living in rural areas who are misunderstood and mistreated. Part of our work is to collaborate with partners from other countries to share ideas and work together for change. 

So, my first few weeks on the project coincided with Cambodia hosting the ASEAN (Association of South East Nations) Conference.  This is a fledging regional body of the ten member states with three pillars: economic integration; political security and socio-cultural of the 10 member states. The conferences are also an opportunity for civil society organisations to meet and interface with heads of government. LGBT NGOs from across SE Asia attended a Civil Society Conference called the ASEAN People’s Forum in Phnom Penh.  

There were wider problems at the People’s Forum as authorities interfered to cancel or move workshops on ‘sensitive’ issues including land rights, indigenous people rights and Burma.  This disruption seemed to be counter-productive for the paranoid authorities as the resulting outcry from the workshop organisers received wide media coverage because they disrupted the press conference. 

CCHR and Rainbow Community Kampuchea (RoCK) – a local LGBT organisation – organised workshops and social events for the visiting friends from across the region.  It was a fantastic experience, having the opportunity to meet some inspiring activists, hear about their work and also have a laugh. We organised a dinner for the group where a lot of time was spent with everyone standing up and introducing themselves, what they do, who they are with and who they may be looking for in life. This made for a fun evening and discussions on the attractiveness of the Phnom Penh tuk tuk drivers!  I felt honoured being the only non- Asian in the group and shared something from my own life, lucky that I come from a country where I've been able to marry a man.

It’s forty years since the UK decriminalised homosexuality, unfortunately the UK transported its homophobic laws half way across the world which still remain in place in many ex-colonies. These archaic laws are used here in SE Asia by Brunei, Burma, Malaysia and Singapore to harass, extort money, arrest and persecute LGBT people.  Where there are no explicit anti-homosexual laws then other countries, including Cambodia, use other legislation to harass LGBT people. In the Philippines an anti-kidnapping law is used to break apart 
lesbian couples in loving relationships.

Currently the ASEAN countries are drafting the ASEAN Declaration of Human Rights, with a final plan to be adopted by November 2012 which provides an opportunity to introduce provision to counteract the harassment of LGBT people.  The ASEAN LGBT network are therefore lobbying for the provision of reference to the human rights regardless of ‘sexual orientation’ and ‘gender identity.’  It has been leaked that this reference has been ‘blocked’ by certain countries – namely Lao, Malaysia and Brunei.  So, the coming together of the regional LGBT groups at this time is crucial to lobby together.

STRAP Management Committee

13 organisations from 7 countries were able to attend the meetings – all countries in the region are connected apart from Lao. The stories shared were fascinating with a contrast between the most liberal country in the region for LGBT people, probably Thailand and the least liberal (although not without its problems), its neighbour Malaysia.  The ultra right wing, Islamic, Conservative government of Malaysia only this month introduced a ban on gay characters on state run TV.  

Interesting presentations at our meetings included the Seksualiti Merdeka – an annual Malaysian sexuality arts festival which was disrupted and banned by the police last year as the festival was deemed a “threat to national security.”  We also learned about workshops conducted in Vietnam for the families of LGBT people, football matches between lesbians and gays in Burma (the lesbians won), stories from Arus Pelangi Indonesia of the rise in homophobic thuggish behaviour, and a fabulous presentation from the Society of Transsexual Women of the Philippines (STRAP) who have the most glamorous management committee I’ve seen before.

The outcome of the meetings was a joint statement to lobby the ASEAN Declaration of Human Rights and also pushing for the repeal of laws that decriminalise SOGI and to promote the well being of LGBT people.  There was a real energy from the participants and I think the network will continue to grow and push for change in South East Asia…an exciting time for the region with a lot of change, and for LGBT rights real potential unlike the dire situation in the Middle East and Africa. 

Dispatch to Prey Lang

Day 2 of my whirlwind entrance into the field of Cambodian human rights work and I’m dispatched to the provinces with 3 colleagues. We are heading to a Cambodia Center for Human Rights (CCHR) organised public forum, these are a model of dispute resolution bringing together communities and local authorities to communicate about things like land issues and employment.  A rare opportunity for marginalised communities to air their grievances and often their only taste of participatory democracy. I’m eager to get out into the country and see some activity and as we head North in a big 4 by 4 car I try to download information from my colleagues. The last public forum attempted in this place was broken up by police armed with AK47s and so CCHR is keen to bring along extra people including a few international faces (a counter deterrent I think). 

We stop for the night in Kompong Thom in Central Cambodia, a quiet town, that is apart from the karaoke bar on the floor above my bedroom of the hotel. So with music seeping through the walls and stilettos scraping over my head I get little sleep before waking up at 5 am to continue our journey. 

We take a dusty road with a bright orange ball of sun rising in the east and head further North through the flat dry fields towards the Prey Lang Forest.  Stopping for pork and rice for breakfast in a ramshackle village which has grown up around the logging trade we are apprehensive about the day ahead and bring a little attention from villagers dressed in our blue CCHR jackets. One colleague, Ted, is an inspiring 80 something volunteer.  He keeps us entertained with the brilliant incidental anecdotes which pepper his speech, working in Azerbajan, fronting a rockband, his apartment in Manhattan… 

The Prey Lang Forest is the largest remaining primary forest on the Indochina peninsula with evergreen forest and rare primordial swamps.  700,000 people rely on the forest for their livelihoods including 200,000 indigenous Kuy people – “Our Forest” (Prey Lang in the Kuy language) is now threatened as the forest is being destroyed at an alarming rate. There is now an internationally supported campaign to stop the deforestation.  Despite this the Cambodian government continues to grant land concessions to logging companies.

In my legal ignorance I question how the government can award contracts to logging companies and someone suggests they are “illegal” contracts (awarded by the government). This seems to sum up the state of a nation - impoverished people in isolated parts of the country continually marginalised and disadvantaged by their own corrupt government. I am on a shockingly steep learning curve about Cambodia and also about human rights but learning fast…

As we continue our journey our president is alerted to commotion at the local logging company so we divert to see what’s happening.  It’s only 7 am and there are hundreds of people gathered on a narrow lane outside the mill.  500 villagers have spent recent dayspatrolling the forest on 250 motorbikes and setting up roadblocks takingmatters into their own hands to prevent illegal/ legal/ semi-legal andgenerally immoral logging. Villagers from different districts have reported large scale illegal logging of bamboo, resin and luxury trees which belong to residents and the reaction of some communities has been to burn illegally logged wood and the equipment used to do so.  Some illegal operations are reported to be run by the police and the military.   Villagers gathered now to vent their frustration at the loss of their livelihoods by burning logged wood and equipment. Who are the criminals here? The villagers? Police? Government? Vietnamese logging company? 

The villagers are now assembling at the mill, a show of force, the motorbikes are piled up against a barrier where a bunch of security and police are gathered in starched uniforms of blue and green. 

The villagers are allowed to enter the factory and we go in too, joining the throng of local activists, UN observers and journalists.  I have been trusted with a huge camera which I don’t know how to use but fiddle with it to document activities, a few people ask if I’m a journalist.  The space has been cleared by the factory owners leaving a workers squatting by piles of sawdust. The district governor reads out a letter permitting the company to log but the permission ran out in November 2011. The frustration is palpable and the air is tense with uncertainty but the gathering disperses peacefully.

We move on a few kilometres to the forum which is organised and facilitated by the CCHR project team.  Under a canopy with colourful flags by a small lake villagers are assembled on plastic chairs and on the ground facing a panel of selected local authorities, police chiefs.  The middle aged male, plump, panellists appear uncomfortable, possibly irritated at the outrage of being forced out to this backwater to participate in a basic process of talking to the citizens they represent. There is a tradition of respect and deference to authority in Cambodia which has a hierarchical society. Despite their frustration the assembled public politely applaud the introductory speeches of the panellists.  The applause reserved for their own representatives who bravely stand up and question the authorities however is much more vigorous.  And noticeably also for the (more relaxed) opposition party politician who is on the panel. There are opposition parties in Cambodia but the main ruling party controls most associations and allegiance to the party comes before all else so in many ways the government operates like a one party state. 

The authorities feel threatened enough to have a 30 strong armed police presence including their own film crew to intimidate the crowd, videoing anyone who is bold enough to stand up and comment at the microphone. The police are also hunting the villagers who have been destroying the loggers’ equipment. Young boys have turned up with hand written signs “Stop destroying our resin trees.”

The forum goes on for four hours and the heat is rising.  A nice older man gravitates to me and we converse a little in French and English. Seeing I don’t understand he interprets a little. He also stands up to face the panel, standing defiantly at the microphone he draws tittering laughter from the crowd.  He tells me he was making an analogy between the authorities as cats and the villagers as mice. And it is time for the mice to wake up and take revenge on the big cats. He has a wicked glimmer in his eye.  Perhaps he has waited a lifetime to make such a statement publicly to the authorities and he is beyond worrying about the consequences.

After the forum I attend a surreal lunch of sour fish soup in the middle of the steamy jungle with colleagues, UN colleagues, mosquitoes and the local provincial governor.  It seems that the authorities are capable of saying the right things at the right times and there are assurances of following up issues.  Whatever changes come about from such activities it’s clear that giving ordinary people a voice is totally empowering and makes the authorities unsettled and take note. After lunch in the oven-like heat of the day we wander around the ruins of a group of ancient temples (pre-Angkorian so over 1000 years old) before all falling asleep in the air-con as we phlitter back to Phnom Penh.

Marching for the Alternative

Some old photos of the March for the Alternative in London, March 2011 - a mass demonstration of a few hundred thousand people in Central London against the Conservative/ Liberal Coalition's massive public sector cuts. A great atmosphere and wonderful mix of people from all backgrounds and ages, socialist women choirs, firemen, nursery assistants and of course the masked young rioters who smashed up The Ritz and took over Fortnum & Mason - a rather expensive grocery store.


Even if it didn't change the Tories plans much it was good to let off some steam before deciding to leave the country... 


See The Guardian report from the time.

Mr George Bush with his bells

Love is a Human Right

Hackney & Islington's Amnesty Group joined forces with other Amnesty groups to celebrate London Pride 2011 and importantly to raise awareness within the UK's fun loving gay community of our fellows around the world who do not enjoy quite the same levels of liberty. 


T-shirts were painstakingly stencilled for Amnesty representatives to wear portraying the many countries where homosexuality continues to be illegal with punishments including prison sentences, hard labour and DEATH.  The t-shirts  representing these countries (Sudan and Iran included) are particularly hard hitting. Sadly, these sentences are often a remnant of old colonial laws (usually 7 or 14 years in prison) which have yet to be overturned and sometimes taken on by new hardline regimes. 


As we dance to Kylie and Abba tunes on the truck rumbling through Central London (never had so much attention) the smiles turn to serious applauds as realisation sets in of the message.