Central Asia: Gays Say Tolerance Improving, But Still Long Way to Go
Radio
Free Europe/Radio Liberty, January 20, 2005
By Antoine Blua
Sexual relations between men were considered a crime
in the Soviet Union, punishable by up to five years in jail. Of the five
independent Central Asian states, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan have
decriminalized homosexuality, but only Kazakh and Kyrgyz gays say their
conditions have improved. But as RFE/RL reports, those who decide to go public
say they still face discrimination at work and in society, as well as abuse
from police.
Prague—In 1997, Kazakhstan became
the first Central Asian republic to repeal a law prohibiting male
homosexuality. Since then, a small gay scene has developed in the country’s
biggest city, Almaty, where there are currently two gay clubs.
Nataliya owns one of the clubs. “[As customer,] we have
doctors, we have psychologists, [and] we have ordinary workers starting from
19 years old up to 56 or 58,” Nataliya said. “They are very literate and
very well informed.”
Roman Knyazev is the Almaty-based editor in chief of
Kazakhstan’s national gay website (http://www.gays.kz). He told RFE/RL that
tolerance of gays has been increasing since 1997, when the International
Kazakhstan Bureau for Human Rights reported the killings of eight men targeted
for being homosexuals.
But Knyazev stressed that any improvements are seen
mostly in the bigger cities. “We have no problem with the authorities,” he
said. “Homophobia among the population is inherited from the Soviet
education in which homosexuality was considered an illness. The youth is more
tolerant than the older generation. Families increasingly accept their
children as they are. But the situation is far from ideal.”
In Bishkek, several gay bars have opened since 1998, when
Kyrgyzstan decriminalized sexual relations between men. But the majority of
gay men recently surveyed in the capital said they have been physically or
psychologically abused because of their sexual orientation. Many pointed to
continuing discrimination in public places, such as bars and restaurants, from
where they are often asked to leave.
Aleksei Vashchenko, a gay man living in Bishkek, told RFE/RL
that policemen often try to extort homosexuals. “There were cases when
law-enforcement bodies have blackmailed representatives of sexual minorities,
saying that they will tell [their staff members] at work, or their parents and
relatives that that person is a homosexual,” he said. “However, they would
not have the opportunity to bring them before a criminal court, as it was
before 1998.”
Bishkek-based Oasis is a Kyrgyz nongovernmental
organization working to protect the rights of gay men. The organization’s
head, Vladimir Tyupin, said Oasis is working with an increasing number of
gays. But he noted that the majority of the estimated 35,000 homosexuals in
Bishkek choose to keep their sexual orientation secret out of fear of public
censure or isolation by friends and family.
“We established an initiative group in 1995. It
consisted of merely 37 people. Now it already has about 7,000 people,”
Tyupin said.
Lesbian relationships in the Soviet Union were not
policed as strictly as men. Lesbians were often sent to psychiatric
institutions. In Central Asia today, as in the past, laws do not refer
specifically to lesbians, but they say their lives are similarly difficult.
Earlier this month, lesbians in Kyrgyzstan launched a
support group called Labrys. It is planning to publish a monthly magazine and
open a telephone hot line and resource center to provide lesbians with
psychological and legal support.
For the most part, the region’s religious leaders, such
as Kyrgyzstan’s Mufti Murataly Ajy Jumanov, have shown little tolerance
toward sexual minorities. “According to the Koran and Shari’a [Islamic
law], men should marry women and nobody else. Women have to give their bodies
and spirits to men. Islamic law absolutely refuses such [homosexual]
connection between men and women. It is illegal and inhuman,” Jumanov said.
Igor Dronov, a senior priest of the Russian Orthodox
Church in Bishkek, told the United Nations’ IRIN news service that tolerance
“washes out the essence of absolute moral values.”
However, Roman Knyazev, from the Kazakh gay website,
stresses that sexual minorities are no different from anyone else. “We are
not different from straight people,” he said. “We have household problems
like them, the same concerns about the present and the future.”
While Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan have decriminalized
homosexuality, the countries’ legal systems have not taken firm steps to
secure the rights of gays and lesbians.
Donald Bisson, who works for the International Lesbian
and Gay Association in Brussels, explains why: “In all countries, the
movement begins by individuals deciding that it’s time to do something. That
means starting an NGO and then interacting with the government on issues of
regulations, laws or discrimination. In Central Asia, it will be more
difficult because the governments have not bought into the idea that gay
rights are human rights. They always say this is being forced upon them by the
West. They use that argument not to move forward in a positive way.”
Despite the difficulties faced by sexual minorities in
Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, gays and lesbians there enjoy relative tolerance
when compared to neighboring states. The majority of gays in Tajikistan keep
their sexual orientation hidden, although homosexual acts were decriminalized
there in 1998.
In 2003, a public-opinion survey revealed a particularly
negative attitude toward gays. According to a local NGO that advocates gay
rights, Tajik police routinely harass gays once they have revealed their
sexual preferences.
In Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, sex between men is still
punishable by up to two and three years in prison, respectively.
(RFE/RL’s Kazakh, Kyrgyz, and Tajik services
contributed to this report.)
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