Discrimination and Disparity in the Covid-19 Pandemic
Covering the nearly two-year span of the COVID–19 pandemic to date, this roundup is a collection of reporting and research on communities around the world that have experienced the dual perils of discrimination and disparity. In addition to bearing the brunt of the disease, marginalized communities around the world have become the pandemic’s scapegoats and the targets of rumor, distrust, and disinformation campaigns, resulting in the “racialization” of the virus and creating further insecurities during the crisis. Beyond local inequalities, the coupling of discrimination and disparity has generated transnational inequities such as the outbreak of anti-Asian racism, the targeting and marginalization of migrants and refugees, and the disproportionately worse illness outcomes of Indigenous and Black people.
The situation has created obstacles to protecting communities against the ongoing effects of COVID–19. Among historically persecuted communities, longstanding distrust of government brought about by historical injustices has cultivated resistance to state-driven medical interventions such as vaccine campaigns. And local inequalities have been exacerbated by structural inequalities at the international level, with the wealthy West accused of hoarding health resources such as vaccines.
This collection contains more than 160 news reports, research articles, and data sources covering conditions and developments at the global, regional, and national levels. Data and information in older items are likely outdated and should be treated as historical records, reflecting emergent problems and understandings that have produced the current social, political, and economic landscape of the pandemic. However, the unfolding of coverage reveals how knowledge of the differential impact of the pandemic has shifted, from early awareness of racial and ethnic mortality disparities and reports of discrimination to recent concerns about vaccine nationalism and the long-term economic impacts of the pandemic.
The International Situation of Afghan Asylum-Seekers
The pullout of U.S. troops in Afghanistan and the subsequent collapse of the Afghan government has generated a wave of Afghan people fleeing incoming Taliban rule. With the Taliban committed to governing according to fundamentalist interpretations of Islamic law, concerns are particularly heightened for women, ethnic and religious minorities, LGBTQ+ people, journalists, and those who supported the fight against the Taliban. Abroad, governments have debated whether and to what degree to accept asylum-seekers, with many seeking to either offshore asylum processing or contain refugees to the immediate region of southwest and Central Asia. For refugees who do make it out, the intensification of anti-immigrant sentiment across the world’s regions in recent years—including the increasing political power of far-right nativist movements—has created new threats for asylum-seekers in their destination countries.
While politicians and analysts around the world bicker over responsibility and blame, Afghans scramble to exit before the full weight of the new Taliban regime comes down. Here is a collection of reporting on the conditions in Afghanistan for those needing refuge, which countries are offering haven, and reactions from the Afghan diaspora.
Religion and National Identity in Eastern Europe and Eurasia
The Pew Research Center recently conducted a survey on the relationship between religious and national identity in Eastern European and Eurasian countries, noting changes in the way that religious identification has influenced national identity since the fall of atheist fundamentalism with the USSR. For religious and belief minorities—now including atheists—the relationship can be a troubling one, particularly as resurgent nationalism in the region has been accompanied by xenophobia and religious discrimination.
Here are highlights from the findings:
70% (Orthodox-majority) / 57% (Catholic-majority)
Average among countries who believe majority religious identity is very or somewhat important to national identity
Riot at refugee camp in southern Bulgaria leads to crackdown and extraditions
More than 400 asylum-seekers detained in the camp at Harmanli in southern Bulgaria clashed with police, throwing stones and setting fire to furniture before police shot them with rubber bullets and a water cannon.
Local media had accused refugees at the camp, home to 3,000, of carrying infectious skin diseases, leading to their confinement to the camp and stoking outrage among the detained.
The Bulgarian government has initiated arrangements to deport those involved as nationalists have called for the closure of all refugee centers.
Romanian groups work to block same-sex unions in the country
Anti-LGBT activists undertook a signature campaign to push for a constitutional amendment outlawing same-sex unions.
The campaign was spurred by the Coalition for Family, a confederation backed by the Orthodox Church that claims to have amassed 3 million signatures in support of the amendment.
Current marriage law in Romania defines marriage as a union of “partners,” which conservative activists have attempted to have changed before in a failed 2013 campaign.
The International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia & Biphobia
Commemorating the day when homosexuality was de-pathologized by the World Health Organization in 1990, the 13th-annual International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia & Biphobia (IDAHOT) stands as an occasion for global mobilization towards LGBT visibility and security. The day, like many global celebrations, is also one many governments choose to speak out on global human rights and minority security, announcing initiatives to support their LGBT citizens and international projects.
Even today, ongoing disagreements between nations over LGBT rights have prompted diplomatic rows and roadblocks to international cooperation, including the recent objection of 51 Muslim countries to the participation of LGBT groups in a U.N. AIDS forum in June. The push to extinguish homophobia, transphobia, and biphobia at all geographic levels remains important to the global mobility of LGBT people worldwide.
LGBT Nigerians have continued wrestling with conflicting legal messages, with the recent passage of the landmark HIV Anti-Discrimination Act doing little to undo the effects of a 2014 anti-homosexuality law.
The Gay and Lesbians Association of Zimbabwe (GALZ) organized events for IDAHOT in Bulawayo, focusing on mental health as ongoing social and healthcare difficulties plague the community.
Though homosexuality remains criminalized in Tunisia, activists have achieved increased visibility and pushed for legal reform amidst ongoing discrimination.
Israel reaffirmed its commitment to LGBT Israelis, announcing funding to support an emergency shelter for LGBT youth and a hostel for trans people who have recently undergone gender confirmation surgery.
Days before IDAHOT, activists staged a sit-in outside of a Beirut gendarmerie, protesting Lebanon‘s anti-homosexuality legal holdovers from French occupation. Similarly, the Lebanese Medical Association for Sexual Health (LebMASH) issued an appeal to the Lebanese government to decriminalize same-sex relations, arguing for recognition of homosexuality’s presence within the natural variation of human sexuality.
U.S. President Barack Obama released a statement of support as his administration lended its voice to a national debate over the bathroom rights of trans people.
Across Latin America, important gains in same-sex partnership and family rights and gender identity healthcare and legal protections have heartened LGBT Latin Americans, but the region continues to have some of the highest reported rates of violence against the LGBT community in the world.
LGBT organizations held cultural and political events throughout Argentina to highlight conditions facing the Argentine LGBT community, call for an anti-discrimination law, and press for federal recognition of the International Day Against Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Discrimination, as the day is known.
Cuba celebrated the day fresh off Pride events in Havana, where Mariela Castro, daughter of President Raúl Castro, led a parade of thousands through the city streets.
As the country continues contentious battles including the push for marriage equality and erasure of “gay panic” legal defenses, rainbow flags and celebrations appeared across Australia, including over police stations in Canberra, in the streets of Brisbane, and in the senior-care facilities of Tasmania. In Victoria, officials announced a retreat for Aboriginal gender minorities to be held later in the year.
In China, a study conducted by the U.N. Development Programme, Peking University, and the Beijing LGBT Center, the largest of its kind to date, was released revealing that only 5% of LGBTI Chinese are fully out at school and work, but also showed encouraging levels of acceptance of LGBTI people among China’s youth. The head of Hong Kong’s Equal Opportunities Commission expressed support for anti-discrimination legislation at IDAHOT festivities in the city.
In Fiji, former President Ratu Epeli Nailatikau joined festivities at the French Ambassador’s residence to celebrate the island’s LGBTQI community.
A tug-of-war over LGBT rights between Islamic fundamentalists and pro-diversity moderates in Indonesia has led to mixed messages about LGBT security in the nation, spurring anti-discrimination protests.
A recent Human Rights Watch report on anti-LGBT bullying in Japan served as a reminder of the purpose of the day, highlighting rampant anti-LGBT sentiment even as the government has initiated broad efforts to combat bullying in schools.
The divergent prospects for LGBTI people across Europe, from Western Europe’s distinctive commitment to the protection of gender diversity to ongoing persecution in the East, was further confirmed through a UNESCO report highlighting anti-LGBT violence in schools released as global education ministers met in Paris.
Rainbow colors appeared in the shopping district of Cyprus‘s capital as 22 organizations came together to organize events to launch the country’s third Pride Festival, focusing on the need to increase legal recognition of both sexual and gender minorities in the country.
In Gibraltar, organizers canceled event plans in support of action on marriage equality legislation currently under consideration, arguing that holding a rally in front of the Parliament as uncertainty prevails would undermine pressure on MPs.
Kosovo‘s first Pride march brought out hundreds from the LGBT community to Pristina, including the U.S. and U.K. ambassadors.
Organizations in Luxembourg planned a silent march to call attention to the plight of LGBTI individuals worldwide and call for increased international protections (including asylum).
Organizers in Serbia took the day to announce the date of this year’s Pride parade (September 18) and address concerns of homophobia as right-wing parliamentary representation has increased.
Advocates, allies, and diplomats gathered around the rainbow flag raised at the US Embassy in Latvia.
After advocates scrapped plans for IDAHOT activities in Georgia due to security concerns, a group of activists were arrested for painting pro-LGBT graffiti on administrative buildings. A “Family Day” protest against LGBT rights and visibility, the third such anti-LGBT demonstration, brought together members of Georgia’s conservative Orthodox community and international religious groups.
In the U.K., London’s new mayor promised to make the city a more just place for its LGBT residents as a rainbow flag flew over the Mayor’s Office.
ILGA-Europe recently released its annual report on the state of LGBT rights and security across the Europe. Covering developments in individual countries and transnational institutions from 2015, the report notes increasing legal protections for gender minorities and family and partnership rights for sexual minorities in Southern and Western Europe as well as ongoing political exclusion, persecution, and violence in Eastern Europe and Eurasia. Here are some of the highlights:
Malta
Rated the most progressive European country, Malta’s groundbreaking law prohibiting surgical intervention into a person’s sex characteristics without consent and inclusive education policies for trans, intersex, and other gender minorities were cited as distinctive policies.
Finland, France, Greece, Ireland
Other countries with significant judicial or policy victories regarding the rights of gender minorities.
Ireland, Luxembourg
Countries extending marriage rights to same-sex couples
Cyprus, Greece
Countries extending civil partnership rights to same-sex couples
Austria, Portugal
Countries extending adoption rights to same-sex couples
“Is it because these refugees are coming from somewhere where they’ve seen their families butchered and suffered some kind of trauma? […] Or is it because as refugees they had to wander across half of Africa for a couple years before they ever got to Europe? Or is it because that when they got to Europe and eventually Sweden, they lived in fear of being kicked out of the country?”
As refugees find themselves piling up at closed borders, stuck indefinitely in overcrowded camps, and resettled in countries they may have had little to no connection to, reports are indicating an increasing prevalence of mental health problems and risk of long-term illness. The stresses of war, upended lives, separated families, life-threatening travel, and an uncertain future have caught up to a growing number of refugees, causing severe degradation of their mental health relative to other non-refugee migrant groups.
Humanitarian workers have observed that deteriorating mental health conditions with little access to appropriate healthcare have contributed to violence and vulnerability to radicalization. While refugees tell stories of loss, desperation, and disillusionment, field psychologists report increases in or risk of PTSD, panic disorders, depression, anxiety, and a range of psychotic conditions among refugee populations, further compounding their already marginalized status and setting the stage for potentially lifelong psychological battles.
New Bosnian War indictments continue search for justice decades after historic ethnic conflict in the Balkans
After having been arrested on warrant from Serbia, Bosnian Muslim former commander Naser Oric pleaded not guilty to the murder of three Serb prisoners in 1992.
Meanwhile, Djordje Ristanic, a Bosnian Serb official from the war, was indicted for war crimes including the murder, torture, and robbery of hundreds of Bosnian Muslims and Croats.
Ongoing legal efforts at both the international and national level to prosecute war crimes from the Bosnian War–including genocide, ethnic cleansing, and persecution–have led to recent arrest and convictions of both Bosnian Serbs and Muslims (Bosniaks).
Violent clash between police and demonstrators at opposition rally in Montenegrin capital leads to calls for investigation
Fifteen demonstrators were detained during a demonstration in Podgorica organized by the Democratic Front, Montenegro’s main opposition bloc.
After protesters reportedly tried to break through police barriers and began hurling bottles, police began using tear gas and beating demonstrators.
Several hundred had rallied after police dismantled the tents set up by the Democratic Front three weeks ago following large protests calling for the resignation of PM Milo Djukanovic’s government.
European LGBT groups provide assistance to LGBT and other refugees
As Germany has become the destination for many refugees and migrants, the Lesbian and Gay Federation has opened a center in Berlin for LGBT refugees.
LGBT groups and individuals in Macedonia, Slovenia, Hungary, and elsewhere have also provided support and services to refugees passing through, including LGBT refugees fleeing violence in Syria and Iraq.
Syrian gay man Subhi Nahas spoke to ISIS’s persecution of gender and sexual minorities at a U.N. Security Council meeting in August, calling on more active response to provide escape for LGBT individuals from the region.
“For my compatriots who do not conform to gender and sexual norms, the 11th hour has already passed. …They need your help now.”
Thousands of migrants overwhelm Macedonian border security following the country’s state of emergency declaration
Macedonia had declared a state of emergency prior to the event to close its borders to migrants, leaving thousands stranded at the border with little food or water.
Border authorities used stun grenades and batons against the migrants, who quickly overwhelmed forces as they attempted to move on through the Balkan country towards Western Europe.
There were indications that the Macedonian government shifted to trying to coordinate the transport of migrants through the country to expedite their departure for other European countries.
“In this Europe, animals are sleeping in beds and we sleep in the rain. … I was freezing for four days in the rain, with nothing to eat.”
ClimateWatchperiodically analyzes the security climates of the world’s regions, focusing on conditions and developments affecting the most vulnerable identity communities while highlighting meaningful political and social steps towards security and integration. This week’s European report summarizes developments in identity security from late July through mid-August.
Srebrenica genocide’s 20th anniversary brings together tens of thousands
The event in the eastern Bosnian town memorialized the more 8,000 Bosniak Muslim men and boys–including 136 recently identified–who were massacred by Bosnian Serb forces during the Bosnian War.
The Srebrenica massacre’s U.N.-backed status as a genocide has been denied by some Bosnian Serb leaders, and recently Russia vetoed a U.N. measure to condemn genocide deniers.
At the memorial, Serbian PM Aleksandar Vucic was attacked by a crowd with rocks and water bottles, leading to his early departure.
More than 135,000 refugees and migrants entered Europe in the first half of 2015
According to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, the number is an 80% increase from the same period in 2014.
More than 1,000 enter the continent each day via the western Balkans alone, now the biggest point of entry.
Syria accounted for the largest number of refugees at 44,000, followed by Eritrea and Afghanistan.
“As arrivals increase, the reception capacity and conditions remain seriously inadequate. … This is a regional problem that needs a regional response and regional solidarity.”
Outlas 