" Today we are making UN history. The UN Security Council has never
before had a meeting on LGBT issues.
It is an honor to co-host this meeting with Chile, which continues
to be a strong advocate for LGBT rights and more generally for
empowering civil society around the world.
Let me welcome our
briefers. Deputy-Secretary General Jan Eliasson, who along with
Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, has worked tirelessly to advance LGBT
rights both within the UN, taking unprecedented steps on behalf of
LGBT rights, and across the world. Jessica Stern is here representing
the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, an NGO
doing critically important work to protect LGBT persons, including in
the places we will discuss today. And finally, we are beyond grateful
to have a man we’ll call “Adnan” and Subhi Nahas speak to us
today. You will have the opportunity to hear from them directly, but
I’d like to just now say a few words about each.
“Adnan” is not Adnan’s real name – it is a pseudonym he is
using to hide his identity. Adnan fled northern Iraq after being
marked for death by ISIL because he is gay. Adnan is a client of the
Iraqi Refugee Assistance Project, an extraordinary organization that
has helped facilitate his participation today. He still fears that he
could be attacked by ISIL if identified, which is the reason he is
speaking to the Council today by phone rather than by video link. Out
of concern for Adnan’s safety, I would like to request that no
audio or video recordings be made during this historic event.
Subhi Nahas – a gay man and LGBT advocate from Syria – was
forced to flee his home after receiving death threats from Jabat al
Nusra. Even after fleeing to neighboring Lebanon and then Turkey, he
continued to receive threats, this time from ISIL. He now lives in
the United States.
Adnan and Subhi’s experiences are distinct, as you will hear,
but they share key parallels. Both faced discrimination, threats and
attacks before violent extremist groups seized power in their
communities. Both were marked for death for being gay, and knew LGBT
individuals who were killed. And both had to flee their homes because
of who they are.
Their cases are not outliers, but rather part of a pattern of
systematic abuse. Yet until now, the targeting of LGBT persons like
Adnan and Subhi by ISIL has received scant international attention.
Today, we are taking a necessary step toward remedying that
oversight.
ISIL does not try to hide its crimes against LGBT persons – it
broadcasts them for all the world to see. Many of us have seen the
videos. ISIL parading a man through the streets and beating him –
for being gay. ISIL marching men to the tops of buildings and
throwing them to their deaths – for being gay. In one of these
videos, allegedly from Syria, we are told that the victim was found
to be having a gay affair. He is blindfolded, walked up stairs of a
building, and then heaved off its roof. His suffering did not end
there. The victim miraculously survived the fall, only to be stoned
to death by a mob that waited for him below. Kids in the crowd were
reportedly encouraged to grab stones and take part.
The mob in this instance carries an important lesson: while the
targeting of LGBT individuals in the region appears to have worsened
as ISIL’s power has grown, such violence and hatred existed well
before the group’s dramatic rise, and that violence and hatred
extends far beyond ISIL’s membership. The victim in that grotesque
video may have been thrown to his death by ISIL, but he was
ultimately killed by stone-throwing individuals who did not belong to
the group. Similarly, before Subhi Nahas was forced to flee his
country because of death threats from Jabhat al Nusra, he was
targeted for being gay by Syrian government soldiers. And before ISIL
came to power, Adnan was repeatedly attacked by gangs of thugs for
being gay, once being beaten so severely that he could hardly walk.
Today, we are coming together as a Security Council to condemn
these acts, to demand they stop, and to commit to one day bringing
the perpetrators to justice. That unified condemnation matters. This
is the first time in history that the Council has held a meeting on
the victimization of LGBT persons. It is the first time we are
saying, in a single voice, that it is wrong to target people because
of their sexual orientation and gender identity. It is a historic
step. And it is, as we all know, long overdue.
But crucial and unprecedented as this step is, condemning ISIL’s
violent and systematic targeting of LGBT individuals is the easiest
step we can take today. Because while today’s session is focused on
the crimes against LGBT persons committed by ISIL, we know the scope
of this problem is much broader. Consider the report released in June
by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights – a
report that found that thousands of people have been killed or
brutally injured worldwide because of their sexual orientation or
gender identity. According to the report, “the overall picture
remains one of continuing, pervasive, violent abuse, harassment and
discrimination affecting LGBT and intersex persons in all
regions…often perpetrated with impunity.”
We are all horrified by ISIL’s videos of men being thrown to
their death. But what is it about these crimes that so shocks our
collective conscience? At its essence – it is the denial of a
person’s most basic right because of who they are. It is ISIL
deciding that, because of a person’s sexual orientation or gender
identity, they do not deserve to live.
Yet if these crimes feel utterly unjust and wrong to us, we must
also ask: Why is it acceptable to deny LGBT persons other human
rights? Why should LGBT persons be imprisoned for who they are? Why
should police be allowed to refuse to investigate attacks or threats
against LGBT persons? Why should we accept LGBT persons being turned
away from schools or jobs or social services because of who they
love? The answer to all of these questions is the same: We should not
accept it. But too often we do.
No religious beliefs justify throwing individuals off of buildings
or stoning them to death because of who they love. No cultural values
excuse refusing to investigate a killing, assault or death threat
because the victim is gay. These are not Western-imposed rights, or
the North trying to force its values on the South.
Yet in too many parts of the world, denying LGBT rights is still
seen as moral and just. Laws are used to criminalize LGBT persons,
rather than to prosecute the people who violate their rights. That
must change.
That change begins by working to stop attacks against individuals
based on their sexual orientation and gender identity. And by taking
steps to ensure that those who commit these heinous and brutal crimes
are held accountable, whether the perpetrators belong to ISIL or
police forces or are members of our own communities.
But
stopping violence is not enough. We must strive to defend the rights
of LGBT persons wherever they are denied, including within the United
Nations. To give just one example, as recently as five years ago the
International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission – the NGO led
by Jessica Stern, one of our guest briefers – was denied UN
accreditation in the UN NGO Committee because of the issues they work
on. And you will hear today just how critical those issues are. As a
result, Jessica and members of her NGO were not even allowed to
attend meetings like this one, much less speak at one – they
wouldn’t even be in the room. Today, because of a successful
campaign led by some Member States with support from civil society,
Jessica’s group has been accredited – and she is speaking up here
on the stage where she belongs. Nonetheless, groups like Jessica’s
are still being denied accreditation on similar grounds.
The effort to defend the equal rights of LGBT persons must also be
waged within every one of our countries, even those where important
progress has been made – and that includes in the United States.
For just as this year we have made tremendous strides in advancing
LGBT rights in the United States, we are under no illusion that the
work is finished. Every one of our countries can and must do more to
advance these rights domestically.
Let me conclude and hand the floor over to my esteemed co-host,
Ambassador Barros-Melet. This year we mark seventy years since the
creation of the United Nations. It is fair to say that in writing the
charter, the drafters did not consider LGBT rights part of their
conception of equal rights. But if we read the Charter today – and
in particular its call to “reaffirm faith… in the dignity and
worth of the human person” – it is impossible not to see a call
for all of us to affirm LGBT rights. It is impossible not to see
individuals like Adnan and Subhi as having the same inherent dignity
and worth. And it is impossible not to take up the struggle for their
rights as our own, as we have other great human rights struggles over
the last seven decades. Today, we take a small but important step in
assuming that work. It must not be our last step.
Thank you.
And with that, let me turn it over to Ambassador Barros-Melet of
Chile, the United States’ co-chair for today’s event.
"
Samantha Power, U.S. Permanent Representative to the
United Nations, August 24, 2015. Remarks at a UN Security Council
Arria-Formula Meeting on ISIL's Targeting of LGBT Individuals.
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