ISIS LGBT Persecution: At UN Security Council Meeting, Gay Islamic State Victims In Syria And Iraq Discussed; International Business Times, 8/24/15

Aaron Morrison, International Business Times; ISIS LGBT Persecution: At UN Security Council Meeting, Gay Islamic State Victims In Syria And Iraq Discussed:

"Subhi Nahas, an openly gay Syrian refugee now living in the United States, says he fled homophobic brutality in his homeland. He told his story Monday to the United Nations Security Council in the panel's first-ever briefing on attacks against LGBT people in the Middle East by militants from the Islamic State group, also known as ISIS or ISIL.

Speaking in New York City to the U.N.’s key panel for international peace and security, Nahas said many of his lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender friends have not escaped persecution by militants -- and that stopping the attacks requires immediate global intervention.

“My friends are feeling alone and terrified living in places where people who don’t fit into what others deem as 'normal,' are being persecuted and killed simply for who they are and what they believe,” said Nahas, who resettled in the U.S. with help from an international organization that tracks anti-LGBT violence on refugees...

While it was not the first time the persecution of gays and lesbians has been mentioned before the 15-member council that includes the U.S., Britain, China, France and Russia as permanent members, the panel had never convened to talk specifically about attacks on LGBT people anywhere in the world. The Security Council has previously discussed the impact of Islamist terrorism on global peace, but acknowledging sexual minorities in this way was an "important step" for expanding human rights, said Samantha Power, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., who sponsored the meeting with her diplomatic counterpart from Chile."

Gay and Marked for Death; New York Times, 8/21/15

Frank Bruni, New York Times; Gay and Marked for Death:

"On Monday, he will tell his story at a special United Nations Security Council meeting on L.G.B.T. rights. American officials involved in it arranged for me to talk with him in advance by phone.

Although Monday’s discussion isn’t a formal one that Security Council members are required to attend, it’s nonetheless the first time that the council has held a meeting of any kind that’s dedicated to the persecution of L.G.B.T. people, according to Samantha Power, the United States ambassador to the United Nations.

And it’s an example, she told me, of a determined push by the United States and other countries to integrate L.G.B.T. rights into all discussions of human rights by international bodies like the U.N.

“We’re trying to get it into the DNA so that when you’re talking about minorities or vulnerable groups, you would always have L.G.B.T. people included,” Power said.

There has been a commendable acceleration of that effort since September 2011, when Barack Obama, in an address to the U.N. General Assembly, unsettled many in the audience by declaring: “We must stand up for the rights of gays and lesbians everywhere.”"