Two leading human rights campaigners from Pakistani-occupied Balochistan are awaiting trial in London on charges of inciting others to commit an act of terrorism abroad.

Hyrbyair Marri and Faiz Baluch were arrested last December, just months after the then president of Pakistan, Pervez Musharraf, demanded that the British government arrest Baloch activists in London. In exchange, Musharraf is said to have offered to surrender Rashid Rauf to the British [...]

Campaigners who highlight China's appalling human rights record are sometimes accused of trying to force "western values" on to an unwilling Chinese public. Such criticism implies that only those born in a particular hemisphere should be entitled to liberty or free speech, and also ignores China's many brave human rights activists.

The stereotype of the Chinese people as a mute and obedient mass is way off the mark. While the [...]

On Sunday 27 May, in Moscow, I witnessed the latest assault on human rights in Russia. A tiny, peaceful Gay Pride march, which threatened no one, was banned on the diktat of Moscow's mayor, Yuri Luzhkov. At the same time, President Putin effectively banned Gay Pride organisers from holding a rally in a park near the Kremlin, having ignored their request for permission. Russian law guarantees the right to protest.

Remaining in the closet reinforces the idea that there is something shameful about being gay and that we are a tiny, insignificant minority who can be ignored and marginalised. Heterosexual people who don’t know and mix with out lesbians and gay men are much more likely to be bigoted and to oppose gay civil rights.

For these reasons, it is important that queers come out. But when and how [...]

Gay Iraqis are claiming a rare success following a decision by Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani to remove from his website a fatwa calling for the killing of homosexuals. Until this month the Shia leader's site contained the words: "What is the judgement for sodomy and lesbianism? Forbidden. Punished, in fact, killed. The people should be killed in the worst, most severe way possible."

Now that has changed, after two weeks [...]

Compared to the upfront coming out of other gay MPs such as Alan Duncan and Angela Eagle, the manner of Simon Hughes's self-outing was decidedly less dignified and more equivocal. Sadly, his statements struck me as rather slippery and evasive.

Simon did not say that he was gay, only that he has had "both homosexual and heterosexual relationships". If that is true, fair enough. He then said that these relationships [...]

Britain's asylum system is out of control and ministers preside over a regime of corrupt-ion and inhumanity. I know. Working with asylum applicants, I see the reality of an amoral, bungling policy at first hand. In the past few years, I have helped more than 100 would-be refugees, their cases a snapshot of a national disgrace.

In my experience, most assumptions about "failed" asylum-seekers are nonsense. Some cases may be [...]

If Labour was expecting support from the gay community at the general election, it may be in for a nasty shock. Gay people are dismayed by how action against homophobia is excluded from five key provisions in the Equality Bill: on housing, education, harassment, goods and services, and the legal duties of pub- lic bodies. Most discrimination against lesbians and gays will remain lawful by default, while religious believers get [...]

The Mayor of London is a man hard to shift - even, it seems, when he can see all the evidence is stacked against him. Ken Livingstone has again defended Yusuf al-Qaradawi, a Muslim cleric who says that the Asian tsunami victims were punished by Allah because their countries are centres of perversion.

Al-Qaradawi's words are worth quoting. In a sermon broadcast on Qatari television (and reported, for example, by [...]

Though tolerance was the theme of the Queen's Christmas message, it was apparently confined to those of diverse "race, creed or colour". The monarch pointedly refrained from extending her largesse to queers.

No surprise there. In the royal lexicon, gay is still the love that dares not speak its name. During her 53-year reign, Her Majesty has never publicly uttered the word homosexual, even though the annual Queen's Speech in [...]