Thursday, September 25, 2014

Malaysia among worst countries in world for transgenders...

Malaysia is among the worst countries in the world to be a transgender person, Human Rights Watch said in a report on Thursday that detailed systematic abuses by religious authorities and police including sexual assault and extortion.

The report, based on interviews with more than 40 transgender people, blamed "increasingly vitriolic" discourse by government officials, politicians and religious leaders in the Muslim-majority country for the deterioration in rights.

Malaysia had steadily shifted towards Islamic conservatism in the past few decades, with every state introducing enactments for Muslims that criminalise "a man posing as a woman" or vice versa, the report by the U.S.-based group said. It said Malaysia, where Islamic authorities banned sex change surgery in 1982, was among only a handful of countries including Nigeria and Kuwait that criminalize transgender people.

"Malaysia is actually one of the worst countries to be a transgender because of the laws, the state-organised arrests and the hate speech by politicians," said Boris Dittric, advocacy director of Human Rights Watch's Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) rights programme. Full story...

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