IS NEPAL ABOUT TO REINSTATE GAY BAN?

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Sunil Pant

There are reports that new legislation is set to be introduced that will reinstate the ban on gay sex in Nepal, reversing the country’s recent LGBT rights advances.

According to Gay Star News, Sunil Pant, the country’s first openly gay politician and a former MP, has revealed that those found guilty of homosexuality under the proposed laws would be imprisoned for three years.

Pant said that laws would also ban same-sex unions, oral and anal sex among heterosexuals, and narrow the definition of rape to only apply to women.

Pant claimed that the ruling Nepali Congress party and law ministry plan to back the regressive legislation when it is introduced in Parliament.

‘We are really concerned about this attempt of taking Nepal back to draconian era after so much progress we made,” he said.

“Unbelievable that the government is going all against the Supreme Court decisions on LGBTI rights and other minority and marginalised people’s rights in Nepal,” Pant added.

He accused the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) of funding the two committees that drafted the anti-gay legislation, although he suggested that the UNDP was probably not aware of the contents of the bill.

Homosexuality was unbanned in 2007 in Nepal following the abolishment of the monarchy that same year. In 2008, the Supreme Court ordered the government to protect LGBT rights. It was earlier believed that same-sex relationships were on their way to being recognised in Nepal.

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