LGBT in Islam - Legal Status in Modern Islamic Nations

Legal Status in Modern Islamic Nations

Homosexual relations are a crime and face punishment in some Islamic countries such as Saudi Arabia, or Islamic Republics such as Iran. The death penalty is currently in place in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Mauritania, northern Nigeria, Sudan, and Yemen. It formerly carried the death penalty in Afghanistan under the Taliban, but subsequently has changed from a capital crime to one that is punished with fines and a prison sentence.

The legal situation in the United Arab Emirates is unclear. In many Muslim nations, such as Bahrain, Qatar, Algeria, Uzbekistan and the Maldives, homosexuality is punished with jail time, fines, or corporal punishment. This has led to controversy regarding Qatar, which is due to stage the 2022 FIFA World Cup. Human rights groups have questioned the awarding in 2010 of the right to host the competition, due to the possibility that gay football fans may be jailed. In response, Sepp Blatter, head of FIFA, joked that they would have to "refrain from sexual activity" while in Qatar. He later withdrew the remarks after condemnation from rights groups.

In Saudi Arabia, while the maximum punishment for homosexual acts is public execution, the government will generally use lesser punishments—e.g., fines, jail time, and whipping—as alternatives, unless it feels that individuals are challenging state authority by engaging in LGBT social movements. Iran is perhaps the nation to execute the largest number of its citizens for homosexual acts. Since the 1979 Islamic revolution, the Iranian government has executed more than 4,000 such people.

In Egypt, openly gay men have been prosecuted under general public morality laws. (See Cairo 52.) On the other hand, homosexuality, while not legal, is tolerated to some extent in Lebanon.

In some Muslim-majority nations, such as Albania, Turkey, Jordan, Indonesia or Mali, same-sex intercourse is not forbidden by law, and in Albania there has been discussions of legalizing same-sex marriage.

Most international human rights organizations, such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, condemn laws that make homosexual relations between consenting adults a crime. Since 1994, the United Nations Human Rights Committee has also ruled that such laws violate the right to privacy guaranteed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. However, most Muslim nations (except for Turkey), insist that such laws are necessary to preserve Islamic morality and virtue. Of the nations with a majority of Muslim inhabitants, Lebanon has an internal effort to legalize homosexuality.