---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Lester Feder Date: 17 February 2014 11:07
What Happened When India Decided It Was Okay With Homosexuality -- Then Violently Changed Its Mind<http://www.buzzfeed.com/lesterfeder/what-happened-when-india-decided-it-was-okay-with-homosexual> *A violent police raid could signal things to come with the law criminalizing homosexuality back in effect.*posted on February 16, 2014 at 10:00pm EST <http://www.buzzfeed.com/lesterfeder> J. Lester Feder <http://www.buzzfeed.com/lesterfeder>BuzzFeed Staff BANGALORE, India -- In a sweep that lasted through the first night of India's biggest celebration, Diwali, police in November arrested 13 people for homosexuality in the town of Hassan, about a three hours' drive from India's tech hub of Bangalore. At the police station, some of those arrested say they were asked if they were really men, whether they liked getting fucked in the ass, and if they had pimped out their wives to get them pregnant. At least two were stripped, beaten, and threatened with having a nightstick shoved up their rectum. The next day, their names were splashed across the pages of local newspapers under lurid headlines. Some lost their jobs. At first, the arrests appeared to be an example of police lawlessness, and LGBT activists from Bangalore rushed in to investigate. The cops had charged the men under Section 377<http://www.lawyerscollective.org/vulnerable-communities/lgbt/section-377.html>, a colonial-era law criminalizing "sex against the order of nature," including same-sex intercourse. But the law was unenforceable at the time of their arrest -- at least in cases of consensual intercourse -- because it had been suspended under a 2009 ruling<http://www.lawyerscollective.org/files/Naz%20Foundation%20Judgement.pdf> of the Delhi High Court as an unconstitutional violation of LGBT people's rights. Now the situation is different. Just over a month after the arrests, India's Supreme Court reinstated<http://www.buzzfeed.com/lesterfeder/india-supreme-court-upholds-sodomy-law> Section 377. To activists, that cast the raids in a whole new light. Many LGBT people had decided to come out in the four and a half years since the law was suspended, believing the threat of arrest or prosecution was over. Now, as the men in Hassan wait for formal charges to be presented to the court, there is increasing concern that their situation could be a sign of how easily LGBT people's lives could be destroyed now that the law is back on the books. This is the story of the police sweep, based on interviews with four of the 13 people arrested that night, as well as a fifth person whose accusations prompted the raids. The rest: http://www.buzzfeed.com/lesterfeder/what-happened-when-india-decided-it-was-okay-with-homosexual
