Armenian MPs call for trans activist to be burned alive after historic speech

[Eugene]

Source: The Guardian

Armenian MPs call for trans activist to be burned alive after historic speech

Landmark parliamentary address on LGBTI discrimination challenges reformist agenda of post-revolution government

Saeed Kamali Dehghan
Fri 26 Apr 2019 07.00 BST

Armenia’s first registered transgender woman has received death threats after making a historic speech in her country’s national assembly.

Lilit Martirosyan became the first member of her country’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) community to take to the parliamentary podium, speaking out against discrimination at a session of its committee on human rights. A video of the speech has been shared around the world.

Martirosyan expressed solidarity with a community that has been “tortured, raped, kidnapped, subjected to physical violence, burned, immolated, knifed, subjected to murder attempt, killed, emigrated, and robbed”. She said transgender people in Armenia are subjected “to stigma and discrimination in social, medical, legal, economic areas, and … [are left] unemployed, poor and morally abandoned”.

The speech, two weeks ago, has since sparked a backlash in Armenia, where homosexuality has been decriminalised but discrimination against LGBTI people is rife. There have been anti-LGBTI protests in front of the national assembly and verbal attacks made by some parliamentarians have included calls for her to be burned alive.

The prime minister and the main opposition have tried to blame each other for allowing Martirosyan’s speech.

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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2019/apr/26/armenian-mps-call-for-trans-activist-to-be-burned-alive-after-historic-speech-lilit-martirosyan

[RKP5637]

1. All the hatred in the world. One F'en little planet and people can't get along without hatred and

persecution. A failed extraterrestrial experiment.