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‘This Anti-LGBTQI+ Bill Can Still Be Blocked – but Only With Sustained International Pressure’

By CIVICUS
Jan 2 2026 –  
CIVICUS discusses Kazakhstan’s anti-LGBTQI+ bill with Temirlan Baimash, activist and co-founder of QUEER KZ youth initiative, a Kazakhstani LGBTQI+ organisation.

This anti-LGBTQI+ bill can still be blocked – but only with sustained international pressure’

Temirlan Baimash

On 12 November, Kazakhstan’s lower house of parliament unanimously passed a bill banning ‘LGBTQI+ propaganda’, introducing fines and up to 10 days’ imprisonment for repeat offences. Although homosexuality was decriminalised in 1998, the bill, which has now been approved by the Senate and awaits presidential signature, will likely intensify censorship, harassment and violence against LGBTQI+ people and obstruct civil society organisations that advocate for their rights.

Why is the government pursuing an anti-LGBTQI+ law now?

The government has both domestic and geopolitical reasons for pushing this new law criminalising LGBTQI+ activism and expression.

At home, it’s facing growing public dissatisfaction. Promoting an anti-LGBTQI+ law helps shift attention away from economic problems and demands of accountability for abuses, including the mass shootings and killing of peaceful protesters ordered by President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev in January. The law also helps mobilise conservative support and score political points. Anti-LGBTQI+ rhetoric presents queer people as a threat to what are described as ‘traditional values’, deepening stigma and making violence seem acceptable. State-aligned media repeat this message, while authorities tolerate it, creating a climate where attacks against LGBTQI+ people and human rights defenders are increasingly normalised.

External factors also play a role. In the context of deteriorating relations with the USA, the government is increasingly copying Russian policies. For example, authorities have been pushing a foreign agents law similar to Russia’s. This move is also intended to demonstrate to Russia that Kazakhstan remains its ally. In this context, authorities have intensified repression at home, particularly against journalists and LGBTQI+ people, using our community as a convenient political target.

How will this bill affect LGBTQI+ people if adopted?

Although the law hasn’t been adopted yet, it’s already affecting us. Repression has intensified, and my colleagues and I have faced arrest, detention, torture and other forms of ill-treatment.

In October, our colleague Aziyat Agishev spoke out against the proposed law at a civic forum attended by government representatives. Two days later, military personnel abducted him, beat him and denied him access to his lawyer and family despite there being no legal grounds for his detention. He was only released thanks to media and public pressure.

A month later, during a private presentation of research on LGBTQI+ people in Kazakhstan, a group of homophobic people forced their way into the venue, filmed us and provoked a confrontation. Later that day, police detained our colleague Ardzh Turynkhan, held him overnight and fined him around US$170. While he was detained, officers mocked him, threatened him with rape and physical violence and ignored his requests for help, despite the fact he has a disability.

Just one day after this incident, on 22 November, the same group attacked us again in a café. Although we were the victims, police detained me instead, clearly in retaliation for our activism. They held me for three hours without showing any legal documents, surrounded by around 10 police officers and secret service agents. They later fined me on unrelated grounds. My colleague and I now face the risk of criminal charges based on false accusations, which could lead to prison sentences.

How are you opposing this law?

Despite the risks, we continue to document violations, speak out publicly and try to keep attention on what is happening. This law can still be blocked, because President Tokayev has between 10 and 30 days to sign it, and he hasn’t signed it yet. We and other civil society groups are mobilising to stop it.

We also work to empower LGBTQI+ people. We run workshops to help young queer people understand their rights and begin their journeys as activists. We share information and organise community events and gatherings to strengthen networks and build resilience.

Because civic space is heavily restricted and domestic avenues for dissent are extremely limited, international advocacy is essential. We engage human rights mechanisms by preparing shadow reports for processes such as the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Council Universal Periodic Review process and reviews under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

What international support are you receiving, and what more is needed?

International civil society organisations such as Front Line Defenders and the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association support our work, alongside organisations such as COC Netherlands and intergovernmental bodies including the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe and UN mechanisms.

Their support is vital, but it isn’t enough. We need governments such as France, Germany, the Netherlands and the UK – which are major investors in Kazakhstan – to pay more attention to what’s happening on the ground. Naming and shaming can work, but only if it’s followed by real consequences. These governments must pressure our government economically and politically to stop this law from passing.

We also need international media to tell our story. This repressive law cannot be ignored, yet so far we have struggled to reach journalists willing to report on our illegal arrests, kidnappings and torture. Press coverage, public statements and sustained pressure from international civil society, media and public figures can make a difference by putting Kazakhstan under the spotlight and increasing the political cost of signing this bill into law.

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Sudan’s Crisis: Mass Killings Continue While the World Looks Away

Sudan’s crisis

Credit: Isabel Infantes/Reuters via Gallo Images

By Andrew Firmin
LONDON, Dec 30 2025 – Satellite images show corpses piled high in El Fasher, North Darfur, awaiting mass burial or cremation as the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) militia tries to cover up the scale of its crimes. Up to 150,000 El Fasher residents remain missing from the city, seized by the RSF in November. The lowest estimate is that 60,000 are dead. The Arab militia has ethnically cleansed the city of its non-Arab residents. The slaughter is the latest horrific episode in the war between the RSF and the Sudan Armed Forces, sparked by a power battle between military leaders in April 2023.

Both sides have committed atrocities, including executions, extrajudicial killings and sexual violence. It’s hard to gather accurate figures, but at least 150,000 people are estimated to have been killed. Around nine million people have been internally displaced, and close to four million more have fled across the border. Some 25 million now face famine.

Civil society and humanitarian workers are responding as best they can, but they’re in the firing line. They face death, violence, abduction and detention. Emergency orders impose bureaucratic restrictions on civil society organisations and limit aid operations and freedoms of assembly, expression and movement, while troops also block aid delivery.

Reporting on the conflict is difficult and dangerous. Almost all media infrastructure has been destroyed, many newspapers have stopped publishing and both sides are targeting journalists, with many forced into exile. Extensive disinformation campaigns obscure what’s happening on the ground. Mohamed Khamis Douda, spokesperson for the Zamzam displacement camp, exemplified the dangers for those who tell the truth. He stayed on in El Fasher to provide vital updates to international media. When the RSF invaded, they sought him out and killed him.

The world looks away

Sudan is sometimes called a forgotten war, but it’s more accurate to say the world is choosing to ignore it – and this suits several powerful states. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is the RSF’s biggest backer. It continues to deny this, even though weapons manufactured by the UAE or supplied to it by its allies have been found at sites recovered from RSF control. Without its support, the RSF would likely have lost the war by now.

In recent years, the UAE has worked to cultivate influence among several African states. It has developed a series of ports around Africa, with one planned on Sudan’s stretch of the Red Sea. It has big agricultural investments in Sudan and receives most of the gold mined there. The UAE has evidently concluded that RSF control is the best way of securing its influence and protecting its interests, regardless of the cost in human lives. In response, Sudan’s government has moved to improve links with Russia. It’s been reported it may allow Russia to develop a permanent Red Sea naval base.

The UAE faces little international pressure because western states that are strongly aligned with it, including the UK and USA, downplay its role. The UK government continues to supply the UAE with arms in the knowledge these are being transferred to the RSF, while a whistleblower has accused it of removing warnings about possible genocide in Sudan from a risk assessment analysis to protect the UAE. The European Union and UK reacted to the El Fasher atrocities by placing sanctions on four RSF leaders and the USA is said to be considering further sanctions, but these measures never reach as far as figures in the UAE government.

The UN Security Council, where the UK is the permanent member that leads on Sudan, has also been predictably ineffective. Russia has said it will veto any resolution the UK brings. Yet in June, the UK refused an offer from African states, serving on the Council on a rotating basis, to take over responsibility, something that could have created more space for negotiation.

Among other countries with regional influence, Egypt strongly favours the Sudan government, and Saudi Arabia is somewhat supportive too. They come together with the UAE and USA in a forum called the quad. Despite competing interests, in September there appeared grounds for hope when the quad brokered what was supposed to be a three-month humanitarian truce, followed by a nine-month transition to civilian rule. Both sides accepted the plan, only for the RSF to keep fighting, causing the Sudanese government to reject the proposal.

Pressure and accountability

Whether fighting halts may depend on the USA’s diplomatic whims. Trump has recently appeared to take more interest in the conflict, likely prompted by Saudi Arabia’s ruler Mohammed bin Salman, who visited the White House in November.

Trump may want to claim to have ended another conflict in his evident quest for the Nobel Peace Prize, but it’s hard to see progress unless the US government proves willing to pressure the UAE, including through tariffs, a blunt instrument Trump has used to force deals on other states. The fact the Trump administration currently applies tariffs at its lowest rate, 10 per cent, shows its continuing warmth towards the UAE.

Campaigners are trying to focus more attention on the UAE’s central role in the conflict. One highly visible focus is basketball: the NBA has an extensive and growing sponsorship agreement with the UAE, part of the regime’s efforts to sportswash its international reputation. Civil society campaigners are calling on the NBA to end its partnership, and their advocacy may help move Sudan up the US agenda.

The international community has the power to stop the killing, but first it must acknowledge the role of the UAE and its western allies in enabling it. All involved in the conflict, within and beyond Sudan, must put aside their calculations of narrow self-interest. The UAE, their allies and the other quad states should face greater pressure to broker a genuine ceasefire as a first step towards peace, and use their leverage with the warring parties to ensure they stick to it.

Andrew Firmin is CIVICUS Editor-in-Chief, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report.

For interviews or more information, please contact [email protected]

 


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