LGBT rights in the State of Palestine: Difference between revisions

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| legal_status = Mixed legality:{{bulletedlist

| legal_status = Mixed legality:{{bulletedlist

| West Bank – decriminalized since [[Jordanian annexation of the West Bank|1951]], equal age of consent

| West Bank – decriminalized since [[Jordanian annexation of the West Bank|1951]], equal age of consent

| Gaza Strip – illegal for males

| Gaza Strip – no consensus on applicability of British 1936 ”Sexual offences” provisions to homosexual conduct}}

| penalty = Up to 10 years’ imprisonment (Gaza)

| penalty =

| gender_identity_expression =

| gender_identity_expression =

| recognition_of_relationships = No recognition of same-sex couples

| recognition_of_relationships = No recognition of same-sex couples

{{Infobox LGBT rights
| location_header = Palestine
| image = File:State_of_Palestine_(orthographic_projection).svg
| caption = Map of the two Palestinian territories, highlighted in green: the West Bank (right) and the Gaza Strip (left)

| legal_status = Mixed legality:

In the Gaza Strip and West Bank, the local LGBT community faces a precarious situation due to the general lack of civil rights legislation aimed at tackling discrimination. However, there is also a significant legal divide between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, with the former having more progressive laws and the latter having more conservative laws. Shortly after the Jordanian annexation of the West Bank in 1950, same-sex acts were decriminalized across the territory with the adoption of the Jordanian Penal Code of 1951. In the Egyptian-occupied Gaza Strip and under Hamas‘s rule, however, no such initiative was implemented. Since 2007, the Gaza Strip has been ruled by Hamas, and sexual activity between men is illegal due to Hamas’ enforcement of Islamic law. Currently, the Hamas government punishes all men who are convicted of having engaged in homosexual acts with up to 10 years in prison.^[1]

Legal status and criminal law

On September 18, 1936, the criminal code of Mandatory Palestine, British Mandate Criminal Code, which drew from Ottoman law or English law,^[2] was enacted. Section 152(1)(b)(c) of the code states that any person who “commits an act of sodomy with any person against his will by the use of force or threats” or “commits an act of
sodomy with a child under the age of sixteen years” is liable for imprisonment up to 14 years, while Section 152(2)(b) states that anyone who has “carnal knowledge” of anyone acting “against the law of nature” is liable for a prison term up to 10 years.^[3] Palestinian academic Sa’ed Atshan argued that this criminal code was an example of British export of homophobia to the Global South.^[4] The present applicability of this law is disputed. The Human Dignity Trust states that the criminal code is still “in operation” in Gaza albeit with scarce evidence of its enforcement,^[5] while Amnesty International does not report same-sex sexual activity as being illegal in any Palestinian territory, but emphasizes that Palestinian authorities do not stop, prevent or investigate homophobic and transphobic threats and attacks.^[6] The editor-in-chief of the Palestinian Yearbook of International Law, Anis. F. Kassim argued that the criminal code could be “interpreted as allowing homosexuality.”^[7]

The decriminalization of homosexuality in Palestine is a patchwork. On the one hand, the British Mandate Criminal Code was in force in Jordan until 1951, with the Jordanian Penal Code having “no prohibition on sexual acts between persons of the same sex,” which applied to the West Bank, while Israel stopped using the code in 1977.^[8] On the other, the Palestinian Authority has not legislated either for or against homosexuality. Legalistically, the confused legal legacy of foreign occupation – Ottoman, British, Jordanian, Egyptian and Israeli – continues to determine the erratic application or non-application of the criminal law to same-sex activity and gender variance in each of the territories.^[9] A correction issued by the Associated Press in August 2015 stated that homosexuality is not banned, by law in the Gaza Strip or West Bank, but is “largely taboo,” and added “there are no laws specifically banning homosexual acts.”^[10]

Civil rights and government action

In the State of Palestine, there is no specific, stand-alone civil rights legislation that protects LGBT people from discrimination or harassment. Some have reported that while hundreds of queer Palestinians are reported to have fled to Israel because of the hostility they face in Palestine,^[11] they are subject to house arrest, or deportation, by Israeli authorities on account of the in-applicability of the law of asylum to areas or nations in which Israel is in…