UN releases LGBT rights video featuring John Kerry and other foreign ministers

A video featuring high-ranking foreign officials from 11 countries – who last week called on UN member states to repeal laws that discriminate against LGBT people – has been released by the UN’s LGBT Core Group.

The video features statements by several attendees, who included the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, the US Secretary of State, the Argentine, Brazilian, Croatian, Dutch and Norwegian foreign ministers, the French Minister of Development Cooperation, senior officials from the European Union, Japan and New Zealand, and the directors of Human Rights Watch and the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission.

“Advancing equality for LGBT persons isn’t just the right thing to do,” US Secretary of State John Kerry said at last week’s meeting. “It’s also fundamental to advancing democracy and human rights.”

Hours after Mr Kerry’s remarks, Gambia’s President Yahya Jammeh told the UN’s General Assembly that homosexuality is one of the “biggest threats to human existence”.

• Oct 11

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