On June 26, the world commemorates the International Day in Support of Victims of Torture. In Tanzania, however, such commemorations are likely to be muted. Tanzania is among a small minority of countries that have not signed or ratified the Convention against Torture and Other Forms of Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, a United Nations treaty.

The Russian parliament’s upper chamber should reject a draft law that would discriminate against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people. The bill would make it an administrative offense to expose minors to information about “non-traditional sexuality.” The Federation Council, the Russian parliament’s upper chamber, is scheduled to debate the draft law on June 26, 2013.

In 2012, Mwamini K. a sex worker in Dar es Salaam, was raped at gunpoint by a client who got angry when she asked him to use a condom. She did not report the case to the police nor seek medical assistance because she did not trust that she could get the help that she needed, she told me. (Mwamini’s name, like all others here, has been changed.) Mwamini explained that in 2011, she sought treatment for a sexually transmitted infection at Mwananyamala Hospital. The nurse refused to treat her unless she brought her sexual partner. Mwamini told the nurse that she was a sex worker and did not know who infected her. The hospital turned her away.

Russia’s parliament should reject a draft law that would de-facto ban disseminating information about “non-traditional” sexuality. The bill’s provisions would infringe on Russian citizens’ freedom of expression and information, and discriminate against Russia’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community.

Human Rights Watch deeply regrets that Burundi rejected all recommendations to fight impunity for extra-judicial killings. HRW remains particularly concerned at the lack of progress in bringing to justice perpetrators of extrajudicial killings and other acts of political violence since 2010.

HRW shares the Special Rapporteur on Belarus’ view that “human rights remain systemically and systematically restricted” in Belarus. Governmental harassment of human rights defenders, independent media, and defense lawyers continues, including through arbitrary bans on foreign travel.

The first same-sex wedding in France, planned for May 29, 2013, will be the country’s start of an era of full marriage equality.

Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International are following closely developments around the Kyiv Pride Equality March scheduled to take place on May 25, 2013. We are concerned by a statement that appeared today on the Kyiv City Administration website indicating that the administration will request a court to ban the march and other events scheduled for May 25, with the exception of those directly relating to Kyiv City Day, also scheduled for May 25.

Zambian authorities should dismiss all charges and release two men arrested for engaging in homosexual acts. The police should immediately cease forensic anal examinations, which are intrusive, invasive and constitute cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment in violation of international law.

The Cameroonian authorities should drop the charges against two transgender youth rather than appealing their case to the Supreme Court, four human rights organizations said today. Jonas K. and Franky D. are being prosecuted on what the appeals court has already ruled were trumped-up charges of homosexual conduct, the groups said in a letter to the Yaoundé prosecutor today.

Every year on May 17, people all around the world celebrate the International Day against Homophobia and Transphobia, while reflecting how to achieve full equality and non-discrimination.

This submission, by Affirmative Action, Alternatives-Cameroun, the Association for the Defense of Gay and Lesbian Rights (ADEFHO), Cameroonian Foundation for AIDS (CAMFAIDS), Evolve, Human Rights Watch, Humanity First Cameroon, and the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC), highlights shortcomings in Cameroon’s human rights record related to its treatment of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people. It is based on research conducted in Cameroon in 2009 and 2010 by ADEFHO, Alternatives-Cameroun, Human Rights Watch, and IGLHRC and published in our 2010 report Criminalizing Identities: Rights Abuses in Cameroon based on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity, and on follow-up investigations conducted between 2010 and 2012.

The Ukrainian parliament should reject two draft laws that would discriminate against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people and infringe on their free expression rights.

Sex workers in San Francisco, Washington DC, and part of New York State can now carry condoms – protecting themselves and their clients from HIV/AIDS – without fearing that police will use the condoms as evidence of prostitution.

The government of Nepal should allow lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) groups to operate freely and end arbitrary arrests of LGBT people. The government should investigate threats and attacks against LGBT people. Widespread harassment, including by the government, has contributed to a climate of fear among LGBT people and activists in Nepal, and has interrupted vital activities, including HIV prevention work.

Cameroon prosecutes people for consensual same-sex conduct more aggressively than almost any country in the world, four human rights organizations said in a report released today. At least 28 people have been prosecuted for same-sex conduct in Cameroon since 2010. Most cases are marked by grave human rights violations, including torture, forced confessions, denial of access to legal counsel, and discriminatory treatment by law enforcement and judicial officials.

"This will be bloody." So reads a text message received by a Cameroonian lawyer in October 2012. "Tell your accomplice that nowhere in this country will [his children] have peace." Over the last four months, two Cameroonian lawyers have received a series of death threats by email and SMS. The messages have become increasingly vitriolic, with threats to kill the lawyers, their children, and their clients.

The government of Cameroon should immediately take action against a series of death threats made over the last four months to two lawyers who represent clients accused of homosexual conduct, Human Rights Watch said today in an open letter to President Paul Biya. Alice Nkom and Michel Togué, Cameroonian human rights lawyers, began receiving death threats in October 2012, in the form of emails and text messages, assailing the lawyers for their work defending clients charged with homosexuality. Consensual same-sex conduct is criminalized under the Cameroonian penal code’s article 347 bis, and at least 28 people have been prosecuted under the law since 2010. Nkom and Togué are among the only lawyers courageous enough to take up these cases in a country where homophobia is pervasive.

Vicious attacks on gay rights protesters in Russia in recent days underscores the need for the Russian Duma to reject a draft law on “propaganda for homosexuality.”

On the eve of your parliamentary debates regarding whether to support marriage equality in France, I invite you to look to another European country that went through the same discussions and soul-searching about 15 years ago. In 1994, as a member of the Dutch parliament, I proposed to introduce marriage equality legislation. Years of debate ensued, in part because nowhere else in the world had such legislation been introduced.