Police in Kathmandu, Nepal, have admitted that they target effeminate males and transgender people (both known as metis) for the apparent crime of carrying condoms.

On July 14, city police allegedly beat, stripped and sexually abused several metis who had gathered in Ratna Park.

Upon receiving complaints about the incident from Nepal’s GLBT Blue Diamond Society and a visiting activist from New York-based Human Rights Watch, a Janasewa Police Station sub-inspector, Pardeep Chand, reportedly informed the activists: “We found metis carrying condoms and the metis also told us that they use condoms while having anal or oral sex. So it’s our regular campaign to control metis inside the Ratna Park and elsewhere.”

According to Blue Diamond’s account of the events in the park, officers approached the metis, threatened to shoot them if they tried to flee, slapped, kicked and clubbed them, searched their pockets, found money and stated, “You ... motherfuckers, you make this money by anal sex and prostitution.”

According to Blue Diamond, the officers forced the metis to strip and pull back their foreskins to be checked for semen residue. The officers allegedly searched the metis’ bags, found condoms and asked what they were for. When the metis said they use the condoms for sex, they were beaten further and accused of engaging in unnatural and illegal sexual activities.

The metis were later held in two police vans, then released.

Budapest Mayor Demszky Gábor on July 9 denounced the hundreds of neo-Nazis and skinheads who violently attacked the city’s Pride march on July 7.

“Physical violence and murderous threats were meted out against peaceful marchers who were expressing their sexual identities,” Gábor said. “Not a single well-meaning democrat can remain silent about this! [It was] intolerant, primitive and cowardly, all at once.

“It was those [GLBT marchers] who dared to declare their own selves, in spite of the threats, who bore witness to true courage,” he continued.

“The main demand of Saturday’s march was the extension of the right to marry to gay couples. A part of Budapest probably agrees with this demand, while another part does not. I am certain, however, that an overwhelming majority of the citizens of the capital condemn all the acts of violence committed against demonstrators standing up for their rights.

“As mayor of Budapest, it is my duty to stand up for all those who are persecuted in Budapest. [I]f need be, I am also Jewish, Gypsy and gay. … We will not allow that anyone should fear because they belong to a minority.”

Hundreds of skinheads, neo-Nazis and other opponents threw eggs, bottles, smoke bombs, Molotov cocktails and plastic bags of sand at the 2,000 marchers. The counterdemonstrators shouted “Faggots into the Danube, followed by the Jews,” “Soap factory” and “Filthy faggots.”

Later, dozens of Pride attendees were attacked in the vicinity of the post-parade party at the open-air, riverside Buddha Beach nightclub, the parade’s endpoint.

Parade opponents included members of Movement for a Better Hungary and the Hungarian National Front, who said they were annoyed that the Hungarian Socialists, part of the ruling government coalition, have come out in support of legalizing same-sex marriage, and that Gábor Szetey, the government’s human resources secretary of state, publicly came out July 5 as he opened Budapest’s 12th Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Festival of culture and arts.

Ireland’s government will pass a law to extend marriage-like rights to same-sex couples, Taoiseach (prime minister) Bertie Ahern said July 16.

Speaking at the reopening of the refurbished Outhouse GLBT community center, Ahern said his government is committed to full equality for same-sex couples, the Evening Echo newspaper reported.

“We will legislate for civil partnerships at the earliest possible date in the lifetime of this government,” Ahern said.

The Outhouse center provides office space to 70 GLBT groups and contains a library and cafe.

Hong Kong’s Court of Final Appeal on July 16 cleared a same-sex couple who had been arrested for having sex in a car in an isolated location in the dark.

The court said the prosecution of Zigo Yau Yuk-lung, 19, and Lee Kam-chuen, 30, was impermissible because the public-sodomy ban under which they were charged unfairly targets only male couples, not female or opposite-sex couples.

The court declared the law unenforceable and unconstitutional.

In 2006, a law that punished gay sex by males under age 21 with life in prison also was struck down as unconstitutional.

Assistance: Bill Kelley