Uzbekistan: Top lawmaker calls for deporting the LGBT community en masse

The head of one of Uzbekistan’s leading political parties has suggested depriving gays, lesbians and transgender people of citizenship and deporting them as a way of ending the national conversation on LGBT issues. Alisher Kadyrov, who heads Milliy Tiklanish, or National Revival, which bills itself as a champion of tradition and family values, said in an interview published on June 7 on the Alter Ego YouTube channel that withdrawing citizenship from LGBT people would force other countries to provide them with refuge. “When I put forward this proposal on social networks, up to 100 LGBT people got in touch with me and agreed with what I had said. They said that they cannot get visas from those countries that condemn Uzbekistan for its attitude towards LGBT people,” Kadyrov said. That the issue is at the center of public discussions at all stems from the government’s refusal to heed calls from international rights groups to remove an article from the criminal code that penalizes same-sex relations between men.