LGBTQI+ campaigners around the world are celebrating wins in the fight for equality. In Thailand, the senate passed the Marriage Equality Bill with an overwhelming majority in June, putting the country on track to become the first in Southeast Asia to recognize same-sex marriage while granting LGBTQI+ couples equal inheritance and adoption rights.
That month also saw the Namibian high court declare the criminalization of sodomy and ‘unnatural sex acts’ between men unconstitutional and invalid. The judgment described the law as a prejudicial legacy of Namibia’s colonial history.
On 24 June, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange left the UK’s Belmarsh prison and boarded a flight to his home country Australia. His release spelled the end of a 14-year legal battle against extradition which had seen him subject to various forms of detention and deprivations of personal freedom at the hands of US officials.
Although Assange’s release was conditional on pleading guilty to a single charge of conspiracy under the Espionage Act, supporters across the world celebrated his long-overdue freedom.
