Are afghans gay
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Last updated: 3 April 2025
Types of criminalisation
- Criminalises LGBT people
- Criminalises sexual activity between males
- Criminalises sexual activity between females
- Imposes the death penalty
Summary
Same-sex sexual activity is prohibited under the Penal Code 2017, which criminalises acts of ‘sodomy’, ‘inciting sodomy’, and other forms of closeness. These provisions carry a maximum penalty of two years. Both men and women are criminalised under the law. The Penal Code allows for the implementation of Sharia commandment, under which same-sex sexual activity is punishable by death. In addition to the Penal Code, the ‘Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice Law’, enacted by the Taliban in August 2024, further codifies the criminalisation of same-sex sexual intimacy and the persecution of LGBT people.
The primary source of law in Afghanistan is Islamic law. The route of the revised Penal Code in 2017 was praised by the UN for its compliance with international obligations, h
The Taliban Slaughtered Gay Men like Animals
I am Nabi, and I’m twenty-five years old. I finished my bachelor’s degree as an engineer, and now I am a refugee in Germany. I am also homosexual. It was tough to be gay in my country. You can’t live as a free man. I also heard about the Taliban taking gay men and slaughtering them like animals. But the main reason I left Afghanistan was because of my sister. The Taliban wanted to stone her, so we left together.
We came through Iran in the summer, when it was very hot—115 degrees Fahrenheit. We were out in the unseal the whole time. Some of the people in our group died because we didn’t have liquid. From Iran, we went on to Turkey, and then to Greece. After that we traveled for four months on foot through Macedonia, Serbia, and so on until we got to Germany.
I spent a year and a half living in the Rebstock camp. At first I didn’t want to learn German. Then I met a German dude online, and he visited me. We started virtual dating, and he has helped me learn German. We write notes to each other, we do familiar chores, we go shopping, and we visit his parents, all the period speaking German as much as we can.
Now I have a house in Frankfurt, and I
The decision
AJ (Risk to Homosexuals) Afghanistan CG [2009] UKAIT 00001
Asylum and Immigration Tribunal
THE IMMIGRATION ACTS
Heard at Field House
On 28 October 2008
Before
Senior Immigration Judge Batiste
Senior Immigration Judge Southern
Professor R. H. Taylor
Between
AJ
Appellant
and
THE SECRETARY OF Mention FOR THE Dwelling DEPARTMENT
Respondent
Representation:
For the Appellant: Mr Z Nasim, instructed by Mayfair Solicitors
For the Respondent: Mr S Kandola, instructed by Treasury Solicitors
1. Though homosexuality remains illegal in Afghanistan, the evidence of its prevalence especially in the Pashtun culture, contrasted with the absence of criminal convictions after the descend of the Taliban, demonstrates a lack of appetite by the Government to prosecute.
2. Some conduct that would be seen in the West as a manifestation of homosexuality is not necessarily interpreted in such a way in Afghan population.
3. A lgbtq+ returning to Afghanistan would normally pursue to keep his homosexuality private and to avoid coming to public attention. He would normally be able to do so, and hence avoid any real risk of persecution by the state, without the need to sup
‘A virtual death sentence’: Gay Afghans brace for uncertain future under Taliban
N, a 20-year-old student living in Afghanistan, is in hiding as she hopes for news that she and her family can leave the country. As a lesbian, she believes she will be targeted by the Taliban government.
“They will kill us without sympathy,” she said, requesting that her full name and exact location not be published to protect her safety.
Faraz, who asked to be identified by only one label, is a 25-year-old gay man who said he fears for himself and his three sons. He fears he and his family will be kidnapped and killed if they remain in Afghanistan.
“The Taliban is in search of the gay people. They are going from street to street,” he said, pleading for the U.S. State Department to evacuate him and his family.
U.S officials expect 50,000 to 65,000 Afghans will seek evacuation in the stir of the Taliban’s takeover of Kabul, the country’s capital. Among those searching to flee are LGBTQ Afghans favor N and Faraz.
While homosexuality has lengthy been criminalized in Afghanistan, advocates fear the situation for same-sex attracted Afghans will change into even more perilous under the Taliban, who may decide to apply the
A Mountain on My Shoulders: 18 Months of Taliban Persecution of LGBTIQ Afghans
The Taliban’s give back to power in August 2021 left many woman loving woman, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, and queer (LGBTIQ) Afghans fearing for their lives. Hundreds sought to exit the country with assist from foreign governments and non-governmental organizations(NGOs), while many who chose to endure or could not abandon went into hiding at home.
The Taliban’s first year of rule by power in Afghanistan demonstrates that LGBTIQ people’s fears were not unfounded. Between September and October 2022, Outright International interviewed 22 LGBTIQ Afghans, all of them currently in Afghanistan. Their accounts suggest that Taliban security officials now arrive to be pursuing LGBTIQ people – especially queer men and trans women – more systematically than in the first rare months of Taliban principle, subjecting them to physical and sexual assault and arbitrary detention. In several cases, the authorities contain subjected people to universal flogging for alleged homosexual relations, and the Taliban Supreme Court, on social media, has confirmed and defended the implementation of these punishments.
This report follows an in