UN urged to move Cop27 from Egypt over 'LGBTQ+ torture'
Source: The Guardian
UN urged to move Cop27 from Egypt over ‘LGBTQ+ torture’
US adviser to the White House and partner call on UN to move climate crisis summit over fears they would be targeted
Oliver Milman
@olliemilman
Fri 15 Jul 2022 06.00 EDT
Last modified on Fri 15 Jul 2022 09.35 EDT
A White House adviser and his partner have called on the United Nations to move a key climate change summit from Egypt due to the country’s treatment of LGBTQ people, citing fears that they and other activists would be targeted by security forces if they attend the talks.
The couple, Jerome Foster and Elijah Mckenzie-Jackson, have written to Patricia Espinosa, executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), to condemn the choice of Egypt as host of the Cop27 talks due to its “LGBTQ+ torture, woman slaughter and civil rights suppression” and that the decision “places our life in danger in the process of advocating for the life of our planet”.
Thousands of delegates from countries around the world, including various heads of state, are set to head to the coastal resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh in November for the Cop27 climate conference. The talks are seen as crucial amid rising concerns about food security and governments’ failure to adequately slash planet-heating emissions.
But climate activists have voiced concerns about the ability of protesters, indigenous rights groups and others to access the event. Sameh Shoukry, Egypt’s foreign minister, has said the government will assign “a facility adjacent to the conference centre” to contain activists, with a coalition of human rights groups warning this risks curtailing people’s ability to protest world leaders’ inaction on the climate crisis.
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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jul/15/un-cop27-egypt-lgbtq-climate-crisis