Nepal: New Prime Minister Must Keep Promise To LGBTI Community
Last week marked the coming out party for one of the world’s newest heads of state. Baburam Bhattarai, the newly-elected Prime Minister of Nepal, visited New York and Washington, D.C. to meet and greet world leaders, and introduce himself to the United Nations.
Bhattarai has had a lot on his plate since taking office, so leaving the country was a questionable move in the first place. The deadline for Nepal’s new constitution, just two months away, looms on the horizon, and the Constituent Assembly — the 600-some strong body charged with delivering the draft of a new constitution for the Himalayan nation — has been mired in deadlock for nearly a year. In addition, Bhattarai makes this trip on the heels of his first bold proclamation that has human rights groups reeling: he wants blanket amnesty for all crimes committed during the ten-year internal armed conflict that wracked Nepal until 2006. (Bhattarai’s party, the Maoist Party, emerged out of the Maoist rebel group that started the “People’s Revolution,†in which over 10,000 people died.)
But while concerns over transitional justice issues will no doubt be on the agendas of many world leaders as they meet Bhattarai in the U.S., another troubling human rights issue lurks, waiting now four years for proper implementation. To put it simply: Nepal should have some of the most gay- and trans-friendly laws in the world, but it doesn’t. Bhattarai holds the keys to making this happen.
In 2007, Nepal’s leading LGBTI rights activist, Sunil Babu Pant, won a Supreme Court Case demanding full, fundamental equality for all sexual and gender minority citizens. It was a landmark, comprehensive decision. The world watched as Nepal, a traditional and conservative society by many measures, emerged onto the global LGBT rights stage as an example of effective activism and advocacy for sexual and gender minorities.
Bhattarai’s power to implement these laws is crucial. Government bureaucracy in Nepal is thick and chaotic; ministries change personnel so frequently that lobbying them can seem pointless. Since the 2007 Supreme Court decision, for example, four people have served as Home Minister. The Home Ministry is responsible for, among other things, issuing citizenship identification cards, without which many basic services are out of reach for Nepali people.
The Court decision mandated that the government issue ID cards that allow citizens to identify as third gender (the term used in Nepal for transgender or binary gender non-conforming people.) To date, only a handful of people have successfully done this, and all succeeded by putting up a hearty fight.
Nepal
A simple directive letter from Prime Minister Bhattarai could change this for the entire country. Just before the Parliament voted on a new PM, Bhattarai promised to do this while seeking support from CPN (United), a party with five votes in the Parliament, one of which belonged to Pant, who has been a Member of Parliament since 2008. Advocates and activists were encouraged by Bhattarai’s promise.
In fact, Bhattarai, when he was Finance Minister in 2008 under the first Maoist regime, did something no other government of Nepal had ever done: he created a budget line for programs geared toward sexual and gender minorities. Sunil Babu Pant’s non-governmental organization, Blue Diamond Society, has been using some of these funds to build a LGBTI community center in Kathmandu modeled on the New York LGBT Center. It would be the first such community center in South Asia.
In an additional progressive move, the 2011 Nepali census was the first in the world to allow citizens to identify as male, female, or third gender. The process was highly flawed, and the inclusion of the category appears to have been mostly a superficial gesture at this point (the data on people who identified themselves as third gender is not linked to any other demographic numbers), but such steps toward implementation indicate a growing level of acceptance of the LGBTI community in Nepal, and presage the comprehensive reform expected.
As a Member of Parliament and the Constituent Assembly, Sunil Pant sits on the fundamental rights chapter drafting committee in the Constituent Assembly. The fundamental rights chapter is finished, and follows the Court’s orders to be completely inclusive of LGBTI citizens in all rights and protections. Now it sits rotting as a special sub-committee debates the details of power sharing and state structure. Since the constitutional deadline was last extended, Pant has refused to take his salary from the government, saying he cannot take money if no work is being done on the draft.
Whether the constitution drafting process will be completed by the extended deadline – just over two months away – is certainly on Bhattarai’s mind. But in the meantime if he wants to show the Nepali people that he takes human rights and his own judiciary seriously, he has an easy way to do that: a flick of his pen could order all administrative offices across the country to obey the law and recognized third gender citizens.
The Court decision demonstrated substantial progress, but the LGBTI community has been waiting for too long for something real to happen.
On Friday, Bhattari spoke at The New School. I asked him via Twitter when he would keep his promise. He replied: “We have in principal agreed that we will provide citizenship – even our Supreme Court has given a ruling in that context. So the government is committed to implement that.â€
Hari Phuyal, the prominent Kathmandu lawyer who tried the 2007 Supreme Court case says, “the Court decision came at such a crucial time, when the LGBTI community was misused and mishandled by the law enforcement agencies in Nepal.†The violence against LGBTI people has largely ceased thanks to successful advocacy and publicity, but now is another crucial moment, and there is one man who can make the difference.
 (Image: Baburam Bhattarai)
Kyle Knight is a Fulbright Scholar in Nepal where his research focuses on the LGBTI rights movement. He previously worked at Human Rights Watch, where he focused on children’s rights issue. For three years, he worked as a suicide prevention counselor for LGBTQ youth at the Trevor Project in New York City. He currently sits on the Trevor Project’s Advocacy and Public Policy Committee, is the president of the Duke University LGBT Network, and a is lecturer in Gender Studies at Tribhuvan University, Nepal’s state-run university in Kathmandu. You can follow him on Twitter @knightktm.
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U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon late Tuesday afternoon issued an indefinite postponement of the court date in Special Counsel Jack Smith’s prosecution of Donald Trump on Espionage Act charges, in the indictment commonly referred to as the classified documents case.
Claiming it would be “imprudent and inconsistent with the Court’s duty to fully and fairly consider the various pending pre-trial motions before the Court,” along with other matters, Judge Cannon, a Trump appointee, wrote: “the Court finds that the ends of justice served by this continuance…outweigh the best interest of the public and Defendants in a speedy trial.”
Politico’s Kyle Cheney reports, “It may be months before we know the new schedule.” Trial had been slated to begin May 20.
“With 13 days before her trial was supposed to kick off, Judge Cannon finally says what has been obvious to every legal journalist I know: She’s not just canceling the existing trial date; she’s also not picking a replacement,” MSNBC legal correspondent Lisa Rubin reports.
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The 37 count indictment was brought after Trump removed well over 1000 items, including hundreds of classified documents, out of the White House, retained then refused to return them, allegedly violating several statutes under the Espionage Act.
“Trump mishandled classified documents that included information about the secretive U.S. nuclear program and potential domestic vulnerabilities in the event of an attack,” according t0 the federal indictment, Reuters reported last year.
The trial now is not expected to conclude before the November presidential election this year.
“This is news but it’s hardly unexpected,” declared professor of law, former U.S. Attorney, and MSNBC contributor Joyce Vance wrote. “Judge Cannon seems desperate to avoid trying this case. This isn’t justice. defendants aren’t the only ones with speedy trial act rights, we the people have them too.”
“After the election,” professor of law and former chief White House ethics lawyer Richard Painter commented, “if Trump wins Jack Smith gets fired, the case gets dismissed, and Judge Cannon is ready for SCOTUS.”
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Attorney and author Luppe B. Luppen noted, “Judge Cannon’s rationale for indefinitely postponing Trump’s classified documents trial is that a large number of pretrial motions remain unresolved—a state of affairs she has literally engineered by failing to resolve them.”
Professor of law and noted election law expert Rick Hasen asked: “Is it too cynical to believe that Judge Cannon timed the announcement of the postponement of a Trump classified documents trial to take away from the salacious sex details from Stormy Daniels’ testimony today?”
National security attorney Brad Moss served up a “silver lining to Cannon not setting a new trial date: she isn’t blocking the DC or Georgia election cases from resuming in the late summer/early fall, pending SCOTUS ruling on immunity.”
Foreign policy, national security, and political affairs analyst David Rothkopf added, “Justice delayed is justice denied. Both the defendant and the public have the right to a trial ‘without unnecessary delay.’ (Sixth Amendment.) When does Jack Smith seek a remedy for the problem Judge Cannon clearly represents? Tick freaking tock.”
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Last month Donald Trump falsely told reporters Justice Juan Merchan had blocked him from attending his youngest son’s high school graduation, refusing to give him the day off from his required attendance at his New York criminal court case.
Justice Merchan had actually told Trump he would take the request under advisement, but Trump quickly ran to reporters painting the judge as heartless.
On April 15 Trump said, “it looks like the judge will not let me go to the graduation of my son who’s worked very, very hard and he is a great student.”
“It looks like the judge isn’t going to allow me to escape this scam. It’s a scam trial,” Trump alleged.
The Associated Press reported, “Trump then furthered his criticism of the judge on his Truth Social platform, writing in one post both that he ‘will likely not be allowed to attend’ and that ‘the Judge, Juan Merchan, is preventing me from proudly attending my son’s Graduation.’ He wrote in another post less than two hours later that he is ‘being prohibited from attending.'”
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None of that was accurate.
Last week Judge Merchan granted Trump the day off from court to attend his son’s high school graduation.
But The Lincoln Project and others on Tuesday posted the announcement for “Minnesota’s 2024 Lincoln Reagan Dinner With Special Guest DONALD J. TRUMP” on Friday, May 17, 2024.
Trump, as The New Republic notes, will be the headline speaker at the event in Saint Paul, Minnesota, which starts at 5:00 PM.
The fundraiser offers supporters the opportunity to spend $100,000, which grants them “10 VIP Dinner Seats | 10 VIP Reception Passes | 3 Photo Opportunities with President Trump.”
Or, for example, for $50,000, a supporter can get a “Chairman’s Host Table – 10 VIP Dinner Seats | 10 VIP Reception Passes | 1 Photo Opportunity with President Trump.”
Trump plans to attend a fundraiser on the day of Barron’s graduation.
Wonder what Judge Merchan thinks when he sees this. pic.twitter.com/d74ms3FhP1
— The Lincoln Project (@ProjectLincoln) May 7, 2024
KARE reports “the visit is expected to be the former president’s first trip to Minnesota of the 2024 election cycle.”
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Trump has strong motivation to head to Minnesota.
Over the weekend, as NBC News reports, “Top officials for former President Donald Trump’s campaign believe they can flip Democratic strongholds Minnesota and Virginia into his column in November, they told donors behind closed doors at a Republican National Committee retreat Saturday.”
Barron Trump’s graduation from Oxbridge Academy in Palm Beach, Florida reportedly will be the same day, May 17. Depending on timing, It’s possible Trump could fly from Florida to Minnesota to get to the fundraiser by 5 PM.
Watch Trump’s remarks from April 15 below or at this link.
In a clear attack on the executive branch, the judicial system, states’ rights, and the rule in law in America, Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson vowed on Tuesday to use all the powers of Congress at his disposal to end all four current criminal prosecutions of ex-president Donald Trump.
Johnson’s remarks late Tuesday morning came at the exact same time Stormy Daniels was giving sworn testimony about her alleged sexual relationship with Trump in a Manhattan Superior Court case. The presumptive 2024 Republican presidential nominee is on trial for 34 felonies related to falsification of business records when he allegedly paid hush money to the adult film star, then covered up those payments in what prosecutors say was election interference.
“President Trump has done nothing wrong here and he continues to be the target of endless lawfare,” Speaker Johnson told reporters Tuesday during an official House news conference (video below). “It has to stop. And you’re gonna see the United States Congress address this in every possible way that we can, because we need accountability. Ultimately, at the end of the day, it’s bigger than President Trump. It’s about the people’s faith in our system of justice. And we’re gonna get down to the bottom of it. All these cases need to be dropped, because they are a threat to our system.”
Johnson’s remarks also come as he faces an ouster threat from far-right MAGA Republican Christian nationalist Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene. The Speaker, who repeatedly has said he speaks to Trump frequently, spent the weekend at the ex-president’s Florida resort and residence, Mar-a-Lago. He also traveled there just weeks ago as Greene’s threats were heating up. Trump and Johnson held a joint press conference on “election integrity,” an image some say was a show of strength and support from the leader of his party.
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Johnson’s job is being protected by Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, and the vast majority of the Democratic caucus, which have promised to protect him should Greene call up her motion to vacate.
Claiming Republicans are “trying to keep steadying hands on the wheel here and keep the legislative branch moving and operating in the best interest of the people,” Johnson also alleged, “One of the things that is also in jeopardy right now is our judicial branch. And it’s our system of government itself. And I don’t think we can say often enough here how much of that has been abused under this administration, and with local prosecutors, state prosecutors, and at the federal level, who are using lawfare. They’re using our judicial system to go after political opponents.”
The Speaker continued his targeting, declaring Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s “case should never have been brought.”
“If there’s ever been an example of lawfare, everybody can look at that and see, the trial is being orchestrated by Democrats, supporters of President Biden who are trying to make a name for themselves. I mean, they’re pretty open about that. They used it in their campaign flips. We’ve got a Democrat District Attorney, a Biden donor judge whose daughter is a Democratic political consultant and has clients that use the case in their solicitation emails to raise money.”
Justice Juan Merchan, CNN reported last month, made a $15 donation to the Biden campaign, amid a total of $35 total in 2020.
Johnson also called Justice Merchan “a well-known Democrat” who “is pursuing an indefensible gag order on President Trump,” and “trying to override President Trump’s constitutional right to defend himself against the constant smears of his political opponents.”
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Pointing to Special Counsel Jack Smith’s prosecution of Donald Trump in the Espionage Act case, often called the “classified documents” case, Johnson called it “the weaponization of our justice system.”
He called all the cases against the ex-president “a clear attempt to keep Donald Trump in the courtroom and off the campaign trail. That’s what this is. It’s an election interference. It is borderline criminal conspiracy and the American people see right through it.”
Watch a short clip of Johnson’s remarks below or at this link.
Johnson: President Trump has done nothing wrong… it has to stop and you’re going to see the Congress address this in every possible way because we need accountability. All these cases need to be dropped because they are a threat to our entire system pic.twitter.com/Vvg6pQRU52
— Acyn (@Acyn) May 7, 2024
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