Lest we forget—especially today—that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was an authentic Nobel Peace Prize laureate, accepting the award on December 10, 1964. He not only met the standard for earning it; for the four years of his life that followed, he led with such moral stature, courage, and consequence that no prize yet exists to measure what he accomplished. In his 1964 Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, Martin Luther King Jr. accepted the award on behalf of the entire

Structural Violence Against LBQ Women Across African Contexts , From Home to Hostile Host: Structural Violence Against LBQ Women Across African Contexts , authored by Melanie Nathan , is a new African Human Rights Coalition report examining how lesbian, bisexual, and queer women experience systematic violence that begins within families and communities and continues through displacement, detention, and so-called host countries. Drawing on AHRC’s long-standing documentation,

By Melanie Nathan - December 21, 2025. This essay is a call to rethink how LGBTQI+ funding is allocated in times of crisis, and to ensure that survival, not visibility, is treated as the first obligation of global solidarity. It is a call for partnerships from foundations, funders, donors and LGBTQI+ organizations. Its an urgent matter of life or death. A global humanitarian collapse is underway and LGBTQI+ people are being abandoned first. As U.S. foreign assistance is cut a

When Protection Is Denied Before It Is Heard: Across the current U.S. asylum landscape, individuals fleeing persecution are increasingly being sent to countries with which they have no legal, social, or historical connection —places they have never lived, where they have no community, and where they cannot safely exist. For LGBTQI+ asylum seekers, this practice is especially dangerous. It exposes people whose identities are criminalized to governments that neither recognize t

Please consider that, across the entire United States, African Human Rights Coalition  is the only known LGBTQI+ organization providing direct consistent food-distribution support to LGBTQI+ refugees and asylum seekers in Africa. Though we have provided these services since 2014, we have been doing this as consistent programing since 2019. We have one partner for our program for one such country - Safe Place International - which has been helping by picking up 50% of the cos

Burkina Faso: Raises Alarming Human Rights Concerns By Melanie Nathan, Dec 02, 2025. The African Human Rights Coalition (AHRC) has received confirmation of a case in Burkina Faso in which a foreign national was convicted under the country’s newly enacted anti-LGBTQ provisions. According to publicly available information released by the Burkina Faso Ministry of Justice, the individual identified as K.M. was sentenced to 24 months’ imprisonment, a 2,000,000 CFA franc fine, and

By Melanie Nathan, Nov 29, 2025. All of the countries under review — including Uganda, Ghana, Senegal, Zambia, Guinea-Conakry, Cameroon, Tanzania, Kenya, Burkina Faso, and Nigeria are parties to the core universal and regional human-rights treaties which together enshrine the fundamental human dignity, equality and protection against discrimination, violence, and arbitrary deprivation of freedom of all persons. For example, each is a State Party to the International Covenant

By Melanie Nathan, November 08, 2025. Nov 08 2025, - An Open Letter to Mayor Elect Zohran Mamdani - Now That You Are Elected — You Must Speak Out Dear Mayor Elect Mamdani, Now that you are about to hold the highest office in New York City, your voice carries global weight. That voice can no longer remain silent about the atrocities of the country of your birth, Uganda, a country whose passport you reportedly still hold, where you visit regularly, and where you recently celebr

by Melanie Nathan, Oct 31, 2025. On October 31, the Trump administration published its Presidential Determination on Refugee Admissions (PD) in the Federal Register, which sets the refugee admissions ceiling at the historic, cruel and shameful low of only 7,500 people. The PD also prioritizes the resettlement of Afrikaners (white South Africans) - while turning its back on over 120,000 refugees who were already conditionally approved for resettlement as of January 20. The ind

By Melanie Nathan, Oct 24, 2025 When governments criminalize identity—whether via immigration policy or sexual orientation laws—they coerce people into the shadows to flee danger, yet the underground offers no safety at all—only a stopgap for immediate survival. Under Donald Trump’s immigration crackdowns, thousands of immigrants, and even U.S. citizens of color, live under the constant threat of racial profiling, unlawful detentions, arbitrary arrests and deportation. Raids,