The African Human Rights Coalition Statement for IDAHOBIT 2026

By Melanie Nathan, African Human Rights Coalition May 17 2026

International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia (IDAHOBIT 2026)

Today, on IDAHOBIT 2026, the African Human Rights Coalition (AHRC) stands in solidarity with LGBTQI+ people across the globe, especially those living under criminalization, violence, forced displacement, religious extremism, political persecution, and social erasure.

Across Africa and many regions of the world, and more so in the USA than in previous recet years, LGBTQI+ communities continue to face escalating hostility. New anti-LGBTQ legislation, roll back of equality laws, political scapegoating, state-sponsored rhetoric, mob violence, arbitrary detention, torture, forced exile, and family rejection are intensifying at alarming rates.

In some countries, simply existing openly as LGBTQI+ has become life-threatening.

We honor the courage of those who continue to survive, advocate, resist, document, shelter, heal, and fight for dignity under impossible circumstances.

Solidarity applies to us all.

As an organization rooted in universal human rights, AHRC also calls upon LGBTQI+ communities, organizations, activists, and movements worldwide to confront the growing normalization of antisemitism within our own and other spaces that claim the language of justice and liberation.

We are deeply troubled by the increasing hostility directed at Jewish LGBTQI+ individuals , many of whom are being excluded, silenced, harassed, ideologically purity-tested, or made unwelcome within communities that themselves know the pain of exclusion and persecution. No queer person should be forced to choose between their identity and their safety. No Jew should be told they are unwelcome in human rights spaces because they are Jewish, Zionist, Israeli, or simply unwilling to denounce their existence and history.

Human rights are unconditional, universally applicable, and fully inclusive.