Kuwait City skyline (icon image)
Photo: YASSER AL-ZAYYAT / AFP
A Kuwait court sentenced a transgender woman to two years in prison.
This was announced by the human rights organization Human Rights Watch (HRW).
The verdict was allegedly based on the fact that 40-year-old Maha al-Mutairi had "imitated the opposite sex."
HRW called for al-Mutairi to be released.
The defendant should also pay a fine of the equivalent of 2850 euros.
They mimicked the opposite sex when making phone calls, it said.
Such imitation is prohibited under Kuwaiti law.
According to HRW, transgender women are often exposed to police abuse while in detention.
Most recent conviction by far the harshest
According to her lawyer, Ibtissam al-Enesi, Al-Mutairi has been arrested several times for similar reasons.
However, the latest condemnation is by far the harshest, said al-Enesi.
An appeal hearing was scheduled for October 31.
Al-Mutairi applied to be sent to a prison for women, according to her lawyer.
She was initially placed in a cell for transgender inmates in a men's prison.
In hardly any other country is the risk for homosexuals and transsexuals as high as in Kuwait.
In the so-called Gay Travel Index 2021 of the »Spartacus« and »Men *« editors, the 4.2 million-inhabitant country ranks 190th. According to the information, the situation is only worse in Afghanistan, Libya, United Arab Emirates, Yemen, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Somalia.
Chechnya is on the bottom of a total of 202 countries.
The country ranking not only gives gays and lesbians an indication of where they can safely travel on vacation.
It also takes into account the respective legal situation for the entire local community grouped under the abbreviation LGBTIQ +.
The tenth issue was published this year (read more about this in an interview here).
bam / dpa
