7.5.3. Treatment of LGBTIQ activists

7.5.3. Treatment of LGBTIQ activists

Information on the treatment of LGBTIQ activists during the reporting period remained limited. The following section therefore draws on the most prominent available reporting from 2022 and 2023.

Freedom House reported in 2025 that the activities of organisations advocating for LGBTIQ rights continued to be constrained in Lebanon. Authorities maintained restrictions on public expression and association, which affected the capacity of NGOs and activist groups to function openly.670 According to Human Rights Watch, security agencies had repeatedly interfered with initiatives addressing gender and sexuality since 2017. In June 2022, the caretaker Minister of Interior issued a directive instructing security forces to prevent LGBTIQ-related events, describing them as promoting ‘sexual perversion.’ Although a court suspended this directive in November 2022, the ministry issued a subsequent order prohibiting any conferences, gatherings, or protests addressing homosexuality.671

These restrictions coincided with intensifying rhetoric by political and religious leaders against sexual and gender minorities from 2022 onwards. On the day the ministry’s directive was issued, officers from General Security and Internal Security reportedly questioned both feminist and LGBTIQ activists at a cultural centre concerning a planned private workshop, urging them to cancel or obtain authorisation. Activists stated that they were later subjected to repeated calls from security branches, requesting informal meetings and indicating that their online activities were under surveillance. Authorities justified such interventions by invoking the 1911 Law on Public Meetings, despite its applicability only to public - not private - gatherings.672

Societal hostility was also directed against activists and allies. In October 2023, a civil society march in defence of freedoms, which was not explicitly focused on LGBTIQ issues, was attacked by a group of men who shouted homophobic comments and physically assaulted participants. Amnesty International criticised the security forces for failing to protect demonstrators during the incident.673