YEMEN GAY MURDERS CONTINUE

There’s been a report from Yemen of another man being gunned down, in a drive-by shooting, because he was suspected of being gay.

According to YemenOnline, a security official said that 25-year-old Waleed Saleh Awedan was shot dead near his home in the south of the country by a man on a motorbike, thought to be an Al-Qaeda member.

The website said that at least 34 people have been targeted and killed under similar circumstances in Yemen over the past two years.

Al-Qaeda is leading an insurgency against the Yemeni government and is especially active in the southern parts of the country, where most of the attacks have taken place.

In August last year, AP reported that Al-Qaeda gunmen shot dead a 29-year-old man suspected of being gay in a market in the southern town of Huta.

Two other men, also believed to be gay, were shot by Al-Qaeda in Huta in July. One man was killed and the other was wounded.

Although the gunmen have been operating illegally, homosexuality is outlawed in Yemen under the country’s Islamic Sharia legal system.

Yemen is one of only seven countries in the world to apply a death penalty for consensual sexual acts between adults of the same sex.