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PRIME MINISTER Theresa May should apologise for Britain “forcing homophobic laws on colonial peoples,” campaigners have demanded.
Ahead of this week’s Commonwealth heads of government meeting in London, human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell said: “The time has come for the UK to apologise.”
Of the 53 Commonwealth member states, 36 still criminalise same-sex relations, nearly all under laws enacted by the British government in the 19th century.
Nine member states still have a maximum penalty of life imprisonment for same-sex acts under colonial-era legislation.
Mr Tatchell said that “Britain exported its homophobic laws through colonialism” and that “these laws remain today and are menacing the lives of millions of LGBT people in Commonwealth countries.”
He added: “The humility and remorse of an apology would be far more powerful and effective than neocolonial lecturing and denunciation of homophobia by the UK government.”
