Valentines Day seems the perfect day to celebrate the recent KISS-IN held by VOICES 4 in partnership with RUSA LGBT outside the Uzbek consulate in New York.  It was a protest against the governments of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Azerbaijan who have been abusing their respective powers, rounding up, detaining, assaulting, and physically abusing LGBTQIA+ people. In some cases, law enforcement authorities have started registering LGBTQIA+ people, blackmailing, and torturing detainees, forcing them to give up the names of their LGBTQIA+ friends and peers.

Voices 4 which describes itself as “a non-violent and direct action advocacy group” and  in a statement, they said, “ We at Voices4 utilized this historical protest format to demand the governments of Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, and Tajikistan immediately stop the genocide.”

One anonymous queer asylee from Uzbekistan had a statement read out by one of the speakers at the kiss-in “We all are here to protest ill-treatment of LGBTQI communities in former Soviet Countries. As someone who is originally from Uzbekistan and has gone through immeasurable pain as for being different, I can say that it really is hard for our community to exist in those parts of the world. In Uzbekistan, there is still a sodomy law, one of only two countries of ex-Soviet Union that still maintains sodomy law. An openly gay man can end up in prison for three years. An individual can be shunned (best scenario), or hurt or even killed by family members or community for bringing disgrace. That’s why I ran away.”