AUTHORITIES IN THE South American country of Guyana have reportedly detained a number of transgender individuals for wearing clothes considered appropriate only for the opposite sex.
"Police are using archaic laws to violate basic freedoms," explained Scott Long, director of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender rights programme at Human Rights Watch. "This is a campaign meant to drive people off the streets simply because they dress or act in ways that transgress gender norms."
 Security officials in Georgetown arrested at least eight people in February and charged them with violating a statute that criminalises the "wearing of female attire by man, wearing of male attire by women." The detainees, prevented from making a phone call or contacting a lawyer, were ordered to take of all their "female clothes" and change into "men's clothing" in front of several police officers.
The prisoners were then fined GY$7,500 (US$36) by acting Chief Magistrate Melissa Robertson, who urged them to "go to church" and give their lives to Christ.
"The enforcement of laws repressing individuals' self-expression is against basic provisions of human rights," said Stefano Fabeni, programme director of the LGBTI Initiative at Global Rights. "Police treatment during arrest and detention of the eight men shows serious breaches of Guyana's international human rights obligations."
Guyana is a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) which guarantees freedom of expression and the right to privacy. However, the country still maintains several laws that criminalise relationships between people of the same sex. For example, section 351 of the Criminal Law (Offenses) Act punishes committing acts of "gross indecency" with a male person with a two-year prison sentence, while section 352 outlaws any "attempt to commit unnatural offenses." This includes a 10-year prison sentence for any "male [that] indecently assaults any other male person."
Finally, section 353 states that "Everyone who commits buggery, either with a human being or with any other living creature, shall be guilty of felony and be liable to imprisonment for life."
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