London<\/a> on Saturday to highlight laws in 29 Commonwealth countries where same-sex relationships remain illegal.<\/p>\nIn six of those countries, LGBTQ+ people face life imprisonment, while Uganda and Nigeria still carry the death penalty.<\/p>\n
Before addressing the crowd, McKellen told PA Media: \u201cWhen Britain had an empire, it introduced into countries far away from here the laws that we had in this country, including the laws against gay people.<\/p>\n
\u201cThose laws have quite rightly been repealed in this country where gay people live freely and openly alongside the rest of the population, but those old laws, those British laws, those foreign laws remain stuck in the remnants of the British empire now known as the Commonwealth.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnfortunately, half of the Commonwealth countries stick with those old laws, and our plea to them today is to live up to the standards and declaration of the Commonwealth and repeal them.\u201d<\/p>\n
The demonstration, billed as the \u201cCommonwealth Walk of Shame\u201d, was organised by the Peter Tatchell Foundation and the Out and Proud African LGBTI Network.<\/p>\n
After being addressed by McKellen, along with Nigerian activist Babatunde Akanwale Osunseyi, the marchers set off to protest outside the high commissions of eight Commonwealth countries that criminalise LGBTQ+ people.<\/p>\n
They began outside the Nigerian high commission building before heading to those of Uganda, Papua New Guinea, Trinidad and Tobago, Ghana, Jamaica, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n
McKellen noted that while it was not a \u201chuge march\u201d, he hoped \u201cword will get back\u201d to people in those countries that they are supported.<\/p>\n
He said: \u201cThis is a heartfelt demonstration and I hope word will get back to people who are some of them living in hiding because they\u2019re frightened of the laws of the land and treatment by fellow citizens.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s an appalling situation, and any little bit that we can do to show support I think will be appreciated.\u201d<\/p>\n
The crowd held up signs calling for King Charles to \u201capologise for previous monarchs\u201d and calling out \u201c75 years\u201d of homophobic persecution.<\/p>\n
The Lord of the Rings star told the crowd that this demonstration was \u201cnot about hatred\u201d but about a \u201ca love of justice, a love of equality\u201d.<\/p>\n
He said that much of the anti-LGBTQ+ hatred seen across Africa and Asia was \u201cexported there\u201d by \u201ccruel\u201d colonial laws.<\/p>\n
Asked what he hoped the demonstration would achieve along with a show of support, McKellen pointed to the lack of discussion about the issue.<\/p>\n
He said: \u201cPerhaps they could show a little bit more interest in actually what the Commonwealth does and what it doesn\u2019t do.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne thing it doesn\u2019t do is ever discuss this problem.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s never on the agenda, and perhaps events like this will just nudge politicians into talking about something which is of such concern.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ian McKellen has joined a march against the criminalisation of LGBTQ+ people in Commonwealth countries, calling it an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":612337,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-612336","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612336","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=612336"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612336\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/612337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=612336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=612336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=612336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}