Around 50 activists from the Peter Tatchell Foundation and partner groups protested outside Westminster Abbey during the Commonwealth service, shouting for the King to apologise for his predecessor monarchs imposing anti-LGBT+ laws on colonies across across the British Empire.
Campaigners from Uganda, Bangladesh and other Commonwealth nations, gathered to highlight the fact that 29 Commonwealth countries still criminalise same-sex relationships — nearly all under laws derived from Britain’s colonial-era penal codes. Most former colonies retained these statutes after independence.
The LGBT+ campaigners from Commonwealth countries where being gay is still a crime, marched to Buckingham Palace to deliver a formal letter to His Majesty King Charles III. It urges him, as Head of the Commonwealth, to uphold the Commonwealth Charter, speak out for LGBT+ equality and apologise for previous monarchs authorising the imposition of anti-LGBT+ laws on Britain’s colonies. These laws continue to cause great harm to LGBTs..
