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Capital punishment as a criminal punishment for homosexuality has been implemented by a number of countries in their history. It currently remains a legal punishment in several countries and regions, most of which have sharia–based criminal laws, except for Uganda.
Gay people also face extrajudicial killings by state and non-state actors in some states and regions of the world. Locations where this is known to occur include Iraq, Libya, Syria and Chechnya. Imposition of the death penalty for homosexuality may be classified as judicial murder of gay people.
The International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA) reported in 2020 that in at least six UN member states—Brunei, Iran, Mauritania, Nigeria ( some states in northern Nigeria), Saudi Arabia, and Yemen—homosexual activity is punishable by death. [1] These six were joined in 2023 by Uganda, which became the only Christian-majority country with capital punishment for some consensual same-sex acts. [2] Excepting Uganda, all countries currently having capital punishment as a potential penalty for homosexual activity base those laws on interpretations of Islamic teachings. [3] [4]: 25, 31 In 2007, five countries conducted executions as a penalty for homosexual acts. [5] In 2020, the ILGA named Iran and Saudi Arabia as the only countries in which executions for same-sex activity had taken place. [4]: 38
For the countries listed below, no dispute or uncertainty regarding the legal status of capital punishment as a possible penalty for same-sex sexual conduct exists. While clearly allowable, the application or enforcement of the legally-sanctioned death penalty varies across the jurisdictions, with some not having imposed or enacted the penalty for many years or decades, and some never having done so, while others have carried out executions recently and some do so regularly. [1]
As of March 2023, the following jurisdictions allow the death penalty to be imposed for homosexual conduct:
According to the ILGA, there are five UN-member countries where the status of the death penalty as a punishment for same-sex sexual conduct is uncertain. This may be because experts or legal scholars dispute the effect of legal provisions, or because the laws relied upon to potentially sanction the death penalty are the zina provisions which relate to all sexual behaviours outside marriage, with applicability to homosexual relations uncertain, and so far, only theoretical. [4]: 25
As of 2020 [update], these jurisdictions are:
In some regions, gay people have been murdered by Islamist militias and terrorist groups, such as Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in parts of Iraq, Libya, and Syria, the Houthi movement in Yemen, Hamas in the Gaza Strip as well as in Malaysia. [10] [34] [35]
In February 2016 Hamas, [36] [37] which claims control of the Palestinian National Authority and rules Gaza, executed by firing squad Mahmoud Ishtiwi—one of the group's leading commanders—for homosexual activity. [38] [39]
Anti-gay purges in Chechnya, a predominantly Muslim region of Russia, have included forced disappearances—secret abductions, imprisonment, and torture—by local Chechen authorities targeting persons based on their perceived sexual orientation. [40] Of one hundred men, whom authorities detained on suspicion of being gay or bisexual, three have reportedly died after being held in what human rights groups and eyewitnesses have called concentration camps. [41] [42]
Extrajudicial killings have occurred in Iraq. [43] Cases include abductions, torture, rape and murder by vigilante mobs, militia and other perpetrators. LGBT people living in fear of their lives, campaigners Human Rights Watch (HRW) and IraQueer found. HRW's LGBT rights researcher Rasha Younes said: "LGBT Iraqis live in constant fear of being hunted down and killed by armed groups with impunity, as well as arrest and violence by Iraqi police, making their lives unliveable." [44]
In Malaysia, extrajudicial murders of LGBT people have also occurred. [45] [46] [47] There are no Malaysian laws that protect the LGBT persons from discrimination and hate crimes. [47]
Reports of killings by mobs and vigilantes, family violence, and other abuse from the community towards LGBT persons [48] [49] [50] [51] have been reported in regions of Africa heavily influenced by conservative Christianity and Islam. Such incidents have occurred in: Algeria, [52] Uganda, [53] South Africa, [54] Kenya, [55] Liberia, Ghana, Cameroon, and Senegal. In some locations, police may be unlikely to intervene in incidents or take action on reported abuse; [49] [56] they are at times complicit in the anti-gay violence. [57] Reports of extrajudicial killings of homosexuals have also occurred in the Western world, but are far less common; for example, an Australian study, published in 2000 by the Australian Institute of Criminology, found that of the 454 male homicides between 1989 and 1999 in the state New South Wales, just 37 were fuelled by homophobia. [58]
Australian states and territories first passed laws against homosexuality during the colonial era, and nineteenth-century colonial parliaments retained provisions which made homosexual activity a capital offence until 1861. [59] Most jurisdictions removed capital punishment as a sentence for homosexual activity, although in Victoria it remained as such when committed while also inflicting bodily harm or to a person younger than the age of fourteen until 1949. [59] The last person arrested for homosexual sex in Australia was a man in 1984 in Tasmania. [60] The last part of Australia to legalise consensual homosexual sex between adults was Tasmania in 1997. In 2017, same-sex marriage was legalised by the Australian government. [61] [62]
Of the seven men[ citation needed] in Australian history known to have been executed for sodomy, six cases involved the sexual abuse of minors; [d] only one of the seven cases was for consensual acts between adults. [63] In that sole case, Alexander Browne was hanged at Sydney on 22 December 1828 for sodomy with his shipmate William Lyster on the whaler Royal Sovereign; Lyster was also convicted and sentenced to death, but his sentence was commuted before execution. [64] Joseph Fogg was hanged at Hobart on 24 February 1830 for an "unnamed crime", also described in one source as an "abominable crime". [65] [66] The exact nature of his crime is unclear; while likely a same-sex sexual offence given the labels applied ('unnamed', 'abominable'), it is uncertain whether it was for an adult consensual act, same-sex rape, or abuse of a minor. [67]
During the period of Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945, homosexual men were persecuted with thousands being imprisoned in concentration camps (and eventually extermination camps) by the Nazi regime. Roughly 5,000–15,000 were sent to the concentration camps, with the death rate being estimated to be as high as 60%. Homosexuals in the camps suffered an unusual degree of cruelty by their captors, including being used as target practice on shooting ranges. [68] [69] [70]
In a 1937 speech, Himmler argued that SS men who had served sentences for homosexuality should be transferred to a concentration camp and shot when trying to escape. This policy was never implemented, and some SS men were acquitted on homosexuality charges despite evidence against them. [71] A few death sentences against SS men for homosexual acts were pronounced between 1937 and 1940. [72] In a speech on 18 August 1941, Hitler argued that homosexuality should be combatted throughout Nazi organizations and the military. In particular, homosexuality in the Hitler Youth must be punished by death in order to protect youth from being turned into homosexuals, however the Hitler Youth never implemented this policy. [73]
After learning of Hitler's remark, Himmler decided that the SS must be at least as tough on homosexuality and drafted a decree mandating the death penalty to any member of the SS and police found guilty of engaging in a homosexual act. Hitler signed the decree on 15 November 1941 on the condition that there be absolutely no publicity, worried that such a harsh decree might lend fuel to left-wing propaganda that homosexuality was especially prevalent in Germany. Since it could not be published in the SS newspaper, the decree was communicated to SS men one-on-one by their superiors. However, this was not done consistently and many arrested men asserted that they had no knowledge of the decree. [73]
Even after the decree, only a few death sentences were pronounced. [74] [75] Himmler often commuted the sentence especially if he thought that the accused was not a committed homosexual, but had suffered a one-time mistake (particularly while drunk). Many of those whose sentence was commuted were sent to serve in the Dirlewanger Brigade, a penal unit on the Eastern Front, where most were killed. [74] After late 1943, because of military losses, it was the policy to recycle SS men convicted of homosexuality into the Wehrmacht. [76]
The 1933 law on habitual criminals also allowed for execution after the third conviction. [77] On 4 September 1941 a new law allowed the execution of dangerous sex offenders or habitual criminals when "the protection of the Volksgemeinschaft or the need for just atonement require it". This law enabled authorities to pronounce death sentences against homosexuals, and is known to have been employed in four cases in Austria. [78] [79] In 1943, Wilhelm Keitel, head of the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, authorized the death penalty for soldiers convicted of homosexuality in "particularly serious cases". [80] [81] Only a few executions of homosexual Wehrmacht soldiers are known, mostly in conjunction with other charges, especially desertion. [80] Some homosexuals were executed at Nazi euthanasia centers, such as Bernburg or Meseritz-Obrawalde. It is difficult to estimate the number of homosexuals directly killed during the Nazi era. [82]
From 1533, under the Buggery Act 1533, capital felony for any person to "commit the detestable and abominable vice of buggery with mankind or beast", was enacted, repealed and re-enacted several times by the Crown, until it was reinstated permanently in 1563. Homosexual activity remained a capital offence until 1861. [83] The last execution took place on 27 November 1835 when James Pratt and John Smith were hanged outside Newgate Prison in London.
During the colonial era of American history, the various European nations which established colonies in the Americas brought their pre-existing laws against homosexuality (which included capital punishment) with them. The establishment of the United States after their victory in the Revolutionary War did not bring about any changes in the status of capital punishment as a sentence for being convicted of homosexual behavior. Beginning in the 19th century, the various state legislatures passed legislation which ended the status of capital punishment being used for those who were convicted of homosexual behavior. South Carolina was the last state, in 1873, to repeal the death penalty for homosexual behaviour from its statute books. The number of times the penalty was carried out is unknown. Records show there were at least two executions, and a number of more convictions with vague labels, such as "crimes against nature". [83]
In July 2020, the sodomy law that previously punished gay men with up to 100 lashes for the first offence, five years in jail for the second and the death penalty the third time around was abolished, with new legislation reducing the penalty to prison terms ranging from five years to life. Sudanese LGBT+ activists hailed the reform as a 'great first step', but said it was not enough yet, and the end goal should be the decriminalisation of same-sex sexual activity altogether. [84]
"... 'full legal certainty' is understood as the absence of disputes about whether the death penalty can be legally imposed for consensual same-sex sexual conduct. This legal certainty may be derived from the existence of written, codified laws unequivocally prescribing the death penalty for same-sex conduct ... Conversely, the lack of clear provisions mandating the death penalty for consensual same-sex sexual acts, the existence of disputes between scholars and experts with regard to the interpretation of ambiguous provisions, and the need for judicial interpretation of certain 'generic' crimes to encompass consensual same-sex sexual acts has led ILGA World to classify the remaining five UN Member States ... as jurisdictions where there is no full legal certainty.
"It bears mentioning that in all five states ... there is full certainty that the alternative in default of the death penalty is always a provision of law criminalising consensual same-sex sexual acts with corporal punishment, imprisonment and/or a fine. Therefore, this uncertainty does not hinge on 'criminalisation vs non-criminalisation', but rather on the severity of the penalties imposed."
A 2019 de facto moratorium on the death penalty remained in place.
According to Human Dignity Trust, the death penalty is implemented in Iran, Northern Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Somalia and Yemen, and remains a "legal possibility" in Afghanistan, Brunei, Mauritania, Pakistan, Qatar and UAE.
The moratorium is still in place, but the human rights situation in Brunei remains appalling.
Lawyers in the country and other experts disagree on whether federal law prescribes the death penalty for consensual homosexual sex or only for rape. In a recent Amnesty International report, the organization said it was not aware of any death sentences for homosexual acts.
"However, it is through the Sharia code that the death penalty theoretically can apply to same-sex sexual relations through the offence of Zina, which applies to sexual relations outside of marriage of any sort. However, it appears that the law is used in rape cases only although in some cases courts have gone beyond codified laws and imposed harsher sentences of stoning and flogging for Zina crimes."
The penalty for conviction of same-sex relations is a fine, two years to life imprisonment, or both...the Hudood Ordinance of 1979 criminalizes sexual intercourse outside of marriage in accordance with sharia, with penalties of whipping or, potentially, death. There have been disputes as to whether the Hudood Ordinance notionally applies to both opposite-sex and same-sex conduct, but there were no known cases of the government applying the ordinance to same-sex conduct, and there have been no known cases of executions for homosexuality.
"Both civil law and sharia criminalize consensual same-sex sexual conduct between adults. Under sharia individuals ... could be subject to the death penalty. Dubai's penal code allows for up to a 10-year prison sentence for conviction of such activity, while Abu Dhabi's penal code allows for up to a 14-year prison sentence. There were no known reports of arrests or prosecutions for consensual same-sex conduct" [in 2021].
UNITED ARAB EMIRATES: Adultery is punishable by stoning under the penal code enacted in 1987. Courts rarely issue stoning sentences but it has happened occasionally. In 2007, the courts upheld a stoning sentence of a man convicted of having sex with his four stepdaughters. It's not known whether the sentence was carried out. The girls were sentenced to 80 lashes each even though they had been forced into the relationships. In 2005, a Bangladeshi man was sentenced to stoning for adultery. An Indonesian woman was similarly sentenced in 2000 even though she told the court she had been raped. Both sentences were later reduced to one year and deportation.
Without prejudice to the provisions of the Law on juvenile delinquents and displaced, death penalty shall be imposed on whoever used coercion in having sexual intercourse with a female or sodomy with a male.
— Ministry of Justice, UAE (English version as provided), Official Gazette of UAE, issue 182 (1987)
...some scholars ... interpret ... [this provision] as applicable to consensual same-sex sexual activity, while others hold that 'it takes a stretch to read [it] as a criminalisation of consensual sex with the Arabic word for coercive syntactically placed as it is'.
— ILGA World, State-Sponsored Homophobia (2020), p. 82
This morning, the awful sentence of the law was carried into execution upon four other persons, viz.-John Jones and Samuel Killen, for sheep-stealing; Joseph Fogg, for a nameless offence, and Thomas Goodwin, for cutting and maiming with intent the kill.
Part of a series on |
LGBT rights |
---|
Lesbian ∙ Gay ∙ Bisexual ∙ Transgender |
LGBT portal |
Capital punishment as a criminal punishment for homosexuality has been implemented by a number of countries in their history. It currently remains a legal punishment in several countries and regions, most of which have sharia–based criminal laws, except for Uganda.
Gay people also face extrajudicial killings by state and non-state actors in some states and regions of the world. Locations where this is known to occur include Iraq, Libya, Syria and Chechnya. Imposition of the death penalty for homosexuality may be classified as judicial murder of gay people.
The International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA) reported in 2020 that in at least six UN member states—Brunei, Iran, Mauritania, Nigeria ( some states in northern Nigeria), Saudi Arabia, and Yemen—homosexual activity is punishable by death. [1] These six were joined in 2023 by Uganda, which became the only Christian-majority country with capital punishment for some consensual same-sex acts. [2] Excepting Uganda, all countries currently having capital punishment as a potential penalty for homosexual activity base those laws on interpretations of Islamic teachings. [3] [4]: 25, 31 In 2007, five countries conducted executions as a penalty for homosexual acts. [5] In 2020, the ILGA named Iran and Saudi Arabia as the only countries in which executions for same-sex activity had taken place. [4]: 38
For the countries listed below, no dispute or uncertainty regarding the legal status of capital punishment as a possible penalty for same-sex sexual conduct exists. While clearly allowable, the application or enforcement of the legally-sanctioned death penalty varies across the jurisdictions, with some not having imposed or enacted the penalty for many years or decades, and some never having done so, while others have carried out executions recently and some do so regularly. [1]
As of March 2023, the following jurisdictions allow the death penalty to be imposed for homosexual conduct:
According to the ILGA, there are five UN-member countries where the status of the death penalty as a punishment for same-sex sexual conduct is uncertain. This may be because experts or legal scholars dispute the effect of legal provisions, or because the laws relied upon to potentially sanction the death penalty are the zina provisions which relate to all sexual behaviours outside marriage, with applicability to homosexual relations uncertain, and so far, only theoretical. [4]: 25
As of 2020 [update], these jurisdictions are:
In some regions, gay people have been murdered by Islamist militias and terrorist groups, such as Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in parts of Iraq, Libya, and Syria, the Houthi movement in Yemen, Hamas in the Gaza Strip as well as in Malaysia. [10] [34] [35]
In February 2016 Hamas, [36] [37] which claims control of the Palestinian National Authority and rules Gaza, executed by firing squad Mahmoud Ishtiwi—one of the group's leading commanders—for homosexual activity. [38] [39]
Anti-gay purges in Chechnya, a predominantly Muslim region of Russia, have included forced disappearances—secret abductions, imprisonment, and torture—by local Chechen authorities targeting persons based on their perceived sexual orientation. [40] Of one hundred men, whom authorities detained on suspicion of being gay or bisexual, three have reportedly died after being held in what human rights groups and eyewitnesses have called concentration camps. [41] [42]
Extrajudicial killings have occurred in Iraq. [43] Cases include abductions, torture, rape and murder by vigilante mobs, militia and other perpetrators. LGBT people living in fear of their lives, campaigners Human Rights Watch (HRW) and IraQueer found. HRW's LGBT rights researcher Rasha Younes said: "LGBT Iraqis live in constant fear of being hunted down and killed by armed groups with impunity, as well as arrest and violence by Iraqi police, making their lives unliveable." [44]
In Malaysia, extrajudicial murders of LGBT people have also occurred. [45] [46] [47] There are no Malaysian laws that protect the LGBT persons from discrimination and hate crimes. [47]
Reports of killings by mobs and vigilantes, family violence, and other abuse from the community towards LGBT persons [48] [49] [50] [51] have been reported in regions of Africa heavily influenced by conservative Christianity and Islam. Such incidents have occurred in: Algeria, [52] Uganda, [53] South Africa, [54] Kenya, [55] Liberia, Ghana, Cameroon, and Senegal. In some locations, police may be unlikely to intervene in incidents or take action on reported abuse; [49] [56] they are at times complicit in the anti-gay violence. [57] Reports of extrajudicial killings of homosexuals have also occurred in the Western world, but are far less common; for example, an Australian study, published in 2000 by the Australian Institute of Criminology, found that of the 454 male homicides between 1989 and 1999 in the state New South Wales, just 37 were fuelled by homophobia. [58]
Australian states and territories first passed laws against homosexuality during the colonial era, and nineteenth-century colonial parliaments retained provisions which made homosexual activity a capital offence until 1861. [59] Most jurisdictions removed capital punishment as a sentence for homosexual activity, although in Victoria it remained as such when committed while also inflicting bodily harm or to a person younger than the age of fourteen until 1949. [59] The last person arrested for homosexual sex in Australia was a man in 1984 in Tasmania. [60] The last part of Australia to legalise consensual homosexual sex between adults was Tasmania in 1997. In 2017, same-sex marriage was legalised by the Australian government. [61] [62]
Of the seven men[ citation needed] in Australian history known to have been executed for sodomy, six cases involved the sexual abuse of minors; [d] only one of the seven cases was for consensual acts between adults. [63] In that sole case, Alexander Browne was hanged at Sydney on 22 December 1828 for sodomy with his shipmate William Lyster on the whaler Royal Sovereign; Lyster was also convicted and sentenced to death, but his sentence was commuted before execution. [64] Joseph Fogg was hanged at Hobart on 24 February 1830 for an "unnamed crime", also described in one source as an "abominable crime". [65] [66] The exact nature of his crime is unclear; while likely a same-sex sexual offence given the labels applied ('unnamed', 'abominable'), it is uncertain whether it was for an adult consensual act, same-sex rape, or abuse of a minor. [67]
During the period of Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945, homosexual men were persecuted with thousands being imprisoned in concentration camps (and eventually extermination camps) by the Nazi regime. Roughly 5,000–15,000 were sent to the concentration camps, with the death rate being estimated to be as high as 60%. Homosexuals in the camps suffered an unusual degree of cruelty by their captors, including being used as target practice on shooting ranges. [68] [69] [70]
In a 1937 speech, Himmler argued that SS men who had served sentences for homosexuality should be transferred to a concentration camp and shot when trying to escape. This policy was never implemented, and some SS men were acquitted on homosexuality charges despite evidence against them. [71] A few death sentences against SS men for homosexual acts were pronounced between 1937 and 1940. [72] In a speech on 18 August 1941, Hitler argued that homosexuality should be combatted throughout Nazi organizations and the military. In particular, homosexuality in the Hitler Youth must be punished by death in order to protect youth from being turned into homosexuals, however the Hitler Youth never implemented this policy. [73]
After learning of Hitler's remark, Himmler decided that the SS must be at least as tough on homosexuality and drafted a decree mandating the death penalty to any member of the SS and police found guilty of engaging in a homosexual act. Hitler signed the decree on 15 November 1941 on the condition that there be absolutely no publicity, worried that such a harsh decree might lend fuel to left-wing propaganda that homosexuality was especially prevalent in Germany. Since it could not be published in the SS newspaper, the decree was communicated to SS men one-on-one by their superiors. However, this was not done consistently and many arrested men asserted that they had no knowledge of the decree. [73]
Even after the decree, only a few death sentences were pronounced. [74] [75] Himmler often commuted the sentence especially if he thought that the accused was not a committed homosexual, but had suffered a one-time mistake (particularly while drunk). Many of those whose sentence was commuted were sent to serve in the Dirlewanger Brigade, a penal unit on the Eastern Front, where most were killed. [74] After late 1943, because of military losses, it was the policy to recycle SS men convicted of homosexuality into the Wehrmacht. [76]
The 1933 law on habitual criminals also allowed for execution after the third conviction. [77] On 4 September 1941 a new law allowed the execution of dangerous sex offenders or habitual criminals when "the protection of the Volksgemeinschaft or the need for just atonement require it". This law enabled authorities to pronounce death sentences against homosexuals, and is known to have been employed in four cases in Austria. [78] [79] In 1943, Wilhelm Keitel, head of the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, authorized the death penalty for soldiers convicted of homosexuality in "particularly serious cases". [80] [81] Only a few executions of homosexual Wehrmacht soldiers are known, mostly in conjunction with other charges, especially desertion. [80] Some homosexuals were executed at Nazi euthanasia centers, such as Bernburg or Meseritz-Obrawalde. It is difficult to estimate the number of homosexuals directly killed during the Nazi era. [82]
From 1533, under the Buggery Act 1533, capital felony for any person to "commit the detestable and abominable vice of buggery with mankind or beast", was enacted, repealed and re-enacted several times by the Crown, until it was reinstated permanently in 1563. Homosexual activity remained a capital offence until 1861. [83] The last execution took place on 27 November 1835 when James Pratt and John Smith were hanged outside Newgate Prison in London.
During the colonial era of American history, the various European nations which established colonies in the Americas brought their pre-existing laws against homosexuality (which included capital punishment) with them. The establishment of the United States after their victory in the Revolutionary War did not bring about any changes in the status of capital punishment as a sentence for being convicted of homosexual behavior. Beginning in the 19th century, the various state legislatures passed legislation which ended the status of capital punishment being used for those who were convicted of homosexual behavior. South Carolina was the last state, in 1873, to repeal the death penalty for homosexual behaviour from its statute books. The number of times the penalty was carried out is unknown. Records show there were at least two executions, and a number of more convictions with vague labels, such as "crimes against nature". [83]
In July 2020, the sodomy law that previously punished gay men with up to 100 lashes for the first offence, five years in jail for the second and the death penalty the third time around was abolished, with new legislation reducing the penalty to prison terms ranging from five years to life. Sudanese LGBT+ activists hailed the reform as a 'great first step', but said it was not enough yet, and the end goal should be the decriminalisation of same-sex sexual activity altogether. [84]
"... 'full legal certainty' is understood as the absence of disputes about whether the death penalty can be legally imposed for consensual same-sex sexual conduct. This legal certainty may be derived from the existence of written, codified laws unequivocally prescribing the death penalty for same-sex conduct ... Conversely, the lack of clear provisions mandating the death penalty for consensual same-sex sexual acts, the existence of disputes between scholars and experts with regard to the interpretation of ambiguous provisions, and the need for judicial interpretation of certain 'generic' crimes to encompass consensual same-sex sexual acts has led ILGA World to classify the remaining five UN Member States ... as jurisdictions where there is no full legal certainty.
"It bears mentioning that in all five states ... there is full certainty that the alternative in default of the death penalty is always a provision of law criminalising consensual same-sex sexual acts with corporal punishment, imprisonment and/or a fine. Therefore, this uncertainty does not hinge on 'criminalisation vs non-criminalisation', but rather on the severity of the penalties imposed."
A 2019 de facto moratorium on the death penalty remained in place.
According to Human Dignity Trust, the death penalty is implemented in Iran, Northern Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Somalia and Yemen, and remains a "legal possibility" in Afghanistan, Brunei, Mauritania, Pakistan, Qatar and UAE.
The moratorium is still in place, but the human rights situation in Brunei remains appalling.
Lawyers in the country and other experts disagree on whether federal law prescribes the death penalty for consensual homosexual sex or only for rape. In a recent Amnesty International report, the organization said it was not aware of any death sentences for homosexual acts.
"However, it is through the Sharia code that the death penalty theoretically can apply to same-sex sexual relations through the offence of Zina, which applies to sexual relations outside of marriage of any sort. However, it appears that the law is used in rape cases only although in some cases courts have gone beyond codified laws and imposed harsher sentences of stoning and flogging for Zina crimes."
The penalty for conviction of same-sex relations is a fine, two years to life imprisonment, or both...the Hudood Ordinance of 1979 criminalizes sexual intercourse outside of marriage in accordance with sharia, with penalties of whipping or, potentially, death. There have been disputes as to whether the Hudood Ordinance notionally applies to both opposite-sex and same-sex conduct, but there were no known cases of the government applying the ordinance to same-sex conduct, and there have been no known cases of executions for homosexuality.
"Both civil law and sharia criminalize consensual same-sex sexual conduct between adults. Under sharia individuals ... could be subject to the death penalty. Dubai's penal code allows for up to a 10-year prison sentence for conviction of such activity, while Abu Dhabi's penal code allows for up to a 14-year prison sentence. There were no known reports of arrests or prosecutions for consensual same-sex conduct" [in 2021].
UNITED ARAB EMIRATES: Adultery is punishable by stoning under the penal code enacted in 1987. Courts rarely issue stoning sentences but it has happened occasionally. In 2007, the courts upheld a stoning sentence of a man convicted of having sex with his four stepdaughters. It's not known whether the sentence was carried out. The girls were sentenced to 80 lashes each even though they had been forced into the relationships. In 2005, a Bangladeshi man was sentenced to stoning for adultery. An Indonesian woman was similarly sentenced in 2000 even though she told the court she had been raped. Both sentences were later reduced to one year and deportation.
Without prejudice to the provisions of the Law on juvenile delinquents and displaced, death penalty shall be imposed on whoever used coercion in having sexual intercourse with a female or sodomy with a male.
— Ministry of Justice, UAE (English version as provided), Official Gazette of UAE, issue 182 (1987)
...some scholars ... interpret ... [this provision] as applicable to consensual same-sex sexual activity, while others hold that 'it takes a stretch to read [it] as a criminalisation of consensual sex with the Arabic word for coercive syntactically placed as it is'.
— ILGA World, State-Sponsored Homophobia (2020), p. 82
This morning, the awful sentence of the law was carried into execution upon four other persons, viz.-John Jones and Samuel Killen, for sheep-stealing; Joseph Fogg, for a nameless offence, and Thomas Goodwin, for cutting and maiming with intent the kill.