A Chinese court has ordered a mental hospital to issue a public apology and pay compensation to a 38-year-old man after forcing him to undergo conversion therapy. The man was committed to the institution by his wife in 2015. He was subjected to forced medication and injections for 19 days after being diagnosed with “sexual preference disorder.” The court’s ruling [AP report] turned on the fact that the man did not pose a danger to himself or others and did not take a stance on the practice of conversion therapy itself.

LGBTQ+ rights and anti-homosexuality laws have been a matter of international controversy for decades, and have been receiving increasing attention and scrutiny in the past few years. In June the lower house of the German Parliament voted 393-226 [JURIST report] to legalize same-sex marriage. In April Nigeria prosecutors in Kaduna charged 53 men [JURIST report] for celebrating an LGBTQ wedding in violation of the state’s law against ‘unlawful assembly’ and the Same Sex Marriage Prohibition Act . A day earlier Human Rights Watch and other advocacy groups had urged [JURIST report] UN Secretary General António Guterres to investigate alleged abuse against LGBT people in Chechnya. According to the open letter, about 100 gay and bisexual men were detained, tortured, murdered or went missing under the authority of Chechen officials.