Gay activists in India want British apology for sex law

London, Aug.16 : Activists in India are about to demand another apology from Britain.

Sixty-six years after Mahatma Gandhi called on the British to leave India from the August Kranti Maidan in Mumbai, thousands of gay activists will gather in the same park today to call on the British Government to apologise for introducing anti-sodomy laws that still make homosexuality illegal in India today.

Their call will be issued during the first gay pride march in Mumbai for three years and is part of a wider campaign to abolish Section 377 of the Indian penal code which outlaws "unnatural sexual offences" and theoretically punishes anal or oral sex with up to 10 years in prison.

In practice no one has been prosecuted under the law in the past two decades but officials have used it to counter the work of HIV activists in some Indian states, reports The Independent.

Gay rights campaigners also argue that because Section 377 enshrines homophobia in India's legal systems it also legitimizes the continued repression of gay men and women in the wider Indian society.

ANI