The leader of one of the parties in Uzbekistan’s government coalition announced that they are working on a law to ban LGBTQ+ “propaganda” in the Central Asia country. And they’re giving credit to Donald Trump for the move.

Alisher Qodirov is the leader of the Milliy Tiklanish (National Revival) party, which, along with the Liberal Democrats, controls the lower chamber of the parliament of Uzbekistan. He posted on the social media network Telegram that his party is working on a draft law to ban discussions of LGBTQ+ people.

In the post, he referenced a post written by Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump, where she promoted her father’s opposition to “inappropriate sexual content” and “transgender ideology” in schools. The idea that schools are teaching children to be transgender or exposing them to gay sexual content is false and has been used to ban all mentions of LGBTQ+ people in schools in certain states and school districts in the U.S.

“The change in the center of the disease is very good,” Qodirov wrote. “We are working on adopting a law prohibiting any kind of propaganda in this regard.”

Homosexuality is currently illegal in the Muslim-majority nation, punishable by up to three years in prison. It is one of only two post-Soviet states (along with Turkmenistan) to ban homosexuality. There are no protections against anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination or hate crimes.

A 2021 Human Rights Watch report noted that gay and bi men in Uzbekistan face abuse from vigilante mobs as well as the police. 

“Because of the violence and discrimination that LGBT people are subjected to, we had to stop most of [our] projects, news feeds or groups online,” one activist told Human Rights Watch. “We’ve gone completely underground.”

Five men told the organization that they have had to pay bribes of up to $1000 to keep police from outing them to their families or to the public.

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