Lebanon: Culture minister moves to ban ‘Barbie’ movie for ‘promoting homosexuality’
The “Barbie” movie was taken off the screens on Wednesday by Lebanon’s government, who claimed it promoted homosexuality and went against the country’s core values.
After pushing back the film’s release date to late August, Lebanon’s culture minister Mohammad Mortada reportedly outlawed it from theaters because it goes against the country’s “moral and religious values as well as the principles,” according to state-run media on Wednesday.
According to the Lebanese state-run media on Wednesday, the minister said the film also “promotes sexual deviance and transsexuality”. The Middle East frequently refers to homosexuals as “Sexual deviance”.
The ban comes at a time when some politicians and government representatives in Lebanon and the larger Middle East are using more anti-LGBTQ rhetoric.
At a speech marking Ashura, which commemorates the killing of Hussain bin Ali, the Prophet Mohammed’s grandson, in the 7th century, Hassan Nasrallah, the head of Lebanon’s Shiite Islamist Hezbollah movement, launched a tirade against homosexuals.
The same-sex relationships were described as a “threat” to Lebanon, and he called homosexuality a “sexual perversion”.
Days earlier, Nasrallah urged the use of derogatory language against the LGBTQ community in a video message, and called for their punishment.
Human Rights Watch said in a report that following the speech, LGBTQ individuals have reported being harassed online and receiving death threats.
The government has been harshly repressing LGBTQ events, despite Lebanon once being regarded as one of the Middle East’s most socially liberal nations.
Source-CNN
