The Israel Prison Service has announced its prisoner’s ordinance allows conjugal visits for homosexual prisoners
Homosexual prisoners in Israel have now been granted conjugal visits.
Gay and lesbian prisoners in Israel have been granted the same conjugal visitation rights as straight prisoners.
According to the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), the Israel Prison Service has revised its conjugal visit policy after years of refusing to let homosexual prisoners commune with their partners.
ACRI chief legal counsel attorney Dan Yakir, who has challenged the lack of conjugal visitation rights for homosexual prisoners since 2009, said in a statement: ‘This is another important step in consolidating the understanding that homosexual relationships are no less worthy than heterosexual relationships.
‘It’s a shame that the transformation in LGBT legal rights has only now reached the prison service. Human rights, including the right to equality, does not end at the prison gate.’
ACRI reports the first challenge to the same-sex conjugal visit policy occurred in 2006 when a gay prisoner filed a petition to meet with his male partner. The Tel Aviv District Court rejected the petition, and the prisoner never took his grievance to the Supreme Court because he completed his jail sentence.
Israeli news source Haaretz reports that the prison service said the policy has not in fact changed because it always included both heterosexual and homosexual couples. The prison service said that previous requests by homosexual prisoners were rejected because they were not married or in common-law relationships.
by Jean Paul Zapata
Source – Gay Star News
