While increased Taliban brutality has forced much of Afghanistan’s LGBTQ+ population underground, there’s no doubt the current situation has also brought them together, with friendships blossoming out of a desperate bid to survive.
According to responses to Freedom of Information requests submitted to the UK’s 41 police forces, close to 1,100 reports of domestic abuse have been made against serving police officers and staff in the last five years.
According to research commissioned by the National Housing Federation, around 340,000 new homes need to be supplied each year until 2026, of which 145,000 need to be ‘affordable’.
According to a 2021 report from Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS), there is a ‘staggering variation’ in the way domestic abuse is dealt with across police forces in England and Wales.
According to Freedom of Information figures obtained by Metro.co.uk from the Foreign and Commonwealth Development Office (FCDO), out of the 21,450 Afghan refugees who have been resettled in the UK since the fall of Kabul, just 97 are from the LGBT+ community.
It’s been four weeks since thousands of barristers first walked out of courtrooms across England and Wales in a dispute against dire pay conditions, following decades of government underfunding and cuts to legal aid.
‘Casual homophobia, biphobia and transphobia… It can happen through reaching out to generic organisations, local authorities - and, really, just the world.’
The panic-fuelled chaos that came to define last August’s invasion of Afghanistan may have subsided, but for the LGBT+ people still trapped and facing displacement, the trauma will remain forever ingrained in a psyche already scarred by war.
Exclusive Freedom of Information data obtained by Metro.co.uk reveals that during the period of the European football championship, 26 of the 39 police forces that responded, recorded an increase in the number of domestic abuse reports.
For the hundreds, if not thousands, of LGBT+ Afghans who remain trapped in Kabul, life in their home country was already imbued with a sense of impending danger.
According to the Museum of Homelessness, 967 rough sleeping deaths were recorded across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland last year – 37% higher than the number of fatalities reported in 2019.
Data from May 2020 also revealed that nearly 20% of LGBT+ people were concerned that the coronavirus crisis would lead to substance misuse, or even trigger a relapse.
Homosexuality is already a punishable offence in Afghanistan, but Artemis says the fear within the community is palpable, with many of his friends forced to hide in their homes for fear of being discovered by Taliban fighters.
In the last week, families who received the £80 uplift have been notified via a number of messages in online accounts that their payments will fall from the beginning of October.
A substantial number of homeless applicants are still unable to secure housing, despite legislation designed to prevent people from losing their home, a leading homelessness charity has found.
One of the UK’s leading youth homelessness charities has warned young people are still struggling to access support after recording a “a significant increase” in demand for its helpline this year.
The UK needs a “partnership between the public, the government and businesses” if it is to achieve its post-Brexit “goals”, the shadow international trade secretary has urged.
As part of a new pilot scheme for workplaces, the chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster will be able to skip the normal 10-day quarantine period, and instead take a Covid test every day for a week.
The brother of murdered private detective Daniel Morgan has said he doesn’t believe justice will ever be served after a 34-year quest for answers and an “unwarranted” intervention by the Home Office.
County courts are facing an “eviction avalanche” now the government’s ban on bailiff-led evictions has been lifted, according to a prominent housing specialist.
Speaking to TLE, the former director of communications shed light on the impact of his battle with depression ahead of the publication of his next volume of diaries.
Around two-thirds (68 per cent) of London boroughs said access to affordable housing was a challenge, compared with 40 per cent of local authorities outside of the capital.
Almost 4,000 people have crossed the English Channel, one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world, with 235 individuals intercepted on 6 August alone.
Campaigners are preparing to bring a private prosecution against senior cabinet ministers, including the prime minister, after allegations that the strategy of herd immunity resulted in “avoidable deaths”, TLE can reveal.
While international law recognises that families are entitled to protection in relation to family members, it is left to individual states to define what is meant by ‘family’.
Sir Keir Starmer has criticised the government’s support for the self employed and called on ministers to “ensure all businesses large and small are covered by their schemes”.
The case, which is being brought against the Council of the EU, argues that all UK citizens who were legally defined as EU citizens on 31 January 2020 should retain citizenship regardless of the UK’s departure from the European Union.
Created by political satirist Tom Walker, Pie has become something of a cult figure. Scathing and to-the-point, this rogue reporter has developed the perfect balance of delivering news while at the same time lambasting it.
Hoyle enters the chair at a time of immense upheaval in British politics and has pledged to use his tenure to bring calm to a chamber which has often seen heated and ill-tempered debates over the UK’s attempts to leave the European Union.
A group of campaigners are set to launch legal action against the government in a bid to challenge the removal of EU citizenship when the UK leaves the European Union, TLE can reveal.
Speaking exclusively with TLE, Tony Blair’s former director of communications took aim at large portions of the mainstream media for willingly disseminating government fabrications in a candid interview ahead of the upcoming December election.
Speaking exclusively to TLE, Sir Vince Cable said it had “profoundly wounded” the politics he was once familiar with, but downplayed his party’s role in calling for a vote on EU membership as “fairly ambiguous”.
When it comes to challenging powerful politicians, one private prosecutor thinks that we have yet to see our judiciary “hold powerful politicians to account” in cases of criminal law.
The government has announced plans to prorogue Parliament ahead of the Queen’s speech on 14 October in its latest bid to prevent MPs blocking ‘no deal’.
Unveiled last week, Ofgem announced the cap on average household energy bills would increase by 54% to £1,971 per year, the biggest hike since the cap was first introduced in 2019.
Boroughs in south west London are among the worst in the capital for rising hate crime, with many reporting a spike in offences last year, figures reveal.
He’s played with the likes of Chuck Berry, BB King and even Bill Clinton. But how does an accomplished Black musician go from playing jazz and blues to befriending members of the Ku Klux Klan?
Having been elected as a councillor in 2014, Ali took office last October at the height of the authority’s collapse, following the controversial departure of her predecessor, Tony Newman.
A number of MPs from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) backgrounds have criticised the Government for ‘failing to respond’ to the “life or death consequences of structural racism.”
According to a response to a Freedom of Information request made by SWL, procurement card data shows the cash-strapped authority spent a total of £230,891 at numerous hotels between April 2019 and March 2020.
According to data published by the London Assembly’s Health Committee, some of the highest deaths are in boroughs with a higher percentage of BAME residents.
Responding to a Freedom of Information request, the Ministry of Justice reported that the number of cases waiting to be heard increased from 7,038 in January to 11,356 in August last year, an increase of 46.9%.
By addressing prejudices head-on with an open mind, blues musician Daryl Davis has succeeded in convincing over 200 KKK members and other White supremacists to disavow their allegiances.
Government and transparency are often uncomfortable bedfellows, but this government has taken the meaning of secrecy to a whole new level. With the arrival of Dominic Cummings, Downing Street has stymied accountability and replaced it with vacuous social media stunts.
But Jane was shocked to be told she had made herself homeless by leaving the property, despite her landlord’s instructions. To her horror, even with young children, she was considered ineligible for rehousing.
