new report by the international non-governmental organization Human Rights Watch (HRW) includes testimonials from 15 people arrested between 2017 and 2020 for vague charges, including "debauchery" and "prostitution," broad charges that have long been used internationally by police as pretexts for harassing suspected LGBTQ people.In some cases, authorities used the gay social app Grindr and the social media platforms Facebook and WhatsApp to arrange public meetings with suspected LGBTQ people, where those people were subsequently arrested.
Several arrestees said police placed pornographic images on their phones in an attempt to make them seem guilty of obscenity.All 15 interviewees told HRW that police held them from days to months before.