Philipp Braun (activist)

Philipp Braun (* 1967 in Tübingen ) is a gay activist and former federal director of the LSVD . From 2006 to 2009 he was one of the two general secretaries of ILGA .

As a non-governmental organization, the ILGA is the official homosexual and transgender agency in the EU . Within the LSVD, Braun was responsible for representation abroad. He is a social democrat .

Philipp Braun has been active in the gay movement since the early 1990s . He was instrumental in the campaign for the Brazilian UN resolution against homosexual discrimination and in the LSVD campaign against anti-gay lyrics in reggae music.

In April 2005 Braun gave his first speech to the Human Rights Commission in Geneva and was head of the UN human rights panel “In Union: how can workers' rights and the struggle for equality for sexual minorities advance together” at the Palais des Nations in Geneva (formerly the seat of the League of Nations ). This took place in cooperation with the umbrella organization of the worldwide trade unions and with the support of the Federal Foreign Office .

Studies and further career

Braun studied mathematics and computer science in Tübingen . He graduated from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh with a Master of Science in Engineering and Public Policy . He was also a PhD student in the Graduate Program in Media Studies at the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Colorado at Boulder .

Braun works full-time as a consultant at a federal authority in Bonn.

Deployment before the UN Human Rights Commission

Braun spoke on April 5, 2005 as LSVD spokesman in Geneva before the UN Human Rights Commission (HRC) and called for the observance of the human rights of lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender people ( LGBT ). Braun spoke on behalf of the Canadian HIV / AIDS Legal Network . The background is that no LGBT organizations are accredited at the UN.

Braun stated that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights also covers the civil and political rights of lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender people. Demanding these rights is necessary even after more than 100 years of emancipation movement. Homosexuality is still criminalized in over 70 countries.

The continued violation of human rights by homosexuals contradicts a ruling by the UN Human Rights Committee in 1994 , according to Braun . At that time, in the Toonen v. Australia case, the committee ruled that laws prohibiting consensual sexuality between two people of the same sex were against the International Covenant violate civil and political rights .