Law Regarding Same-sex Sexual Activity
Albania decriminalized homosexuality in 1995. The age of consent has been equal at 14 for all, regardless of gender and/or sexual orientation, since 2001 (see: Ages of consent in Europe).
In the summer of 1994 the Government of Albania put forward a draft Penal code under which homosexuality would have remained illegal, but with the maximum sentence reduced to three years. A campaign by the Gay Albania Society within Albania, and international pressure orchestrated by ILGA, in which the Council of Europe played an important role, led to the withdrawal of this draft law.
On 20 January 1995 the Albanian Parliament legalized homosexual relations in Albania. Article 137 of the old Penal code promulgated under socialist Albania, which mandated up to ten years of prison for "being homosexual," has thus been done away with completely.
Read more about this topic: LGBT Rights In Albania
Famous quotes containing the words law and/or activity:
“But the creative person is subject to a different, higher law than mere national law. Whoever has to create a work, whoever has to bring about a discovery or deed which will further the cause of all of humanity, no longer has his home in his native land but rather in his work.”
—Stefan Zweig (18811942)
“In literary circles, the men of trust and consideration, bookmakers, editors, university deans and professors, bishops, too, were by no means men of the largest literary talent, but usually of a low and ordinary intellectuality, with a sort of mercantile activity and working talent. Indifferent hacks and mediocrities tower, by pushing their forces to a lucrative point, or by working power, over multitudes of superior men, in Old as in New England.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)