However, this form of intense contact tracing among Itaewon visitors risks exposing their LGBTQ+ identities to the public. Given that South Korea’s legal system provides little protection against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, many of these people may face societal stigma, financial and personal consequences. 

South Korea’s extensive contact tracing efforts of the approximately 5,500 people who visited Itaewon during that week began with phone numbers, but moved to location tracking through credit card data, security camera footage and home visits if the provided phone numbers were fake or calls went unanswered. About 3,000 of those phone numbers were useless, prompting visits from Seoul authorities. 

The Chicago Council on Global Affairs quoted Itaewon-attendee Lee Youngwu in an interview, where he spoke about the impact of these tracing efforts and subsequent identity exposure.

“My credit card company told me that they passed on my payment information in the district to the authorities,” he said. “I feel so trapped and hunted down. If I get tested, my company will most likely find out I’m gay. I’ll lose my job and face a public humiliation. I feel as if my whole life is about to collapse. I have never felt suicidal before and never thought I would, but I am feeling suicidal now.” 

This pattern of the government ignoring and endangering LGTBQ+ people and their concerns is not new in South Korea. Although male and female homosexuality is not illegal, civil unions, marriages and partner benefits are not legally recognized. Further, there is no protection against employment discrimination. 

Gay men in the military “engaging in homosexual behavior” may spend up to two years in prison according to the military penal code. South Korea’s military is equally discriminatory against transgender people. In January 2020, staff sergeant and tank driver Byun Hui-su was discharged from the military after undergoing gender reassignment the previous December in Thailand. While her superiors were initially supportive of Byun’s decision, anti-LGBTQ+ protestors called for her immediate dismissal and convinced the army’s review board to follow suit. Byun had been an active military member since March 2017 and appealed unsuccessfully for reinstatement as a female soldier. 

In March 2021, Byun was found dead in her home at age 23. Unable to get in contact with Byun since Feb. 28, her worried counselor at Sangdanggu National Mental Health Center called police. The cause was later determined to be suicide. 

In October 2021, a landmark verdict came in a South Korean court’s ruling that Byun’s dismissal was unlawful and discriminatory. The army’s previous justification was based on a law that allowed the discharge of soldiers with physical or mental disabilities unrelated to combat or service; Byun’s “loss of male genitals” was considered a disability. Despite this win for the LGBTQ+ community, there has still been no rule change to allow transgender people into the military.

LGBTQ+ couples are also not permitted to adopt children. More recently, in early 2021, Seoul’s Ministry of Gender Equality and Family announced its plans to expand the definition of family so that single parents and unwed but cohabiting couples are considered legal families. This new definition explicitly excludes LBGTQ+ couples.

LGBTQ+ youth also face a unique set of challenges within the academic environment. A report by Human Rights Watch and the Allard K. Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic identifies some of these concerns in a report as “bullying and harassment, a lack of confidential mental health support, exclusion from school curricula, and gender identity discrimination.” These problems are exacerbated by a lack of support from school staff and administration, leading students to fear that they may breach confidentiality or criticize their identities. Teachers receive no mandated training on working with LGBTQ+ students, and any formal education of LGBTQ+ issues is nonexistent.

Furthermore, youth who have used counseling centers and crisis hotlines created specifically for mental health assistance find these services to be unaffirming and at times openly critical of LGBTQ+ identities.  

Attempts at passing anti-discrimination legislation have been contentious and unsuccessful, often facing heavy opposition from religious and conservative groups. A 2007 anti-discrimination bill designed to reinforce South Korea’s basic human rights commitment received backlash because of its specification to protect sexual minorities. Co-sponsors of the bill again attempted to pass it in 2010 and 2013 before it was ultimately repealed. A 2014 bi-partisan bill designed to educate government employees on human rights was also repealed after Christian and conservative groups accused it of promoting homosexuality. 

Perhaps one of the most controversial pieces of legislation was the Seoul City Charter of Human Rights, pledged by Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon during the 2014 election and designed to help sustain and respect human rights. After a Citizens’ Committee review, 45 of the 50 clauses initially included in the charter were unanimously approved. However, among the five rejected clauses was one that prohibited sexual orientation and sexual identity discrimination. Under the pressure of protests from both Protestant and conservative groups as well as LGBTQ+ advocacy groups, the Seoul Metropolitan Government announced that the rest of the charter needed to be passed unanimously. The votes were split, and after further backlash, the charter was officially repealed.

Since the mid-1990s, South Korea has seen the creation of several LGBTQ+ activist groups and organizations. Among them are Chingusai for gay men and Kirikiri for lesbian women, established in 1994 as successors to Chodonghwe, one of the nation’s oldest minority rights organizations. Chingusai’s website claims one hundred offline members and around 5,000 Internet members. 

Chingusai has a number of missions, including activism for the rights of non-traditional families, anti-discrimination in the military, HIV and AIDS advocacy and other educational and counseling programs. Kirikiri, which has since been renamed to the Lesbian Counseling Center in South Korea, offered a place for lesbians to connect with each other, provided counseling to deal with social discrimination and protested against biased media reports.

Another growing organization is Dding Dong, an LGBTQ+ Youth Crisis Support Center equipped with a kitchen, sleeping area, shower room, consultation room and an open hall with computers for educational and recreational programs. This center provides a temporary, safe space for LGBTQ+ youth to spend time and rest without being targeted for their sexuality by family or peers, but is only able to remain open for ten hours a day, five days a week due to lack of government funds. 

According to the website, the organization’s name has a double meaning. Dding Dong is a “Korean slang used among lesbian teens when they notice each other” and is often abbreviated to just Dding. Dding Dong is also the Korean onomatopoeia for the sound of a doorbell ringing, tied in with their logo of a house to symbolize that Korean LGBTQ youth will always be welcome when they ring the “doorbell.”

The only LGBTQ+ crisis center in Korea, the website says that “DDing Dong will always be with Korean sexual minority teens so that they will not lose pride and confront hate with dignity.”

One of Dding Dong’s coordinators is Park Edhi, a transgender woman living in Seoul. Park, who attended Byun Hui-su’s funeral, says that being transgender in South Korea means having her identity constantly questioned. Her official documents still do not reflect that Park is transgender, which makes basic services like applying for a credit card challenging.

On the issue of establishing and securing equal rights for its LGBTQ+ citizens, South Korea still has significant progress to make. Just recently, the Seoul Administrative Court rejected a gay couple’s lawsuit against a health insurance company for revoking the couple’s spousal benefits. However, human rights groups continue to campaign against discrimination and society’s perspectives on homosexuality are slowly becoming more accepting among the younger generations. 

For the benefit of minority groups, the South Korean government should yield less to the demands of conservative and religious groups, and instead reflect the growing will of its people by taking initiative and opportunities like this lawsuit to push towards progressivism.

This 14-year long plan was announced in 2016 by Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and aims to reduce Saudi Arabia’s dependency on the oil industry. This plan includes several infrastructure, education and renewable energy projects, but by far the most ambitious project within this 2030 vision is the city of Neom. 

The city of Neom is the prince’s crown jewel and he expects that it will put the country on the international stage and not only manage to be the face of sustainable development, city building and living, but also a major hub for travel, tourism and transportation. 

The city is planned to be developed in the Tabuk province, which is located in the northwest part of the country. The area borders the Red Sea to the south, Jordan to the north and the Gulf of Aqaba to the west, across from which is Egypt’s Sinai peninsula. 

Construction has already begun after Neom’s announcement at the Future Investment Initiative conference in Riyadh on October 24, 2017. Neom Bay, which includes some resorts and luxury apartments, has already begun construction. Additionally, Neom Bay Airport was inaugurated in 2019 and will serve as a temporary hub until the main airport is finished. 

The project has been estimated to cost around $500 billion dollars and set to open the first stage by 2025 with the main attraction being The Line, a city shaped in a straight line that will run 170km from the coast towards the inland desert and would take up $200 billion from the budget. The city is planned to be a fully sustainable project that would rely 100% on renewable energies to run. The project would also, according to the Saudi government, create 380,000 jobs and increase its GDP by $48 billion. 

“Why should we sacrifice nature for the sake of development?” Prince Mohammed said in the televised announcement of The Line in January. “We need to transform the concept of a conventional city into that of a futuristic one.”

According to the Saudi government, The Line would consist of three different levels. On the ground floor there would be an uninterrupted pedestrian walkway with parks. The second level would have the services, stores and other commercial spaces. And the third level would be what is being called The Spine. 

In the same announcement made by bin Salman, he mentioned that the city is being built with a future population of one million people in mind. He further stated that all of these people would be just five minutes away from any good or service they would need for their day to day lives. 

The Neom project and more recently The Line have been heavily promoted online and are widely seeking additional foreign investment to help develop the city. Several YouTube advertisements and videos as well as viral explanatory videos have been key to the growing awareness of the project abroad. 

This ambitious project, however, has also raised some questions and concerns surrounding the true intentions behind its construction, as well as the ethical aspects that surround the city building as well as the country as a whole. 

One major controversy surrounding Neom is the current and future displacement of the Al-Huwaitat tribe. With around 20,000 people facing eviction and many Al-Huwaitat advocates being killed in the past years, the project has faced international backlash from several NGOs across the world. On April 13, 2020, Abdul Rahim al-Huwaiti, one of the main advocates from the tribe, was killed by Saudi security forces in what they allege was self defence as Al-Huwaiti had fired first. Al-Huwaiti was a major critic of the Neom project, and many suspect that this could have been the reason for his death. 

“They have begun the process of removing people, beginning with surveying homes with the intent of removing people and deporting them from their land,” said Al-Huwaiti on a video recorded on the day of his death referring to the Saudi forces reaching his hometown. “They arrested anyone who said they’re against deportation, they don’t want to leave, they want to remain [in]their homes, that they don’t want money.”

Despite highlighting on the promotional website that the city will be built on “virgin land,” the testimonies from local tribes say otherwise. This is one of the major controversies that the Neom project faces, but with the recent announcement of The Line it seems like the Saudi government will continue the city’s development. 

This project is also very important for Saudi Arabia, not only due to its potential revenue in tourism and investment, but it will also allow for Saudi Arabia to assume strategic control of trade and transit within the region and beyond. 

The area where Neom will be developed is adjacent to the Strait of Tiran, where the Saudi administered islands of Tiran and Sanafir lie just off Egypt’s beach resort city Sharm El Sheikh on the Sinai peninsula. Alongside the plan to build the city, there is a plan to build a bridge connecting both countries by land. 

This bridge would completely change the way the region works as transporting goods through land from Egypt to Saudi Arabia would become possible, completely bypassing the current need to go through Israel. The bridge would also give Saudi Arabia control over the Strait as well, which could potentially increase the country’s influence over Asian exports to Israel. 

This would also help Saudi Arabia become one of the main hubs for travel and transportation, although the development would face fierce competition from neighbouring Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, two countries which have established themselves as powerhouses in the aviation industry with their major airlines Qatar Airways and Emirates respectively. 

The government wants to incentivise investors by establishing Neom as a free trade zone with its own tax and legal system, the latter supposedly being structured around more open and progressive ideals. This contrasts the strict Sharia law that prevails within the rest of the country which has been criticized for numerous human rights violations. This is something similar to what the UAE has already done with Dubai since 2006, where the Emirati government established an international court system to better appeal to the international investors. 

The project as a whole is Prince bin Salman’s attempt at creating a place that can serve as a major source of revenue and international influence for the Saudi government, and which can put the country on the international stage to not only help diversify the economy, but to also extend the reach of the Saudi influence within the global community. 

The positive, progressive and innovative prospects that the city is set to have, however, must be looked at through a critical lens, as the Crown Prince has proved that he may disregard locals or other people that stand in the way of his projects, even when they are within their right to protest the development. 

It remains to be seen if the Saudi government is up to the task of constructing this massive and ambitious project, and if they will be able to deliver on all of their sustainability promises while bettering their efforts to secure an ethical development. 

Since conservative President Andrzej Duda narrowly won reelection in July 2020, LGBT rights in Poland have been placed in even greater jeopardy. In a speech, Duda stated that, “the Polish constitution should include an entry saying that it is forbidden to adopt a child by a person who lives in a single-sex relationship.” In his past term as President Duda stated LGBTQ ideology was “worse than communism.” His rhetoric has empowered hate speech and conflict leaving the future of all LGBT rights in Poland in peril.

Prior to Duda’s reelection, anti-LGBT sentiment erupted into violence last summer when a pride parade in the city of Bialystok led to clashes between paraders and protesters. Anti-LGBT protesters threw bricks, stones and fireworks leading to dozens of injuries; the conflict only subsided after police authorities deployed tear gas to disperse the crowd. 

The European Parliament condemned LGBT discrimination in Poland and called on local Polish governments to revoke their declarations- to no avail. In July, the European Union announced it would not provide funding for an EU program that connects communities across Europe through the “twinning of towns in different countries” to six Polish towns. The town’s that had their funding withheld displayed anti-LGBT sentiment and made bigoted statements. The funding ranged from $6,000 to $29,000 dollars. 

The EU has failed to take any meaningful and punitive action against the Polish government to stop it from oppressing its LGBT citizens. Furthermore, if the EU hopes to prevent growing nationalist and far-right sentiment in Poland, it must send a clear message to the Polish people, urging them to elect more tolerant leaders.

EU Response and Limitations Thus Far

In her first state of the union speech on September 20, EU Commision President Ursula Von Der Leyen said that, “being yourself is not your ideology.” 

“It’s your identity. And no one can ever take it away. So I want to be crystal clear – LGBTQI-free zones are humanity free zones,” Von Der Leyen said. “And they have no place in our Union.” While the Commission president publicly condemned Poland’s anti-LGBT actions, she was unable to offer specific steps the Commision would take to stop the Polish government from employing further discriminating legislation. Von Der Leyen promised to personally “push for mutual recognition of family relations in the EU [for LGBT couples],” which is undoubtedly a positive step for all EU citizens. However, LGBT Poles would still be subject to legislation from their local and national governments making this push practically futile.

The EU Commission’s inability to impose effective punitive action against member states who defy democratic values and violate human rights reveals a larger issue surrounding the legitimacy of the Commision as a whole. A unanimous vote is required to suspend a nation state’s voting rights in the EU, but Hungary and Poland have vowed to veto any sanctions aimed at each other. This effectively makes the two states that have, in recent years, experienced a rise in corruption, authoritarianism and anti-LGBT sentiment immune from accountability. 

What’s worse, since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, Poland and Hungary have received the most EU funding — €7.4 billion and €5.6 billion respectively. In comparison, Italy was hit hardest by the pandemic and received only €2.3 billion in EU funding, according to the European Stability Initiative. Despite their disregard for EU laws on human rights, Poland and Hungary were effectively rewarded through COVID-19 relief funding. The rationale for this inflated funding revolved around Poland and Hungary being newer additions to the EU and having less developed economies compared with other member states. 

The EU had an opportunity to negotiate with Andrzej Duda’s government by attaching conditions to relief funds but failed to effectively do so. 

What can the EU Do Moving Forward? 

While a vote to fully suspend the voting rights of Poland must be unanimous, which would unquestionably be vetoed by Hungary, Article 7 of the Treaty of the EU states that only a four-fifths majority is required to impose sanctions on a member state. The EU should move forward in exercising the powers granted through Article 7 to demonstrate that issues surrounding discrimination, intolerance, and hate will not be given up on. While it is unlikely that the current conservative Polish government will roll back on its  anti-LGBT policies and sentiment, the Polish people could be swayed into voting for more tolerant leadership to stop sanctions from the EU. 

Beyond sanctions, funding could be one of the EU’s most useful tools. The EU has already demonstrated a willingness to revoke funding from regional governments, and it must continue to do so on a larger scale. Giving more funding to Poland than any other EU nation during the COVID-19 crisis is an upsetting case of positive reinforcement when it could have been used as a tool for mediation. While there are significant steps that the EU can take to pressure the Polish government, true change will only arrive if public perception of the LGBT community in Poland is ameliorated. President Andrzej Duda narrowly won the vote by 51.2%, illustrating the feasibility of a shift in Poland’s conservative majority. 

The EU should do everything in its power to push for not only an end to discrimination, but also meaningful improvement for the LGBT community that will occur if the majority of Polish people decide to move towards a more progressive and tolerant future. 

As the upcoming U.S. presidential election nears, the government’s coronavirus response has become a key voter issue. President Donald Trump’s pandemic response has been widely regarded as a failure, with national leaders and public figures on the international stage condemning his initial denial of the virus and his prioritization of the short-term success of the economy over keeping his citizens safe. 

According to the latest NPR poll, over half of Americans disapprove of Trump’s handling of the coronavirus crisis, signalling that this may be a large factor in determining the outcome of the 2020 election. In a move to take advantage of widespread frustration with the President, presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden has unveiled an extensive pandemic response plan, emphasized his prior experience in the press and gone on to attack Trump on the campaign trail and during the first presidential debate.

Biden has continually used harsh rhetoric to signal his general frustration with the Trump pandemic response. In a September 17 town hall, Biden called on Trump to step down due to his failure to prevent the high death count and admonished his poor communication, stating that “what presidents say matter [because]people listen.” The Democratic presidential candidate is expected to continue these coronavirus-related attacks through the rest of the campaign. 

While Trump has put economic prosperity and promises of reopening at the center of his re-election campaign, Biden makes the case that the current recession is a direct result of Trump’s inability to manage the pandemic in the early stages. In contrast with other developed countries, Trump refused to stockpile personal protective equipment and prioritize increased testing during the early stages. As stated by Dr. Anthoni Fauci, a key leadership figure within the U.S. Coronavirus Task Force and the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, this delay was a huge “failing” of the administration. Meanwhile, a centerpiece of Biden’s plan is the “Pandemic Testing Board,” composed of public and private stakeholders working to increase production and distribution of tests. 

In March, Trump invoked the Defense Protection Act in order to push General Motors to produce ventilators amidst public pressure to prepare the country for the worst effects of the virus. Albeit a step in the right direction, critics say that he has not used the act in its totality in the months since and has failed to create a consistent chain of production for vital equipment. Biden has criticized Trump for this misstep throughout the pandemic and states on his campaign website that he will use the act to ramp up production of personal protective equipment. 

Trump’s efforts to seem in control of the pandemic have led to inaccurate assertions by himself and his administration. In a press briefing on September 16, Trump assured the general public that a vaccine would soon be available and that “the mask is not as important as the vaccine.” This was a direct contradiction of conclusions reached by several public health officials, including Dr. Redfield, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Trump also received backlash in March for prematurely presenting hydroxychloroquine as a treatment, a statement which notably led to the death of a man from Arizona after he ingested a nonmedicinal version of the drug. 

Biden’s plan, in contrast, places public health officials at the forefront of communication and decision making. This method was praised by a former senior advisor to President Obama, who said that it is “not only good policy but good politics” that Biden seems reliant on scientific consensus regarding proposals that include a nationwide shutdown and a national mask mandate. 

Other key aspects of Biden’s proposed pandemic response plan include his pledges to push the National Institute of Health to work closely with the Food and Drug Administration in vaccine development, as well as his desire to reinstate a White House Council on global health security. This council was dismantled by Trump in 2018. Biden also stated his intent to eliminate cost-related barriers for coronavirus testing and treatment through increasing Medicaid enrollment, eliminate coronavirus-related co-pays for all commercial healthcare plans, and install an emergency paid leave program. 

In the past, Biden has been a key player in mitigating epidemics during the Obama administration. Although the 2014 Ebola outbreak and the coronavirus differ in a variety of key ways, with COVID-19 being much more infectious and widespread, Joe Biden has stated that his work on the Ebola outbreak demonstrates why he would be highly effective in minimizing the spread of coronavirus. As Vice President, Biden played an important role in organizing the domestic and international efforts to fight Ebola. Biden has asserted that his relationships in Washington can be a powerful tool to secure the best people to battle coronavirus, as evidenced by his work that helped the Obama-Biden administration obtain $5.4 billion to help with the Ebola outbreak. 

The response of the Obama-Biden administration in the face of Ebola was much swifter than the response of the Trump-Pence administration to the coronavirus. When the virus first broke out in 2013, Obama immediately banned travelers from countries in West Africa entering the United States. The administration also put together a plan to screen travelers and isolate people who may have been in contact with the disease. The Obama-Biden administration did not wait until the virus reached the United States to act; rather, they carefully planned and signaled that they understood the grave threat a disease could have been to the American public. 

However, the Obama-Biden administration did not have the same success containing the H1N1 flu in 2009. While the administration understood the severity of the disease, they did not initially act boldly enough to protect Americans. Their biggest mistake as an administration was not producing enough vaccines to meet public demand. H1N1 was less deadly and therefore did not cause immense damage; however, the administration knew then that if a more deadly disease came along in the future, the threat would be catastrophic. While the Obama administration couldn’t completely contain the H1N1 virus, it listened to the public health experts and distributed emergency equipment. In contrast, the Trump administration has routinely ignored the experts and failed to provide enough personal protective equipment.

Biden’s official policy plan, past experience and rhetoric during the campaign all point toward a more stable and scientific response to the coronavirus crisis, should he be elected in November. This is evident in his constant revision and expansion of his pandemic plan throughout his campaign, made possible by multiple weekly briefings by health advisors. However, several policy and public health experts, including those in Biden’s advising committee, have concerns about the potential success of his plans, as they call for strong federal action. Even in the case of a Biden administration, experts are skeptical of whether it is possible to counter the inevitable resistance from Trump supporters regarding policies like national mask mandates.  

Additionally, the extent to which a Biden presidency can bring the American public out of a pandemic is heavily dependent on key U.S. Senate and House of Representative races. While the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act was passed into law on March 25th, providing low-income Americans with a stimulus check of $1,200, Congress has reached a stalemate over a second stimulus package. The polarization of parties around this issue has blocked resolutions as both sides continue to criticize opposing party leaders for inaction regarding a second stimulus bill. 

While Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell proposed a possible relief package on September 8, Speaker Nancy Pelosi has disregarded this effort as weak and “pathetic.” Democratic and Republican members of Congress have been at odds on how much to spend on relief packages, with Democrats arguing for funding in the $2 trillion range and Republicans and the Trump administration refusing to spend that much money. 

This partisanship in the Congress reveals that key Senate and House races could also determine the ability of Biden to effectively carry out a comprehensive pandemic response if elected. While Biden’s impact in the long-term may be limited due to diminished public trust and Congressional partisanship, his greatest strength lies in his emphasis on balancing scientific necessity with liberty. Regarding public health communication and nationwide decisions, a Biden presidency would set a progressive tone and collectivist approach in managing the short-term and long-term impacts of the pandemic.