Armenia’s first registered transgender woman has received death threats after making a speech in her country’s national assembly. Lilit Martirosyan became the first member of her country’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community to take to the parliamentary podium, speaking out against discrimination at a session of its committee on human rights. Martirosyan expressed solidarity with a community that has been “tortured, raped, kidnapped, subjected to physical violence, burned, immolated, knifed, subjected to murder attempt, killed, emigrated, and robbed”. She said transgender people in Armenia are subjected “to stigma and discrimination in social, medical, legal, economic areas, and … [are left] unemployed, poor and morally abandoned”. The speech, two weeks ago, has since sparked a backlash in Armenia, where homosexuality has been decriminalised but discrimination against LGBT people is rife. There have been anti-LGBT protests in front of the national assembly and verbal attacks made by some parliamentarians have included calls for her to be burned alive. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and the main opposition have tried to blame each other for allowing Martirosyan’s speech. “This was the first time in Armenia when a transgender woman spoke from a high podium … of violence against transgender people,” Martirosyan said. “[A] transphobic man with a knife came to the national assembly to announce that he would kill me and that others like me must be killed, too … I have received many messages via Facebook and email from various people telling that they will find and kill me. Martirosyan said the home addresses of several people who work for Right Side, the transgender rights organisation she created in 2016, have been leaked and her address has been spread across the internet by extremist groups who have threatened to “kill them if we find them”. Nationalists carrying Armenian flags have gathered outside her house, she said. The UN office in Armenia said it was “concerned about the recent rise in hate speech and threats of violence” against human rights and LGBT activists. “Neither threats of violence nor any form of discrimination against any group or individual can be tolerated,” it said in a statement. France holds first ‘Armenia genocide’ remembrance day, despite fury from Turkey’s President Erdogan The EU echoed those concerns, saying “hate speech, including death threats directed at Ms Lilit Martirosyan, her colleagues and the LGBTI community as a whole … amount to discrimination prohibited under the European convention on human rights and fundamental freedoms, to which Armenia is party, and which is reflected in the constitution of Armenia”. Martirosyan, the first Armenian able to get a passport under a new name in 2015, told parliament that at least 283 crimes against transgender people had been registered up until last year. “For me, it means there are 283 criminals in Armenia living next to me and you. And who knows, maybe the 284th will commit their crime just tomorrow,” she said. Her speech was condemned by the chairman of the parliamentary session. Vartan Ghukasian, from the opposition BHK party, was quoted by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty as saying “perverts” must be expelled from Armenia. Brunei transgender teen seeks asylum in Canada after passing of Islamic laws to punish gays, adultery and rape with death “Send them to Holland,” Ghukasian said. “We want … females to be females and males to be males. You can’t mix female with male. It’s shameful.” Hayk Hakobyan, founder of the Rainbow Armenia Initiative, was among several LGBT activists attacked by a mob last year. Some were injured by a crowd that threw stones at them. Hakobyan has since been forced to leave the country, and is seeking asylum in the Netherlands. He said Armenian society is hostile: “I left Armenia because I was attacked and banished from my home. I fled Armenia because there is no justice in my country.” Hakobyan said there had been no positive development for the LGBTI community since Pashinyan came to power. “The corruption and arbitrary decisions within the juridical system continue,” he said. “The people who attacked me and my friends in August 2018 received a pardon for their crimes and are now free criminals that promote the idea of violence against the LGBT people. This [sets] a precedent where the people of Armenia can see that violence against LGBT is unpunished.”