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Sunil Pant, founder of Nepal's GLBT advocacy group the Blue Diamond Society (BDS), will take one of the five seats won by his country's communist party in April 10 elections.

"We have chosen Sunil Babu Pant as our candidate to ensure the rights of gay and other minority groups," Ganesh Shah, general secretary of the Communist Party of Nepal (United), told reporters. "He will be the first person to represent Nepal's gay community."

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Representing a sexual minority I will make sure the new constitution protects sexual groups, people with disabilities, small indigenous castes, and others," Pant was quoted after his election.

As president of BDS, Pant has successfully pressured Nepal's Supreme Court to order the country's lawmakers to protect the rights of gay people, a directive so far resisted by the government.

According to BDS, members of Nepal's GLBT community are arbitrarily arrested, beaten, and tortured by police. 365Gay.com reports that in 2006, 26 transsexuals were arrested in a single raid in Katmandu and held incommunicado for weeks. BDS reports that HIV prevention workers in Nepal are routinely harassed by police, and cites the March 2008 closing of Katmandu's only hospice for gay men with HIV/AIDS, funded by the Elton John Foundation, as further evidence of governmental intolerance.