(Nigeria) - The Nigerian parliament is once again dealing with a Bill prohibiting same sex marriage. This is the third attempt to pass such piece of legislation in Nigeria. We asked Davis Mac-Iyalla to provide us some more informations. Read more...
(USA) - As part of Bibi's outreach to our communities, Bibi|SF will be hosting talks on various issues affecting queer South West Asian, North Africans (aka Middle-Easterners). Its first engagement is with Arsham Parsi of the IRanian Queer Organization on Thursday, June 26 at the SF LGBT Center. Read more...
(USA) - Gay human rights activists in San Francisco staged a speak out at the Russian consulate on May 16, in conjunction with IDAHO events around the planet. Before showing up at the consulate, the group sent emails to the staff explaining their reason for coming -- to press the government to grant parade permits to Moscow's Gay pride event. Read more...
(London) - Speaking at the London IDAHO event on 16 May, hosted by Amnesty International and the Gay & Lesbian Humanist Association, Peter Tatchell of the LGBT human rights group OutRage! challenged the UK asylum policy. Read more...
(UK) - The bus bearing the Olympic torch was today ambushed outside Selfridges department store in Oxford Street, London, by Gay human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell of OutRage! Mr Tatchell ran in front of the bus carrying the Olympic flame. He held up a placard which read: "Free Tibet, Free Hu Jia." He shouted the same words as he ran along in front of the bus. The police wrestled Mr Tatchell to the ground, which delayed the bus briefly while he was removed to pavement. After questioning, he was later released without charge. Read more...
(UK) - The British Government is currently failing Gay refugees, Peter Tatchell told a rally in Whitehall, outside the Prime Minister’s official residence 10 Downing Street. Over 120 protesters braved hail and rain on Saturday to demand that Gay Iranian asylum seeker, Mehdi Kazemi, be granted refuge in the UK. They also urged asylum for the Iranian Lesbian refugee, Pegah Emambakhsh, and an estimated 12 other Gay Iranians who are at risk of deportation back to Tehran. There were calls for a “fundamental reform” of the way the Home Office treats LGBTI asylum applicants. “The British government had ordered Mr Kazemi to be deported back to Iran,” said protest speaker Peter Tatchell, spokesperson for the LGBTI human rights group OutRage!.
Note: Read more on UK Gay News
(UK) - The British Government is coming under pressure from members of both houses of Parliament, mainly Liberal Democrats, to “come clean” about policies on who are deported to Iran – especially Gay men and women. At lunchtime at Prime Minister’s Question in the House of Commons, Greg Mulholland, the Liberal Democrat MP for Leeds North West, raised the matter, complaining about refugees being deported to Iran.
Note: Read more on UK Gay News
(UK) - The British government announced Thursday that it was ending efforts to deport Mehdi Kazemi, a 19-year-old Iranian who has been studying in Britain – a move that should be applauded by human rights activists everywhere. Had he been forced to return to Iran, Kazemi would almost certainly have been executed there. Roger Roberts, one of eight members of the House of Lords who petitioned British Home Secretary Jacqui Smith to allow Kazemi to stay in Britain, declared: “There is no doubt that he will be persecuted and possibly face state-sanctioned murder if he is forced to return.”
Note: Read more on FrontPageMagazine
(Canada) - The Canadian Refugee Board needs to establish clearer guidelines on sexual orientation to help adjudicators avoid stereotyping Gay and Lesbian refugees who have little proof they are Gay, say legal experts. Last week MP Thomas Mulcair exploded at hecklers in the Commons and later shed tears at a news conference after Immigration Minister Diane Finley refused to allow Canada's latest Gay refugee claimant Kulenthiran Amirthalingam stay in the country on compassionate grounds. He later told the Montreal Gazette that he had seen a disturbing video depicting the kind of brutal punishment Gay men receive in Malaysia, including strapping a naked man until raw flesh was exposed. Amirthalingam, who is now back in Malaysia where he spent time in jail for being Gay, was declared not credible by the one-adjudicator panel. He joined a growing list of refugee claimants who have been rejected because they can't prove they are Gay.
Note: Read more on Canada.com
(UK) - George Galloway MP is accused of mouthing "the propaganda of the Iranian dictatorship" after he claimed on the Channel 5 TV talk show The Wright Stuff this morning that the boyfriend of Gay asylum seeker Mehdi Kazemi was executed for sex crimes (see full transcript below). The criticism comes from the Gay human rights group, OutRage!. Read more...
(Netherlands) - A Gay Iranian teenager faces deportation from Britain and execution in his home country after a Dutch court refused to hear his asylum claim. Mehdi Kazemi, 19, will be forced to return to Britain, where his asylum application was rejected last year. He is then expected to be removed to Iran where his boyfriend was hanged two years ago for 'sodomy.' The ruling will put the Home Office under renewed pressure to reassess his case - or face the possibility of sending a young man to his death. The department’s own guidance concedes that Iran executes homosexuals but rejects the claim that there is a systematic repression of Gay men and Lesbians.
Note: Read more on Times Online
(Netherlands) - Mehdi Kazemi, a Gay asylum applicant from Iran, is in detention in the Netherlands. He is fighting attempts by the Dutch government to return him to the UK. Mehdi fled Britain and sought asylum in the Netherlands because the British government wants to deport him back to Iran. The Home Office bid to deport an Iranian Gay asylum seeker will put him at risk of arrest, imprisonment, torture and execution. Read more...
(Canada) - A Gay man from Malaysia who is to be deported Thursday after being refused refugee status is pleading with the federal government to intervene and let him stay in Canada. Kulenthiran Amirthalingan made a last-ditch appeal to Immigration Minister Diane Finley, asking her to stay the March 6 deportation order to his native Malaysia. He fears persecution because he is Gay. Amirthalingan moved to Montreal in 2003 and applied for refugee status in Canada on humanitarian grounds, arguing his life was in danger because his homosexuality made him a target of Malaysian police who detained him for five days, and abused him, physically and sexually. Amirthalingan lost his refugee status case because the judge was not convinced he was Gay. He filed for a humanitarian appeal and a pre-removal risk assessment, which were both rejected by the Quebec Immigration Board.
Note: Read more on CBC
(UK) - The scheduled February 26 extradition of Mehdi Kazemi, a 19-year-old Gay Iranian student, from the Netherlands to the United Kingdom, from where he will almost definitely be deported to his homeland, has been put off pending a Dutch court hearing on March 3. Kazemi fears that he could be executed by Tehran's theocracy, which in 2006 executed the lad who had been his lover. Homosexuality remains a capital crime in Iran. Kazemi fled to the Netherlands after the UK government of Prime Minister Gordon Brown ordered his deportation. It was only a last-minute legal appeal that postponed his return to Britain.
Note: Read more on Gay City News
(Jamaica) - Gay bashing in Jamaica is so prevalent that in 2006 Time Magazine wrote an article about the island headlined, "The Most Homophobic Place On Earth?" The New York Times this week showed that the anti-Gay climate has only worsened, with the island caught in a downward spiral of outright psychosis. It is time to hand an ultimatum to Jamaica's public officials: Stop allowing rampant abuse of Gay people or your economy will be crippled. The Times story is downright chilling. It details how last month five Gay men were having a dinner party when a mob appeared at the front door - kicking it in and attacking the men. While screaming homophobic epithets, between 15-20 thugs beat the victims senseless with sticks and cut them with machetes. One man is still missing, but police found blood at the mouth of a deep hole near the yard. This was not an isolated incident.
Note: Read more on PageOneQ
(EU) - He lived a marginalized and terrorized life as an Iranian homosexual in Iran; the burden of such a life became so strenuous that he finally left Iran for the UK with a student visa. Mehdi Kazemi is another Iranian Gay refugee who left his home country with the hope of securing a more dignified life for himself in the West; and yet he is another young refugee who sees his hopes for safety and human dignity fading in the face of European governments’ lack of respect for even the most basic human rights. The European governments claim to be the champions of human rights and democracy and condemn Iran frequently for its violation of human rights; and yet they willingly pave the road for the government of Iran to go ahead with its human rights abuses, and arrest and execute an identified Iranian Gay. Today, they sentence Mehdi to torture and possible death by deporting him to Iran, and tomorrow they issue statements commending this violent and unlawful act of execution. Read more...
(Brazil) - Grupo Gay da Bahia, the oldest homosexual non-governmental organization in Latin America, demands that the dictator Fidel Castro, before his death, recognizes and asks for forgiveness for the grave errors of the Cuban revolution responsible for the demoralization, persecution, imprisonment in concentration camps, forced labor, torture, deportation, and death of thousands of Gays, Transvestites and Lesbians in Cuba. The unfortunate resolution approved during The First Cuban National Congress on Education and Culture of 1971 decreed that “homosexual deviations represent a anti-social pathology, making it inadmissible in any way their manifestations, or propagation, establishing as preventive measure the shunning of recognizable homosexual artists and intellectuals from interaction with the [Cuban] youth," barring Gays, Lesbians, and Transvestites from representing Cuba artistically in festivals abroad.
Note: Read more on Vidas Alternativa
(Canada) - Toronto refugee lawyer El-Farouk Khaki recalls an incident in which one of his clients, seeking refugee status in Canada as a Gay man, was told by a member of the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada (IRB) that if he could be more discreet in his home country of Kenya, he would be just fine. With no appeal division and one-member panels, a great deal of a claimant's chance of being granted refugee status has to do with that single IRB member who hears their case.
Note: Read more on Extra
(Senegal) - The chairman of the national Council of Amnesty Senegal, Samba Guissé, has called on all affiliate groups of the Senegalese chapter of Amnesty International (AI) to oppose any campaign aimed at legalising homosexuality in the country. In a statement issued here, Guissé urged the various groups to dissociate themselves from the position of the International Human Rights Federation (FIDH) calling on the Senegalese authorities to "review the criminal code with a view to to decriminalising homosexual acts". Guissé denies FIDH’s claims that "member organisations (including Amnesty International Senegal) had requested the Senegalese authorities to review the criminal code to abolish the criminalisation of homosexuality".
Note: Read more on AfriK.com
(UN) - LGBT rights groups from Spain, the Netherlands and Brazil have been refused observer status that allows Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) to participate in United Nations business. The UN Committee on NGOs was tied, with Columbia, Dominica, Israel, Peru, Romania, UK and the USA voting yes and Burundi, China, Egypt, Pakistan, Qatar, Russia and Sudan voting no. Angola, Guinea, India and Turkey abstained while Cuba was not present. The UK representative on the committee said they were discriminating against LGBT NGO applicants and that it is the right of the community to have their voice heard at the UN. Romania said the NGO Committee "engaged in a blatant act of discrimination today."
Note: Read more on Pink News
(USA) - Two weeks after one of their church members became the latest victim in a mob attack in Jamaica, leaders of a South Florida church are calling for a public awareness campaign in the Caribbean nation to encourage a more Gay-friendly environment. The latest incident occurred on Jan. 29. According to local press reports and New York-based Human Rights Watch, a mob broke into a house in the central town of Mandeville and slashed the occupants inside, sending two to the hospital. One was severely injured and the other is missing and feared dead, the advocacy group reported. One of the victims was a member of the Jamaican chapter of the Metropolitan Community Churches, local church leaders said. The assault was the latest in a string of attacks in a country where popular reggae lyrics openly encourage the killing of Gays, and citizens show little tolerance for Gays, despite repeated foreign condemnation.
Note: Read more on Miami Herald
(Nepal) - Transgender people in Nepal will now have the opportunity to study to become hairdressers and beauticians under a new scheme funded by the Norwegian government. Transvestites are a particularly marginalised and vulnerable group with little or no access to the job market, and frequent violence directed against them. Sexual minorities experience regular extortion, exclusion from family and society, verbal and physical abuse, sexual abuse and rape, arbitrary detention, blackmail and even murder. Norway says it is committed to fighting sexual discrimination wherever it occurs as part of its development policy. Because of their physical appearance, transgender people are often prohibited from attending school and experience great difficulties in finding jobs. The project seeks to provide income-generating skills training in order to give sexual minorities, who often work in the sex industry, the opportunity to seek alternative jobs.
Note: Read more on Nepal Times
(UK) - Britain's best-known gay activist, Peter Tatchell, confronted Pakistan's Pervez Musharraf this past weekend when the dictator arrived in London on the last leg of his European tour, blocking the general's car with his body repeatedly to protest "the suppression of democracy and human rights" by the military strongman. Tatchell, who this year marks the 40th anniversary of his start as an activist, undertook the protest against Musharraf even though he is still suffering the physical after-effects of the severe beating he received last year in Moscow when a crowd of fascist thugs, egged on by the police, violently broke up an attempted Gay Pride demonstration in front of Moscow's City Hall that Tatchell had gone to Russia to support (see this reporter's May 31-Jun. 5, 2007 article, "The Agony of Moscow Pride," a link to which appears in the web version of this article).
Note: Read more on Gay City News
(Lithuania) - The Lithuanian Government faces censure over three breaches of the European Convention of Human Rights concerning Gay issues in the past year. Jean Huss, the lawmaker from Luxembourg has tabled a written question to Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe (CoE) asking them to “engage in dialogue with the Lithuanian authorities”. Mr. Huss, a member of the the CoE’s Parliamentary Assembly, cites the ban by the city authorities of the planned visit last May of the European Union’s “anti-discrimination” truck to Vilnius during its tour of member states as part of the EU Year of Equal Opportunities for All campaign.
Note: Read more on UK Gay News
(Netherlands) - It was not the Christmas present that a young Gay Iranian wanted. A court in the Netherlands has ruled that Mehdi, the Gay Iranian teenager, has to be returned to the United Kingdom, where he faces deportation back to Iran. He fled England last spring when a Home Office tribunal dismissed his appeal against deportation. “I was refused the right to appeal of asylum in the Netherlands because of the Dublin Treaty,” he said by telephone this afternoon. The Dublin Treaty, or Convention, is a European Union law that prevents asylum applicants from applying in multiple members states.
Note: Read more on UK Gay News
(UK) - A young Gay Iranian, who fled the United Kingdom in fear after his asylum application with the Home Office’s Border and Immigration Agency failed earlier this year, will be spending the festive season hoping that a Dutch court will allow him to stay in the Netherlands. UK Gay News highlighted the plight of 19 years-old Mehdi in April following the failure of his appeal against deportation from UK back to Iran.
Note: Read more on UK Gay News
(UK) - A leading UK Labour MEP has today called on Conservative leader David Cameron to denounce his party’s MEPs who today “heckled and shouted like hooligans” during ceremonies to proclaim the European Charter of Fundamental Rights in the European Parliament. The Charter gives rights to citizens of member states of the European Unions – and includes rights for the EU gay, lesbian and transgender communities. Michael Cashman described the actions of those UK Conservative MEPs as “a national scandal”. They joined the far-right UKIP members, fascists and communists in trying to shout-down the presidents of the European Parliament, the European Council and the European Commission during the ceremonies earlier today.
Note: Read more on UK Gay News
(Malta) - The European International Lesbian and Gay Association Annual Conference will be held in Malta in 2009 following a presentation at this year’s conference held in October in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius. Malta beat the other location, The Hague, that was competing to host the gathering. In a statement, the Malta Gay Rights Movement said that for such a small island the conference will present an ideal opportunity to raise the visibility of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) issues nationally, as well as in the wider Mediterranean and southern European region.
Note: Read more on Malta Independent
(UK) - The Home Office offered some bizarre advice to a Jamaican Lesbian who applied for asylum in Britain. In an asylum system based on institutionalised stonewalling, there's little hope for human rights - regardless of what the law says. Eight years ago, a landmark ruling by the House of Lords in two appeal cases (Regina v Shah and Islam v Secretary of State for the Home Department) signalled an important change in Britain's interpretation of asylum law. But in practice, ignorance of the implications of this ruling amongst asylum seekers (and the solicitors representing them) conspired to deaden the ruling's impact ... with one notable exception. The UK's Gay human rights movement picked up on its potential to help Gay men and Lesbians fleeing persecution in Africa, Jamaica, the Middle East and elsewhere.
Note: Read more on Guardian
Uganda is drifting towards dictatorship, just like Zimbabwe a decade ago. The Ugandan President, Yoweri Museveni, is a new Robert Mugabe in the making, a budding tyrant who is subverting democracy and human rights (according to Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch) through voter intimidation, hounding opposition politicians, detention without trial, torture, extrajudicial killings, media censorship, corruption, suppression of protests, homophobic witch-hunts, and crackdowns on universities and trade unions.
Note: Read more on Times
(Iran) - The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) has learned that the Iranian Chief Justice, Ayatollah Seyed Mahmoud Hashemi Shahrudi, has nullified the impending death sentence of Mr. Makvan Mouloodzadeh, a 21-year old Iranian citizen found guilty of multiple counts of anal rape (ighab), allegedly committed when he was 13 years old. The Iranian Chief Justice described the death sentence to be in violation of Islamic teachings, the religious decrees of high-ranking Shiite clerics, and the law of the land. Read more...
(Lithuania) - Amnesty International today called on its 2.2 million members worldwide to address the rising tide of homophobia in Lithuania. In recent months the Gay community in the Baltic state has seen marches repeatedly banned for spurious reasons, a smoke-bomb attack on a Gay-rights conference, and numerous homophobic comments from leading politicians. Earlier this year in May, Vilnius Mayor Juozas Imbrasas banned a one-day visit of the official European Union “Stop Discrimination” truck on its tour of 19 member-states as part of the ‘For Diversity: Against Discrimination’ information campaign. Just days before the ban on the EU truck, the Mayor of Vilnius supported a refusal to display advertisements on Vilnius’ trolleybuses promoting sexual orientation equality in employment developed for an EU-funded project.
Note: Read more on UK Gay News
(USA) - A Gay Jamaican man who feared persecution if forced to leave the United States for his home country was granted asylum Thursday by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. “I am grateful to the United States government for saving my life,” Ven Messam said in a statement released by the Columbia Law School's Sexuality and Gender Law Clinic, which assisted him with his case. “My life in Jamaica was constantly in danger, with angry mobs carrying machetes, stones, knives, and guns, threatening to kill me because I am Gay. When I tried to contact the police for help, the police instead threatened to arrest me and told me to leave the country if I wanted to stay safe.”
Note: Read more on Advocate
(UK) - It would be wrong to award the 2014 Commonwealth Games to Abuja because of Nigeria’s bad record on human rights, Outrage! said yesterday. Tomorrow, the Commonwealth Games Federation is due to announce whether the Nigerian city of Abuja or the Scottish city of Glasgow have been chosen to host the 2014 Games. “It would be wrong for the 2014 Commonwealth Games to be held in Nigeria, given the country’s serious human rights abuses, widespread corruption and flawed elections,” said human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell. “I would love an African country to host the games, but not Nigeria. “Awarding Abjua the games would reward bad governance, grave social injustices and the denial of civil rights to millions of Nigerians,” added Mr Tatchell.
Note: Read more on UK Gay News
(Netherlands) - The Netherlands, a major donor of international aid, will lobby developing countries to legalize homosexuality and fight discrimination, the government said on Wednesday. A government survey showed homosexuality is illegal in 18 out of the 36 countries the Netherlands gives regular aid to, Development Minister Bert Koenders said in a statement, with punishment ranging from prison sentences to the death penalty.
Note: Read more on Washington Post
(Iraq) - Three out of five Gay safe houses in Iraq are closing down, due to a lack of funds to pay their rent and utility bills. The refuges were set up two years ago, to provide a place of safety for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Iraqis who have fled homophobic threats and attempts to kill them by religious fundamentalists and death squads. Previous appeals for solidarity didn't yield sufficient funding, leaving the activists desperate on how to bring the ends together to maintain the project. Read more...
(USA) - Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay will co-sponsor the New York event of the Yogyakarta Principles, a global charter for Gay rights, at the United Nations on November 7, 2007, Human Rights Watch said today. The Yogyakarta Principles, a landmark advance in the struggle to ensure basic human rights for all, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity, were developed in response to well-documented patterns of abuse worldwide. Former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson will address a side event on the principles, organized in parallel to the UN General Assembly. The forum, co-sponsored by Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay, brings together nongovernmental organizations, UN representatives and state delegates for a discussion on the Yogyakarta Principles and the challenges of ending discrimination.
Note: Read more on HRW
(Iran) - Makwan Moloudzadeh, a 21 year old Iranian now faces the threat of execution. His crime is his sexuality, which is illegal under the Law of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Many have been executed for sexual crimes such as extramarital and homosexual sex acts. Due to the legal processes and procedures of the Judicial system of the Islamic Republic of Iran and its complete lack of transparency, it is extremely difficult to access the documents, witnesses, testimonies, and other facts pertinent to the files of those accused, as a result of which it is almost impossible to verify the confessions, complaints,
evidence, and verdicts. Read more...
(USA) - US President Bush met at the White House on Tuesday with Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni for talks that focused on trade, HIV/AIDS but seemingly ignored alleged human rights abuses of Gays and Lesbians. The two emerged from the meeting to appear for a camera opportunity with Bush praising Museveni for his push to lower the AIDS rate in the African nation by emphasizing abstinence until marriage. "Uganda is the epitome of how one can implement a comprehensive ABC strategy to achieve concrete and specific results for the sake of humanity," said Bush. Money provided to Uganda by the US to fight HIV/AIDS, however is alleged to have to groups that human rights activists say are responsible for attacks on Gays.
Note: Read more on 365Gay.com
(UK) - Britain's most sensitive and controversial relationship in the Middle East faces protests and boycotts during a state visit by King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, just weeks after a lucrative new defence contract made clear that it was business as usual between the two countries. Prince Mohammed said: "I am offended when I see us portrayed as a barbaric country. We are not a stagnant nation." But the kingdom's image remains poor. Peter Tatchell, the Gay rights activist, said: "As well as flogging and executing Gay people, Saudi leaders are guilty of detention without trial, torture and the public beheading of women who have sex outside of marriage. Migrant workers are de facto slaves. The media is heavily censored. Trade unions, political parties and non-Muslim religions are banned. The country is a theocratic police state."
Note: Read more on Guardian
(USA) - The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit, based in New York City, has ruled in an unpublished decision that the current level of anti-Gay persecution in Mexico is not sufficient to justify granting a withholding of removal for a Gay immigrant who claimed to fear persecution if returned to that nation. The ruling, which affirmed a decision by the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA), reversed what had seemed a trend toward granting the claims of sexual minority refugees from Mexico.
Note: Read more on Gay City News
(Iran) - Homophobia runs deep into Iranian society. This, of course, partly reflects the influence of the conservative Islamic legal and religious standards promoted by the government. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini notoriously called for homosexuals to be extirpated as "parasites and corruptors of the nation" who "spread the stain of wickedness." It also reflects a patriarchal social system in which sexuality is controlled and feared, except when at the service of reproduction. The death penalty for lavat is not merely a paper punishment in Iran: it is enforced.
Note: Read more on Xtra.ca
(USA) - Gay citizens in the USA have problems to get visa for their foreign partners. So has Tom Knutson, a "fiscal conservative, registered Republican and a widely traveled professor" whose Thai partner will soon have to leave the USA. The couple will inevitably face, they say, the same excruciating choice thousands of other same-sex binational couples in the United States face and are increasingly stepping forward to protest. "I am a U.S. citizen being denied my rights as a U.S. citizen to live with and love who I want," said Knutson. He expresses quiet rage because he loves the United States, he said.
Note: Read more on www.sacbee.com
(UK) - Students and members of OutRage! took to the streets of London last week to protest about the treatment of gays in Saudi Arabia. Fifty people picketed the Saudi embassy after it was reported that two men had been sentenced to 7,000 lashes for "sodomy." The London protest, organised by the National Union of Students (NUS) LGBT campaign and supported by OutRage!, came eleven days ahead of the state visit to the UK of the Saudi head of state King Abdullah bin Abdul Azaz al Saud. Members of LGBT Labour also attended the event. NUS protest organiser Scott Cuthbertson called on others to protest the "continued criminalisation, imprisonment, torture and murder of LGBT people in Saudi Arabia."
Note: Read more on Pink News
(UK) - Around 50 students, some from as far away as Manchester, Salford and Hull, protested outside the Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia in London this afternoon following the sentences passed earlier this month on two young Saudi Gay men. The pair were sentenced on October 2 to 7,000 lashings each in al-Bahah following conviction for ‘sodomy’. Amid chanting and singing, Claire Anderson and Scott Cuthbertson, LGBT officers with the National Union of Students, handed-in a letter of protest to an Embassy official. The protest was supported by LGBT Labour and Gay human rights group Outrage!
Note: Read more on UK Gay News
(Singapore) - Sir Ian McKellen was so irritated to discover homosexuality is illegal in Singapore during a recent visit to the country, he asked for directions to a gay bar on live TV. He was in Singapore for a pantomime performance when he decided to poke fun at the country's anti-Gay laws during a television interview. He says, "I didn't realise, as a Gay man, that I'd be a criminal once I arrived - because it's illegal for a man to make love to another man in Singapore. At the end of the interview, they asked what was I looking forward to doing while I was in Singapore. And I looked at the man, who was clearly straight, and said, `Can you recommend any decent Gay bars?', which would be illegal in every possible way."
Note: Read more on www.cbs47.tv
(Canada) - What is it to be Gay? Can our Gayness be measured by how others perceive us? Are we Gay if we never have same-sex nudie relations? Are we Gay because we say we are, or are we Gay because someone else says we are? For asylum seeker Alvaro Orozco and Canadian Immigration Minister Diane Finley, these questions have never been more poignant or important to consider. Since his Oct 4, 2007 deportation date, Orozco, a 22-year-old Gay man born in Nicaragua, has been in hiding in the Toronto area. The deportation order is so far the last word from Immigration Canada on his three-year-long journey to achieve refugee status based on sexual orientation, a journey that began at the age of the 13 when Orozco fled his family to escape abuse and fled his country in pursuit of freedom.
Note: Read more on vueweekly.com
(EU) - Georgia and Azerbaijan must stop discrimination and incitement to hatred and put in place an inclusive anti-discrimination law in line with Council of Europe and EU standards if they aspire to EU membership. This is according to the joint ILGA-Europe and COC Netherlands reports on the position of Gay people in the two South Caucasian countries. The comprehensive reports are the result of a joint fact-finding mission and reflect the vulnerable social and legal situation of Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals and Transgenders. They also reflect the position of national authorities and international organisations. Finally, the reports give a particular focus to lesbian and bisexual women and transgender people and give examples of human rights violations on the grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity. Read more...
(Iraq) - Up to 25 Gay men will next month have to 'take their chances' in Iraq where religious militia regularly seek out Gays and execute them. Two 'safe houses' for Gays will be forced to close at the end month – due to lack of cash, it was learned last night. And appeal for funds was made last month by the London-based IraqiLGBT group, which runs the five safe houses. The appeal was promoted on a number of LGBT online sites and blogs in several countries. But just under £1,000 ($US2,000, €1,400) is all has been raised as a result of the appeal. The amount barely covers the cost of running one safe house for a month.
Note: Read more on UK Gay News
(UK) - British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is to take-up the matter of the unequal age of consent still in place in Gibraltar, an overseas territory of the United Kingdom. The age of consent for heterosexual sexual relations in Gibraltar is 16 whilst the age of consent for same-sex sexual relations is 18.
Note: Read more on UK Gay News
(USA) - The IGLHRC has revealed that it has uncovered evidence that the U.S. government has funded groups in Uganda that actively promote discrimination against Gay people. The primary instigator of the backlash was Pastor Martin Ssempa, leader of the Makerere University Community Church and spokesman for the Interfaith Family Culture Coalition Against Homosexuality in Uganda. IGLHRC has evidence of grants made by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) to the Makerere University Community Church. With support from conservative organizations such as Family Watch International in the United States, Mr. Ssempa has launched attacks on Gay people.
Note: Read more on UK Gay News
On Monday September 24th, Mr. Ahmadinejad gave a talk at New York's Columbia University. The President of Columbia, under great pressure for having invited Mr. Ahmadinejad, tried to compensate by creating a favourable atmosphere for himself, an atmosphere which did not materialize until the question about homosexuality was raised. A question was asked about the situation of homosexuals in Iran and in response Mr. Ahmadinejad replied: "In our country we don't have homosexuals like in your country. This does not exist in our country. I don't know who has told you that we have this." This response elicited laughter and booing from the crowd in attendance. Read more...
(USA) - Nikolai Alexeyev – the main organiser of Moscow Gay Pride, editor in chief of the GayRussia website and general ‘thorn in the side’ of Mayor Luzhkov and the Moscow authorities – is making his first trip to America. He has been invited by the Chicago-based Gay Liberation Network as the keynote speaker at their ninth annual Matthew Shepard March on Saturday.
Note: Read more on UK Gay News
(South Africa) - Cary Alan Johnson, the Africa specialist for the New York-based International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC), is respected globally for the dedication and effectiveness of his work on behalf of LGBT people on that continent. On October 15, Johnson is moving to South Africa to direct an expanded Africa team from IGLHRC's office in Johannesburg. Where in the continent has there been the most spectacular progress since Johnson has been on the Africa desk at IGLHRC? "I would have to say Kenya," he responded. "As I mentioned, it was the first African country that I visited, back in 1981, so it's the place where I can most clearly see the progress."
Note: Read more on Gay City News
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad spoke on Monday at Columbia University, where he avoided answering a question on persecution of Gay people in Iran, claiming there were no homosexuals in his country. The world rejoiced, and commentators didn’t spare with scorn on the Iranian President. Only few witnessed that Ahmadinejad’s words caused them no laugh at all, since there are too many dead bodies connected to his presidency. Read more...
(USA) - During a controversial talk at Columbia University’s World Leaders Forum on Monday, Iranian President Dr. Mahmood Ahmadinejad denied the existence of homosexuality in Iran: “In Iran, we don’t have homosexuals like in your country. … We don’t have that in our country,” he claimed answering a question about the rights of Gay people in Iran. The reactions to this claim were a mixture of disbelief, anger and warnings not to join into militarist hystery. Read more...
(USA) - After more than a week of calling and emailing Mr. Charles Ssentongo, second in command at the Ugandan embassy in Washington, I finally got him on the phone this morning for a ten-minute conversation. I asked what his government is doing to protect the human rights and safety of gays and he assured me Uganda doesn't discriminate in treating all citizens equally.
Note: Read more on Petrelis Files
(Canada) - Arsham Parsi, Executive Director of the Iranian Queer Organization, delivered a speech at Gozar Panel 'Silenced Voices' in Toronto on 16 September. He spoke of stonings and executions of Gay people in Iran, of the injustice and inequity, and manifold problems Iranian Gays face in exile. Sadly, many refugees are confronted by almost the same situation they met inside Iran since they are pressured by the Iranian diaspora community to live in a social ghetto. The GRD publishes here the transcription of the speech in its full length. Read more...
(UK) - The Iraqi refugee crisis is reaching breaking point, says a new Amnesty International report following a research mission to Syria and Jordan which host the bulk of Iraq’s refugees. Help from the international community has been “seriously inadequate,” concludes the report, focusing particularly on countries like the UK which participated in the invasion of Iraq and hence “carry particular responsibilities to Iraqis”. As often reported in the last three years by UK Gay News, the plight of Gay Iraqis is of particular concern – an aspect often forgotten.
Note: Read more on UK Gay News
(UK) - Whatever you think of Gordon Brown and New Labour, it was in many ways a bold, brave move for the prime minister to declare that he will unilaterally boycott December's EU - African Union summit in Lisbon if President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe is allowed to attend. At last, some moral leadership from a government that has been rather short on principles in recent years. Is this the first sign of a welcome revival of the long discarded ethical dimension to Labour's foreign policy? We live in hope, but my advice is: don't hold your breath. But unless Brown is planning a one-leader boycott, which seems unlikely, he has to get other EU and AU leaders to join him in making the same commitment: if Mugabe goes, we don't go.
Note: Read more on Guardian
(UK) - Two Iraqi Gays have been granted asylum in the UK, in a court ruling overturning a previous decision of British authorities to deport them. The two men have survived attempted assassinations by Shia Islamist death squads in Iraq and were seeking refuge in United Kingdom, but their initial applications for asylum had been turned down by the Home Office, despite compelling evidence of anti-Gay persecution and threats to kill them. With the support of the Gay human rights groups OutRage! and Iraqi LGBT both men appealed against the refusal of asylum and won. Read more...
(Taiwan) - Gay rights activists staged a demonstration outside the Nicaraguan embassy in Taipei yesterday as part of an international campaign against the country's sodomy law. "Love is not a crime!" activists from six non-governmental organizations shouted in Mandarin, English and Spanish outside the embassy. The international campaign was initiated by Amnesty International Mexico and also took place in 10 other countries. "Nicaragua is the only Latin American country with a law that prohibits sex between people of the same sex," said Emily Wu (吳佳珊), an Amnesty International Taiwan member. "That is not only a violation of the Nicaraguan Constitution, but also of international human rights."
Note: Read more on Taipei Times
(Iraq) - Iraqi LGBT is facing a cash crisis in their efforts to assist lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered people in Iraq. For over a year, Friends of Iraqi LGBT has been trying to help by funding safe houses in Iraq for those who have come to the attention of the death squads and who have consequently had to flee their homes. Since the US-led invasion of Iraq, gay people in Iraq have suffered particularly intense persecution. Violence against all the gay community has intensified sharply since late 2005, when Iraq’s leading Shiite Muslim cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, issued a fatwa (religious decree) which declared that gays and lesbians should be “killed in the worst, most severe way”.
Note: Read more on UK Gay News
(Canada) - Canada's immigration system has once again rejected Alvaro Orozco. The Nicaraguan-born refugee claimant, originally denied status last October because an Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) member didn?t believe that he was gay, was issued a negative decision on Sep 14 in connection with his second pre-removal risk assessment (PRRA). A deportation date has been set for Thu, Oct 4. Orozco, 22, came to Canada in 2005 by way of the US, which means that he would be deported back to the US. "If they send me to the US I would go to a detention centre," says Orozco. "I was in the US for five years and I was illegal so if I go back I maybe can face jail there."
Note: Read more on Xtra.ca
(Canada) - Gay refugee Leonardo Zuniga, who fled to Toronto from Mexico three years ago, may be put on a plane in the next weeks and returned to the country he fears. In June of last year, the Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) denied Zuniga refugee status because it deemed he wasn't a person in need of protection and "would not face a danger of torture, nor would he face a serious possibility of risk to life, cruel and unusual treatments or punishments." "I'm going to be living in fear or hiding in the closet all my life," says Zuniga. "Mexico has a beautiful image as a progressive country for LGBT people, but it's just an image."
Note: Read more on Now Toronto
(Nicaragua) - Human rights groups across the world have called for action to remind the government and the parliament of Nicaragua of their obligations to respect inalienable rights of Gay people. Amnesty International has declared 13 September 2007 the worldwide day of action to remove the article 204 of the Nicaraguan Penal Code, which reads: "Anyone who induces, promotes, propagandizes or practices in scandalous form sexual inter-course between persons of the same sex commits the crime of sodomy and shall incur 1 to 3 years’ imprison-ment". Gay organizations and individuals are urged to write letters to Nicaragua embassies and stage protest demonstrations. Read more...
(UK) - The Friends of Pegah Campaign from Sheffield has released informations that the ordeal of Pegah Emambakhsh has found an end so far. Pegah was granted bail and she is finally out of Yarls Wood Detention Centre and back with people who will love and care for her. The Court of Appeal has also agreed to hear her case. The group believes that the case will be listed within the next couple of weeks and a decision will be made within the next few months. Read more...
(Germany) - An Iranian lesbian seeking asylum in Germany is to be deported, according to a recent decision by German authorities. Homosexuality is punishable by death is Iran. A protest vigil organized by the German Lesbian and Gay Association (LSVD) and attended by about 50 people was held today outside the Ministry for the Interior and Sports. The Iranian woman had sought asylum in Germany because of the imminent danger of execution in Iran. Authorities did not believe her, and, according to the newspaper TAZ, she is now to be deported to Turkey. A possible reprieve may come from the Commission for Cases of Hardship, however any resulting finding would be a mere recommendation. Read more...
(USA) - The Felipa Award honors an organization or an individual whose work has made a significant contribution toward securing the full enjoyment of the human rights of all people and communities subject to discrimination or abuse on the basis of sexual orientation or expression, gender identity or expression, and/or HIV status, anywhere in the world. The award commemorates Felipa de Souza, a woman who was convicted and tortured in Brazil by the Portuguese Inquisition in 1591 for having sexual relationships with other women. Read more...
Dear Friends, the Campaign of Flowers, as well as the entire Campaign for Pegah, is based on the recovery of the values of brotherhood and solidarity in actions for the defence of human rights. We live in a difficult age and unfortunately the governments, the magistracy and often the most well-known humanitarian organisations in the world have relegated the Universal Declaration of Human rights, the Convention on the Status of Refugees and other rules on which we base our level of civilisation and respect of minorities behind other priorities: security, immigration control, the defence of nations and families. Read more...
(Nicaragua) - In spite of positive initiatives across the Americas, Nicaragua continues to criminalize consensual same-sex sexual relations. Amnesty International issued a call for actions on behalf of Gay people in Nicaragua. Although to Amnesty International’s knowledge no one has to date been prosecuted under Article 204 of the Nicaraguan Penal Code, it potentially criminalizes Gay men, Lesbians and Bisexual people in same-sex relationships. The wording of the article 204 is also vague enough to permit the prosecution of individuals for activities such as campaigning for LGBT rights or anyone providing sexual health information or services. Read more...
(Iran) - A Gay couple from Iran talked with Arsham Parsi from Iranian Queer Organization (IRQO). Kamran, a 24 years old and Kaveh, a 25 years old have been together for 3 years. They fled Iran and are currently in Turkey, awaiting their asylum case to be proceeded by the UNHCR. In the interview, the two young men describe the daily social persecution Gay people are suffering in Iran, but also the hardships the refugees must face when fleeing their country without means for existence. Read more...
(UK) - The recent attempted deportation of the Iranian Lesbian refugee, Pegah Emambakhsh, is typical of the inhumanities of Britain's asylum system. Peter Tatchell interviews Dr Frank Arnold, clinical advisor to the Medical Justice Network; Puck de Raadt, an asylum worker with the Churches' Commission on Racial Justice; and 'Maria', a former asylum detainee who fled persecution in an ex-Soviet bloc state.
Note: Watch online on doughty.gdbtv.com
(EU) - The Open Society Justice Initiative, an operational program of the Open Society Institute (OSI), joins with Central European University (CEU) to announce the Justice Initiative Fellows Program for 2008-2010. The aim of the program is to support and further develop a network of lawyers and activists working internationally on human rights-related issues. Since its inception in 1996, 155 fellows have graduated from the Justice Initiative's Fellowship program. The Justice Initiative Fellows Program is a two-year program of study and practical work experience. Up to ten applicants will be selected to participate in the 2008 program. Applicants from the following regions and countries are eligible: Central and Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union, Africa, East Asia, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Central/South America. Read more...
Pegah Emambakhsh is completely worn out. Till now her life has been characterized by pain, fear and death. She is a nice, reserved, religious and optimistic woman, but the world till now has offered her just discrimination, hatred, persecution, humiliation, injustice and imprisonment. Even now that her drama is known all over the world, even now that in many we pray for her, for her future, she's penned in a cold prison, without privacy, love or human warmth. Dear friends, let's make her to feel our love saying her that we're not all the same persons, that good persons exist, people who believe in brotherhood and solidarity. Send her a flower or a bunch of flowers with any flowers shipment service: Roses, Lilies or Gerberas. Flowers of all the colours, perfumed like the justice. Roses and Asylum for Pegah! Read more...
The widespread international campaign to save Pegah Emambakhsh’s life, which has involved governmental institutions, human rights organizations, GLBT activist groups, intellectuals, experts in international law and millions of people who have come to love Pegah, has succeeded in achieving a positive outcome. Pegah is now serene, she is being assisted by a top legal office, by the “Friends of Pegah Campaign” association (which the EveryOne Group is proud to be part of) and has obtained the guarantee that her case will undergo an objective reassessment. The meeting between the lawyers and the magistrate was extremely positive and satisfactory. Read more...
(EU) - Following a proposal by Italian MEP Giusto Catania (PRC), representing the European United Left/Nordic Green Left (GUE/NGL) Group in the European Parliament during today's Conference of Presidents - and Graham Watson, President of the Parliament's Liberal Group, European Parliament President Hans Gert Pöettering has accepted to write a letter to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown on the fate of Pegah Emambakhsh, the Iranian lesbian woman who risks expulsion from Great Britain to Iran. Read more...
(Japan) - On August 27, a petition with 207 signatures calling for the British Government to grant asylum to Pegah Emambakhsh was delivered to the British Embassy in Tokyo, by a group of Japanese supporters. They also handed in a petition to the Foreign Ministry to ask the Japanese government to take action on this case. A visible appeal was made outside the British Embassy and Foreign Ministry by the group of supporters holding message boards. Following the visit to the British Embassy, in a conversation the next day, it was confirmed to the group that the petition we submitted had been faxed to the Foreign Office in the UK. It was also confirmed that it would be brought to the attention of the British Ambassador in Japan. Read more...
(France) - The Panthères Roses of Paris (Pink Panthers) have weighed-in with support for Pegah Emambackhsh, the Iranian lesbian who is facing deportation from the UK back to Iran. Monday evening the group mounted a demonstration in front of the British Embassy in the French capital. "The English authorities have to measure the responsibilities they can have in the death of Pegah Emambackhsh if her deportation ends by death penalty in Iran," a Panthères Roses spokesperson said. "The times are really repressive now in Iran, and all behaviour considered as immoral is punished by flagellation and hangings. LGBT people are the direct victims of this violence that can lead to death penalty." Read more...
(Italy) - Italian politicians said Rome could grant asylum to an Iranian lesbian who faces deportation from Britain and a possible death sentence back home. Meanwhile, gay rights proponents and left-wing politicians rallied for her cause in a protest Monday outside the British embassy here. Pegah Emambakhsh, 40, who fled to Britain from Iran in 2005 after her partner was arrested and tortured, is due to be expelled this week after her bid for residency was rejected, according to a British advocacy group. The main Italian gay rights group, Arcigay, led about 100 people in a protest Monday evening outside the British embassy. Some left-wing politicians from parties in Premier Romano Prodi's center-left coalition joined the demonstration.
Note: Read article on International Herald Tribune, see photos on Petrelis Files
(Canada) - Ottawa's Capital Pride committee hosted its first queer human rights vigil Aug 20, highlighting the battles yet to be fought internationally and for trans people. "Some countries couldn't dream of having an event like this - the police would come down on them so fast," said Gordon Boissonneault, the chair of Capital Pride. About 50 people showed up at Ottawa's human rights monument to listen to speeches from local activists. The vigil was part of Capital Pride, which runs from Aug 17 to Aug 26. Many in the community felt the event brought some much-needed politics back to Pride.
Note: Read full article on www.xtra.ca
(USA) - An HIV-positive Mexican transgender woman died in US federal custody last month under dubious circumstances. LGBT organizations across the USA expressed outrage over Arellano’s death. Transgender Legal Defense & Education Fund Executive Director Michael Silverman questioned other aspects of Arellano’s detention. He described ICE’s decision to house her in a male facility in its San Pedro facility as particularly problematic. "Clearly she was someone who was openly transgender and presented herself as a female," Silverman said. "There are a whole host of reasons to suggest abuse and outright refusal to provide care at play."
Note: Read full article on Edge Boston
(Italy) - Italian groups Arcigay and Arcilesbica, in cooperation with the EveryOne Group, are planning sit-ins in front of the British Embassy in Rome. The groups react to the decision of the UK government to deny asylum to Pegah Emambakhsh, a Lesbian from Iran who is at risk of the capital punishment went sent back to Iran. The groups condemn the heartless move of the government of United Kingdom to deny Ms Emambakhsh the fundamental right of asylum demand to revoke the decision of her expulsion sheduled for 28 August (British Airways flight directed number BA6633 at 21:35 to Tehran). Read more...
For the many genuine refugees who are wrongly branded by the Home Office as "failed" asylum seekers, this get-tough policy is a humanitarian disaster. Some are being sent back to countries where they are at risk of arrest, jail, torture, vigilante attacks, death squads and worse. The truth is that much of the government's "success" in cutting asylum numbers and hiking deportations is because it has shamelessly rigged the asylum system to ensure the failure of as many applicants as possible. This is a cynical, ruthless, immoral policy - devoid of compassion and humanity. Labour's pride in its rigged asylum system is one reason why so many people, like me, have left Labour in droves. We can no longer stomach this heartless, dishonest government, which brags that it deports one asylum seeker "every eight minutes".
Note: Read full article on Guardian
(USA) - Human Rights Watch has accused President Yoweri Museveni’s government of promoting state homophobia in Uganda and urged the repeal of a colonial- era law against sodomy. HRW's letter added to a fierce social debate in the east African nation, where Gays and Lesbians have been increasingly vocal in demanding rights while Christian groups have taken to the streets to denounce them. Homosexuality is proscribed in many African countries, with Gays and Lesbians often living secret lives to avoid prejudice. New York-based HRW sent a letter to Museveni calling for legislative reform and an end to his long record of harassing LGBT people.
Note: Read full article on New Vision
August has proven to be a perilous months for gays in Nigeria and Cameroon, where large-scale arrests have taken place, and in Uganda, where gay activists have gone into hiding after government ministers this week called for their arrest. In Cameroon, six teenagers have been jailed without trial since July 30 on charges of homosexuality following police use of torture to make other youths "name names" of their gay friends in Douala, the country’s largest city with a population estimated at more than 2 million. In Cameroon, homosexuality is a crime punishable by up to five years in prison.
Note: Read full article on DIRELAND
(Canada/UK) - The Iranian Queer Organization (IRQO) appealed today to the UK government and other democratic institutions to stop deportations of Gay refugees to persecuting countries. Pegah Emambakhsh (40) is a Lesbian Iranian woman. She risks of beeing sentenced to death by the judges of the Islamic Republic of Iran because of her homosexuality. She took refuge in Sheffied, Great Britain, where she sought political asylum. This right was denied her for unconvincing reasons, among which the fact that she cannot "prove" she is a lesbian. Read more...
(South Africa) - South Africa may be the only country in the world to have enshrined lesbian and gay equality in its Constitution, but a rash of brutal murders of lesbians last month has underscored how the country is undergoing an epidemic of hate crimes against LGBT people, triggering protests from Capetown to New York City - including from an openly gay South African Supreme Court of Appeal Justice. The lifeless bodies of a well-known Soweto lesbian and AIDS activist, Sizakele Sigasa, and of her friend Salome Masooa were found in a field in the Meadowlands area on July 8, and are believed to have been killed the previous day.
Note: Read full article on Gay City News
(UK) - The Iranan Queer Organization reports that Pegah Emambakhsh is an Iranian national who sought asylum in the UK in 2005. Her claim failed despite appeals and she was arrested in Sheffield on Monday 13th August and is being taken to Yarlswood detention centre from where she will be deported tomorrow, Thursday 16th August. If returned to Iran she faces certain imprisonment and possibly stoning to death. Her crime in Iran is her sexual orientation – she was in a same-sex relationship. Ms Emambakhsh escaped from Iran, claiming asylum, after her lover was arrested, tortured and subsequently sentenced to death by stoning. Read more...
(Canada) - A young Nicaraguan man who says he fears he will be killed in his home country because of his sexual orientation has gone into hiding in Toronto after his latest bid to stay in Canada failed. Alvaro Orozco, 22, has been holed up at a friend's place since Thursday, when his refugee claim was denied, but came out briefly over the weekend to speak to CBC News. "Most of the time, I'm hiding because I'm not supposed to be anywhere. I feel like a fugitive. It's really bad," said Orozco. His case made headlines in Canada and Nicaragua in February when the Immigration and Refugee Board denied him asylum saying they didn't believe he was gay.
Note: Read full article on CBC
(Canada) - A Nicaraguan man whose refugee claim failed because he "wasn't gay enough," according to supporters, is facing imminent deportation after a second official assessment deemed it safe for him to go home. Alvaro Antonio Orozco, 21, who has gone into hiding, is now clinging to the hope that Immigration Minister Diane Finley will intervene to let him remain in Canada, at least until a decision is rendered on his application for permanent residency on humanitarian grounds. Orozco, who based his asylum claim on a fear of homophobia and domestic abuse, left Managua in 1998 at age 12. After a year, he landed in a group home in Texas. He left it for Toronto in 2005, after learning that Canada respects gay rights.
Note: Read full article on The Star
(USA) - The recent brutal murders of three lesbians show that South Africa’s constitutional promise of equal protection has yet to become a reality, Human Rights Watch said today in a letter to President Thabo Mbeki. As the country celebrates National Women’s Day – the 51st anniversary of women’s resistance to the apartheid-era pass system restricting free movement – a climate of violent homophobia and sexism demands government action to make its commitment to equality and tolerance a reality for the nation’s gays and lesbians. Read more...
(Hunduras/Guatemala) - The level of threats, intimidation, attacks and killings of activists in Honduras and Guatemala who campaign to defend the rights of marginalised communities is reaching 'worrying proportions' said Amnesty International today (8 August) as it published its new report. Amnesty International's report - Persecution and Resistance: The experience of human rights defenders in Guatemala and Honduras - exposes a systematic pattern of attacks against those who defend the rights of marginalised communities, including indigenous peoples and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. Read more...
(Iran) - The government of Iran on Monday closed down a leading moderate daily for the second time in less than a year after the paper published an interview with a woman accused of being a "counter-revolutionary" homosexual, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported. The ban on Shargh ("East"), the favorite newspaper of Iranian liberals, comes amid growing pressure on the press in Iran and follows the closure of fellow moderate daily Ham Mihan last month. Shargh on Saturday published a full-page interview with Saghi Ghahreman, an expatriate Iranian poet who lives in Canada, under the headline "Feminine Language." Read more...
What does it take to organize Global Gay Solidarity Days? First, start with putting out a request to fellow organizers and gauge if they're interested in such an international event. Next step is, engage in a respectful debate about what day (or two) to stage the solidarity vigils. Third, allow local organizers to decide what kind of action to put on, the time to do it, and which global LGBT issues to focus on. Fourth, mix in a handful of beautiful committed people in any city to pull together an action, invite the larger community and our allies to participate, and before you know it, LGBT in several parts of the world unite for a same-day coordinated action. And finally, watch the activists in each city committed to the solidarity days stage their vigils and speak outs, and take photos, make videos, and write up short reports.
Note: Read full article on Petrelis Files
On August 4, 2007 representatives of the Gay Homeland Foundation (GHF) will call on several consulates located in Cologne and hand over letters petitioning for decriminalization of homosexuality in Gambia, Malaysia, Nepal, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunesia. The Foundation welcomes the decision of Gay activists in Caracas, Cologne, Mexico City, San Diego, San Francisco, Stockholm, Warsaw, Washington and Vancouver to initiate actions on this Global Gay Solidarity Day, which hopefully will become a good tradition and will give fresh dynamics to the Gay movement in the next years. With some 300 millions Gay individuals worldwide there is much potential for interconnection and joint action. Read more...
(New York) - Human rights activists will gather at Dag Hammerskold Plaza and, led by piper John Maynard, process through the plaza, light candles and lay a wreath at the Raul Wallenberg Memorial outside the UN. Gay equality advocates concerned with the denial of basic human rights to lesbian gay, bisexual and transgender (lgbt) people will hold vigils of solidarity in cities around the world this weekend August 3rd and 4th, including Caracas, Cologne, Mexico City, New York, San Diego, San Francisco, Stockholm, Vancouver, Warsaw and Washington. The global solidarity vigils are a response to what organizers assert are a growing increase in violence and the denial of human rights worldwide against lgbt people. Read more...
(Netherlands) - Dutch embassy officials in 36 countries where the Netherlands has close aid ties have been asked to draw up an inventory of gay rights legislation. The survey has been commissioned by by aid minister Bert Koenders, the Volkskrant reports on Thursday. The paper says that in 18 countries where the Netherlands is active, homosexuality is illegal. Gay men face punishments ranging from fines and public beatings to, in three cases, a potential death sentence. Dutch embassies in countries where homosexuality is illegal are being told to urge the authorities to scrap anti-gay legislation, the paper says.
Note: Read full article on Dutch News
(Italy) - Italy's Supreme Court has refused to overrule a judge's decision to revoke the deportation order of an illegal Senegalese migrant on the grounds of his sexual orientation. Italy’s highest criminal court stated that “homosexuality is a condition of he human being deserving legal protection.” The court announced that gay people who seek refuge from persecution in Italy would not be sent back to their countries of origin. The judges recognised that "sexual freedom must be intended as freedom to live without interferences and restrictions with references to sexual preferences."
Note: Read full article on Pink News
(USA) - A candlelight vigil in New York City has been planned to mark the murders of South African lesbian couple Sizakele Sigasa and Salome Masooa, as well as "honouring all LGBT and HIV positive African heroes who have been murdered." The event is set for 14 August, with the exact venue still be to be confirmed. It is being planned by a group called the Committee of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender African Immigrants Residing in the U.S. In a statement, the organisation said that, "This barbaric act was meant to paralyze our community with fear so as to eradicate the wonderful work that is being done to empower us. We condemn this brutal act. Our community is being robbed of brave and courageous women who dedicate their lives to improving the well being of the society."
Note: Read full article on www.mambaonline.com
As part of Brighton Pride, friends and supporters of the British Youth Council (BYC) will be marching from Madeira Drive to Preston Park on the morning of August 4th, starting at 11.30am. BYC will be handing out postcards to encourage supporters of the Stop Homophobia in Poland campaign to write to Gordon Brown PM voicing their support. Campaigners are asking the UK government to publicly denounce human rights abuses being carried out against the LGBT community by the Polish government. British Youth Council spokesperson, Lloyd Russell-Moyle (20) said: “I welcome this opportunity for BYC to be involved in Pride. BYC’s presence will help to further highlight the plight of the LGBT community in Poland.” Read more...
(San Francisco, USA) - A group of activists staged a protest at an evening meeting at the Fairmont Hotel featuring the United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, in order to protest the unconscionable, murderous silence of the United Nations concerning continued violence and executions globally which specifically target gays and lesbians. Ban was speaking before the World Affairs Council of Northern California, as San Francisco is considered the birthplace of the UN. The nonviolent protesters twice interrupted Ban’s speech, first standing on their seats, chanting "Break the silence! Talk about about gays!” while holding up signs which read “Gay Rights Are UNiversal", capitalizing the letters UN to drive home the point that the UN has not accepted its responsibility to monitor and defend the human rights of gay and lesbian people worldwide.
Note: Watch the video capture of this action here. Read more...
(Chile) - A samll group of gay rights activists gathered Thursday morning in front of the Iranian Embassy in Santiago to protest the recent execution in Iran of more than a dozen people accused of homosexuality and/or adultery. The demonstration was organized by the Movement for Homosexual Integration and Freedom (MOVILH), Chile’s leading sexual minorities’ advocacy organization. Joining the delegation from MOVILH were representatives from the youth branches of the Party for Democracy and Radical Party. Several secondary school student leaders also took part in the protest. “Using a loudspeaker, we told the neighbors that their same building houses representatives of a government that in our estimation is committing genocide against an important part of its population,” MOVILH leader Rolando Jiménez told the Santiago Times.
Note: Read full article on The Santiago Times
(Australia) - Despite a High Court rebuke and assurances to the Senate, immigration authorities are still finding ways to ignore pleas for protection on the basis of anti-gay persecution. Egyptian-born Mohamed (Mike) Sarhan is the latest in a string of cases where bigoted assumptions by the Refugee Review Tribunal (RRT) and the Immigration Department are putting gay people at risk of torture. Sarhan and his Australian partner Brad Corchorane celebrated their second anniversary last week with rings and a ceremony at Sydney Town Hall, but the RRT accused them of faking homosexuality.
Note: Read full article on www.ssonet.com.au
(Tehran, Iran) - Tehran's chief prosecutor Saiid Mortazavi has announced that the execution by hanging of 17 "socially dangerous" people "is imminent". His announcement comes after Sunday's mass hangings of 12 people. The authorities have also published the names of those executed and informed the families of the 17 others on death row. It is not known whether among those hangedwere five people arrested on charges of having homosexual relations. On the list of those due to be punished with the death penalty in the coming days, or maybe hours, are several individuals arrested for political reasons.
Note: Read full article on www.adnkronos.com
Iranian Queer Organization reports that a 21 years-old homosexual man from Iran is facing deportation to the Islamic Republic. Hamid fled country because of his sexual orientation and has been staying in France for about one and half year now. He was arrested by the police a few days ago in Paris and since that day, 18 July 2007, he has been kept in a detention room. Unfortunately French authorities are going to deport him back to Iran. They are dealing with Iranian Embassy in Paris about this issue. He MUST not be deported back to Iran, and he needs our support NOW. IRQO has been in touch with Cimad Organization in Paris so you can send your support letters and letters of reproving of his deportation to this organization, or to IRQO.
Note: Read more on irqo.net
(Sweden) - Sweden’s national organisation for gay rights, the RFSL, has been granted observer status by the United Nations. The UN Economic and Social Council approved the RFSL’s application to be a consultative group at the assembly - a status shared by organisations such as Amnesty International. The decision was made despite a UN committee’s recommendation that the Swedes’ application be rejected. Some countries, including Egypt, lobbied against the RFSL’s inclusion.
Note: Read full article on www.sr.se
(Jamaica) - The news that Buju Banton had signed was welcomed by gay rights groups in Jamaica, where attacks on gay people are common and gay sex is illegal. Carl Edmonson, from Jamaican gay rights group J-Flag, said: "I really hope that his actions are genuine and it is not just because international pressure is hurting his pocket. We hope it is a sincere commitment that will end homophobic violence." Others were more pragmatic about Banton's actions. Mark Richards, known as DJ Kemist from reggae label Xtremix records, said: "I can see why he's done it. He doesn't want to jeopardise his whole career over just a few songs. But it doesn't mean it's going to change any of his opinions."
Note: Read full article on Guardian
(UN) - Canada came out swinging in favour of a Quebec gay rights group yesterday, successfully lobbying for the United Nations to reverse an earlier rejection of the group by a UN committee dominated by Muslim and developing countries. Canada's Hugh Adsett said the UN should be where "diverse voices" can be heard, and "even if some governments don't agree with some (activists), they should not be excluded," note-takers reported. The campaign led to UN approval for the Coalition gaie et lesbienne du QuEbec to receive observer status at the world body.
Note: Read full article on Canada.com
(Moscow, Russia) - About two dozens of LGBT and political activists demonstrated in front of Iranian embassy in Moscow. They protested against execution and discrimination of gay people in Iran. The rally has been organized and supported by Russian prominent gay rights organizations like GayRussia.Ru project, LGBT Rights movement, “Free Radicals” Libertarian Movement and activists of Transnational Radical Party. Demonstrators held slogans in support of human and gay rights. They also held rainbow flags. Slogans of the rally were: “Iran! Maintain human rights!”, “Iran! Hands off gays!”, “No death penalty!”. Last year few LGBT and political activists had also rallied on July 19 against execution of gay people in Iran. Several nazi extremists had tried to assault demonstrators. One of them had been beaten.
Note: Read full article on Gayrussia.ru
(New York, USA) - Despite a widely publicized outcry two years ago when Iranian authorities executed two young men in the northeastern city of Mashhed, the government continues to target, arrest, prosecute, and execute individuals under its sodomy law. The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) condemns Iran's violations of human rights law and asks that human rights groups around the world work to support those targeted by the government. Read more...
(UK) - An asylum seeker who was deported to Iran in 2004 has been describing how he managed to escape from custody and make his way back to the UK. In this three-part series, the BBC News Website follows Shahin Portofeh's story, from deportation and alleged torture in Iran, to his escape and flight to the UK in an arduous and dangerous journey across Turkey, Greece and Italy. Shahin Portofeh was so scared at the prospect of being deported from Coventry back to Iran that he sewed up his eyes and lips in July 2003 in an effort to draw attention to his case. The UK Home Office decided to deport him, sending him back to Tehran in 2004.
Note: Read full article on BBC News
(Singapur) - British actor Ian McKellen on Tuesday urged tightly-governed Singapore to loosen up and repeal its archaic laws aginst homosexuality. The openly gay McKellen indicated the laws, which are remnants of British colonial rule, may affect a vibrant business city like Singapore, which is vying with other Asian cities to draw more foreign talent and professionals. "Just treat us with respect like we treat everybody else and the world will be a better place, I think," McKellen said in a live interview. "Coming to Singapore where unfortunately you've still got those dreadful laws that we British left behind... it's about time Singapore grew up, I think, and realised that gay people are here to stay," he said.
Note: Read full article on Brisbane Times
(Spain) - The president of Spanish Gay Rights group FELGTB, Antonio Poveda, has made a call to the international community to turn its attention to violation of human rights in Iran. David Montero, person in charge of the FELGTB for international subjects, condemned Iran's “strategy of criminalization of the homosexual love which they carry out all the religious fundamentalisms, that are fomenting hatred towards lesbians, gays, transsexuals and bisexuals." The FELGTB is going to start up protests on 18 July at 12:30 in front of the embassy of Iran to demand the stop of the planned executions.
Note: Read the machine-translated article on www.agmagazine.com.ar
(USA) - Harassment and abuse of gay men and lesbians is becoming increasingly accepted as grounds for legal asylum in the United States. Ironically, experts said, it might be harder for homosexuals to win asylum claims on grounds of sexual orientation if they come from countries with dictatorial governments that repress a variety of people. Seeking asylum from a country with a great deal of violence might work against a gay applicant. "We have cases from all over the world, but sometimes people who come from the scariest countries have the hardest time proving their case," said Victoria Neilson, legal director of a private New York agency called Immigration Equality.
Note: Read full article on Washington Post
The Gay Homeland Foundation, an organization dedicated to furtherance of a gay national movement and cultural progress of the gay-lesbian community, and baraka, an international self-organization group of gay, lesbian und bisexual immigrants in Cologne, have announced the first political demonstration commemorating all gay and lesbian victims of the Ayatollah regime in Iran in Cologne on 19 July 2007. A vigil is scheduled to begin at 17:30 at the “Memorial for Lesbian and Gay victims of National Socialism” near the Hohenzollern bridge on the left Rhine bank in Cologne, Germany. RUBICON, Cologne's counseling center for gays and lesbians, is also supporting the event. Read more...
(Portugal) - Portugal has said it is prepared to invite President Robert Mugabe to a summit of European and African leaders in Lisbon this year despite a travel ban and sanctions against the 83-year-old dictator and figures in his regime. The gay and human rights activist Peter Tatchell, who famously tried but failed to arrest the Zimbabwean leader in Belgium, said the least Portugal could do would be to arrest him for human rights violations. Tatchell said: “While Zimbabwe burns, and millions starve, Mugabe will be wined and dined by the Portuguese president, Aníbal António Cavaco Silva, and received by other African and European heads of state. What is the point in having an EU travel ban if it is not enforced? Nearly every time Mugabe wants to come to Europe, the EU caves in and agrees to waive its ban."
Note: Read full article on New Zimbabwe
The top European human rights watchdog criticized Polish leaders for anti-homosexual rhetoric Friday. "I think we should remember that one of the groups that were targeted by the Nazis were homosexuals, and we should really avoid to fall into that trap now," said Council of Europe human rights commissioner Thomas Hammarberg. Hammarberg was in the Polish capital to present a report on Poland's human rights performance to Polish Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski, and to encourage Warsaw to do more on a number of issues, including overcrowded prisons and slow legal procedures. Poland's Education Minister Roman Giertych and members of his ministry are preparing a new law that would ban what they call "homosexual propaganda" in schools in order to protect traditional family values.
Note: Read full article on www.b92.net
After discussions with several activists in many countries and cities about organizing an international same-day coordinated action this summer, activists in five other cities have stepped forward to join with gay Swedes on August 4 in solidarity marches. August 4 is when Stockholm stages its annual gay Pride parade and celebration, and on that Saturday members of Tupilak, a gay and lesbian cultural workers collective, will march on foreign embassies in solidarity with LGBT people everywhere. Each city will decide how it will stand in solidarity on August 4 with LGBT people across the planet, what sort of action will be organized and where it will be held, along with a theme related to protecting the human rights of all gays.
Note: Read full article on Petrelis Files
I am Taraneh, an Iranian lesbian. For this reason I was arrested countless times. I went to prison and ultimately sentenced to death [by hanging]. I remember the first time I was arrested; I was 21 and a student in Esfahan. I was making love with my girlfriend in a car when I was arrested. I was kicked out of university. I spent 3 months in prison. I was whipped. Eventually I went to India to continue my education. But my family did not want me to stay there so I had to return to Iran. From there began the rest of my problems.
Note: Read full article on UK Gay News
(Moscow, Russia) - City authorities have given official blessing to a demonstration by human rights activists outside the European Commission’s office in Moscow on Wednesday. The demonstration will call for an EU-wide travel ban on the Mayor of Moscow, Yuri Luzhkov. Gay activists are joining forces with other human rights groups to make the demand following the banning of Moscow Gay Pride last month by Mayor Luzhkov and the ugly scenes outside City Hall when a small group tried to hand-in a letter signed by almost 50 Euro-MPs protesting the ban.
Note: Read full article on UK Gay News
(The Hague, Netherlands) - Dutch embassies in the 36 countries that receive development aid from The Hague are starting an investigation of the position of homosexuals. They are doing so at the request of Labour (PvdA) Development Cooperation Minister Bert Koenders. The Netherlands maintains a close relationship with the 36 "partner countries". In half of them, homosexuality is formally a criminal offence. Koenders has urged the embassies to press the authorities to abolish homosexuality as a criminal offence. The governments must also be urged to improve the position of sexual minority groups in society.
Note: Read full article on www.nisnews.nl
(UK) - Polish gay rights groups say thousands of homosexuals have fled the country to the UK to escape increasing persecution. Robert Biedron, a left wing party activist and head of the Polish Foundation Against Homophobia, said "huge numbers" of Polish gays had now fled the country following the rise to power of the current right-wing conservative government. He said: "It is incredible. The Polish gay community has just moved away because of the climate of fear and persecution. "It’s impossible for gays to be themselves in Poland. Around two million Poles have left the country seeking work and thousands of gays are joining them. Many gays are approaching our foundation for help in emigrating to the UK."
Note: Read full article on Daily Mail
(Israel) - Gay Palestinians have long been sneaking into Israel to enjoy a freedom unknown in their own, much more conservative, society. And despite persistent rows such as whether to allow gay-pride marches in Jerusalem Israel likes to promote its reputation for tolerance. Israel does give asylum to Palestinians whose lives are at risk - for collaborating with Israel's Shin Bet intelligence service. And sometimes the Shin Bet blackmails gay Palestinians into working for it by threatening to expose them - as does Palestinian intelligence, for that matter. So Palestinians known to be gay are invariably suspected of being collaborators too - which puts them in even greater danger.
Note: Read full article on Economist
(USA) - For the second year running, bloody violence, police indifference, and official government violations of basic universal human rights treaties were the order of the day on May 27 in Moscow, as gays tried to petition Russian authorities for equality. And like last year, when Russian gays attempted to stage their first Pride March and met a similar fate – both were well-covered by the mainstream and gay press and bloggers – average American queers collectively yawned loudly, after maybe a moment of bemoaning the violence, then kept silent and enjoyed the long Memorial Day holiday weekend.
Note: Read full article on Bay Area Reporter
(Canada) - Alvaro Orozco, the Nicaraguan refugee who was denied status because a refugee board member didn't believe that he was gay, will be allowed to remain in Canada until Aug 9. In February the Department Of Justice granted Orozco, 21, a two-month stay of his deportation order amid widespread media attention about his case. Orozco was denied refugee status last October after refugee board member Deborah Lamont ruled that Orozco "did not pursue same-sex relationships in whatever capacity... because he is not a homosexual." Orozco's refugee claim was based on the grounds that he'd be persecuted on the basis of his sexual orientation if sent back to Nicaragua. Same-sex relationships are illegal in Nicaragua and can result in up to three years in prison.
Note: Read full article on www.xtra.ca
(Poland) - "We have to take a stand against this ... Disgusting pederasts came here from many countries and tried to impose their propaganda on us!" one person publicly declared. "Homosexuality is an addiction. Like pornography, the internet, shopping and contraception," claimed another. The first statement came from the mouth of Poland's Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Education, Roman Giertych, speaking in public shortly after the end of the Equality Parade in Warsaw. The second quote is a statement from an adviser to Giertych, expressed in the Polish Parliament at a sitting of the Commission on the Family. Attitudes towards homosexuals, to people of other nationalities and races are usually strong reflectors of the state of democracy in a given country.
Note: Read full article on Warsaw Business Journal
(Riga, Latvia) - Support for Riga Friendship Days and Gay Pride has come today from the British Ambassador, the Chief of Staff of the Swedish Navy and an MEP — all hoping for a “celebration’ when the main event, the parade, takes place in Vermanes Park on Sunday. But the anti-gay ‘No Pride’ group became a victim of its own pressure today when demonstrators turned up at the Riga Conference Centre where the conference, Family Models: Diversity and Equality, was scheduled to take place.
Note: Read full article on UK Gay News
(Ghana) - The rights of gays and lesbians in Africa were left out of the 41st ordinary session of the African commission on human and people's rights due to a constraint in time, the ACHPS chairperson has explained. Salamata Sawadogo told attendees of the closing of the commission"s 41st session that "we did not have the time to discuss the issue," adding that a number of items on the agenda were forfeited because of scheduling limits. Peter Nii, a supporter of the gay and lesbian association of Ghana, said he is not surprised that the commission did not raise the issue in the session. "I think this [topic] is a disaster for the African Commission," he said. "I think they thought this is not an important issue."
Note: Read full article on The Stateseman Online
Gay people in Eastern Europe don’t live in gay-friendly countries; their battles aren’t won – perhaps the best litmus test of this being what happens when activists, in some cases emboldened by EU membership, plan Gay Pride celebrations. When Mayor of Warsaw, Poland’s current President banned Pride, adding that “it would be dangerous for our civilisation to put homosexual rights on equal footing”. More virulent sentiments are voiced by lawmakers from Sofia to Vilnius.
Note: Read full article on Times Online
(London, UK) - The British Green Party has today called for a European Union travel ban on the Mayor of Moscow, Yuri Luzhkov, following violence in the streets of the capital on Sunday during Gay Pride - and heavy-handed police tactics which saw many arrests. They condemn Moscow police, and the OMON riot police, for “arresting peaceful gay and lesbian rights activists, and standing by while those activists were attacked by extremist thugs opposite City Hall”. Activists, including European lawmakers, senior foreign human rights officials and celebrities, attempted to submit a letter, signed by around 50 MEPs, protesting against Mayor Luzhkov’s renewed ban of the Moscow Gay Pride Parade. Read more...
(Nigaria/USA) - Nigerian Anglican Davis Mac-Iyalla, 33, founder of his country's only gay-rights organization, Changing Attitude Nigeria, has embarked on a six-week speaking tour of the United States. Among his stops will be the Episcopal Church's Executive Council June 11-14 meeting in Parsippany, New Jersey. He will be an invited guest of the Council's National Concerns Committee. Mac-Iyalla will visit about 20 cities and participate in 52 events before departing July 5 to attend the General Synod of the Church of England.
Note: Read full article on www.episcopalchurch.org
(Stockholm, Sweden) – A government minister is to head a delegation of more than 70 people from Sweden to the Riga Friendship Days and Gay Pride, which gets underway on Thursday May 31. In addition, the Swedish Embassy in Riga will be holding an official reception during the Pride. Tobias Billström, the minister for migration and asylum policy at the Ministry of Justice will be taking part in the parade at Vermanes Park in downtown Riga – and is due to make a speech following the event. Read more...
(Australia) - The Federal Government's Refugee Review Tribunal (RRT) has agreed to look at implementing sexuality and gender identity training for its members, after concerns were raised by Greens Senator Kerry Nettle about the RTF's lack of sensitivity in the area. At the Senate Estimates Committee on Tuesday, Nettle raised the issue following newspaper reports about the case of refugee Ali Humayun. Humayun's application for asylum was rejected on the grounds that his relationship with another man in detention was a 'product of a situation where only same-sex partners are available or situational sexuality', indicating the RRT showed a lack of knowledge about sexual orientation issues.
Note: Read full article on evolutionpublishing.com.au
(Strasbourg, EU) – The European Commission is now experiencing at first hand homophobia – and what it is like to be gay, or lesbian, or bisexual, or transgendered in parts of the European Union, a group of MEPs said today.The remarks come in the wake of the ban imposed on Monday by the Mayor of Vilnius, Juozas Imbrasas, on the Commission-sponsored ‘For Diversity: Against Discrimination’ display truck from setting up shop for a day in the Lithuanian capital on Friday (May 25). “The Commission now feels the force of homophobia,” said Michael Cashman (PES – UK), the president of Parliament’s gay and lesbian rights all-party ‘Intergroup’. Read more...
(Moscow, Russia) - Members of the European Parliament have written to the Mayor of Moscow urging him to respect human rights and allow a gay Pride parade this weekend to go ahead. Marco Cappato, an Italian MEP and Dutch parliamentarian Sophie In't Veld's open letter to Yuri Luzhkov asks him to authorise Sunday's "March in support for tolerance and respect for the rights and freedoms of homosexual people in Russia." Mayor Luzhkov banned the Moscow Pride event planned for May last year. Gay rights activist defied the ban, despite large numbers of vigilantes, tear gas and riot police.
Note: Read full article on Pink News
(Australia) - Late 2003 and two gay Bangladeshi refugees were celebrating a great victory. The High Court of Australia had ruled in their favour. "R" and "J" could, it seemed, stay in Australia on the ground of their homosexuality. The refugee action community assumed the men had settled into Australia. But The Bulletin has found the couple are still fighting after the secretive Refugee Review Tribunal came up with a way to get rid of them: it told them they were not gay. To be told he is not gay, says R, "hurts me, it's shocked me. Without any evidence, they are saying I'm not gay. It destroys my inner side."
Note: Read full article on bulletin.ninemsn.com.au
(Jamaica) - The scars have long healed, but 28-year-old Asher's wounds go much deeper than the physical. Asher, who declined to give his surname, said he was beaten by men who didn't like his 'walk'. "What happened is that a group of men drew me into St Michael's Church, and they used a stone and started knocking me in the head," he said. Asher went to the United Kingdom with his uncle on a six-month visitor's visa. And after weighing his options, he decided to apply for political asylum in Britain. But by the time Asher got two sureties to act on his behalf, his removal date was too close at hand and so he was sent back to Jamaica.
Note: Read full article on Jamaica Observer
(UN) - The UN Committee on NGO's decided to defer to the next session the applications of Swedish Federation for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Rights; Federación Estatal de Lesbianas, Gays, Transexuales y Bisexuales; Associação Brasileira de Gays, Lésbicas e Transgêneros. Read more...
(Nepal) - In a show of solidarity, Nepal's burgeoning homosexual community is seeking international support for the release of 80 gay men arrested in Iran. The Blue Diamond Society (BDS), Nepal's sole gay rights organisation, has sent an appeal to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, asking for his intervention to secure the freedom of 80 men arrested by Iranian security forces in Isfahan city eight days ago. Expressing deep concern at the crackdown in the conservative Islamic country, BDS said it had received information that the detainees had been severely tortured in Isfahan jail and were in a bad state. 'Their lives are in danger,' the organisation told the top UN official. 'We ask your timely intervention to secure their early release.'
Note: Read full article on Malasia Sun
(New York, USA) – Pope Benedict XVI, US President George W. Bush and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad have all undermined human rights by actively promoting prejudice against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, Human Rights Watch said last night in its annual “hall of shame” to mark the International Day Against Homophobia. Today, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender groups in more than 50 countries will commemorate the International Day Against Homophobia, an initiative launched in 2005 that commemorates the day in 1990 when the World Health Organization removed homosexuality from its roster of disorders. Read more...
(London, UK) - Liberal Democrat leader Menzies Campbell warned today that thousands of lives are still being ruined by homophobia. Speaking on the International Day Against Homophobia (IDAHO), he said that the Liberal Democrats are today holding a Parliamentary reception as part of their campaign to tackle homophobic bullying in schools. “Britain has thankfully moved a long way since the decrimalisation of homosexuality over 40 years ago, he said. Read more...
(Riga, Latvia) - Human rights campaigners from across Europe are to attend next month's Riga Pride. Last year the march was attacked and missiles and human excrement were thrown at participants. Gay and lesbian protesters were refused permission to march in Riga on the 22nd July 2006 by city officials, who cited security advice from the interior ministry. Amnesty International has announced that between 50 and 100 of its members from eleven countries will take part in this year's Riga Pride on 3rd June. A delegation of Swedish MPs and MEPs from across the political spectrum are also expected to march.
Note: Read full article on Pink News
(London, UK) - The demonstration outside the Polish Embassy in London on Thursday, organised by the British Youth Council, is being backed by the London-based gay human rights group Outrage!, it emerged last night. The protest is one of a worldwide series of protests in over 50 countries to mark IDAHO - the International Day Against Homophobia, on May 17. “We condemn rising homophobia in Poland and the increased persecution of Poland’s lesbian and gay citizens,” said David Allison of OutRage!. Read more...
(Utrecht, Netherlands) - COC Nederland (Centre for Culture and Leisure) is urging the cabinet to call Poland to account for its policy which discriminates against homosexuals. The advocacy organisation for gay rights says that the EU should be allowed to ban Poland from its meetings until the situation in the Eastern European country changes. This week COC is staging a number of activities this week to raise awareness for the problems faced by Polish homosexuals. A large majority of Polish residents think that homosexuality is a sin and a Polish member of the European Parliament has called it "a travesty of the laws of nature."
Note: Read full article on www.expatica.com
(USA) - In recent months and years, Polish leaders have threatened criminal sanctions against lesbian and gay activists and organizations, have tried to restrict freedoms of expression and association, and have even threatened violence against LGBT marchers. Human Rights Watch and Campaign Against Homophobia ( Kampania Przeciw Homofobii, Poland's central LGBT group) ask for signatures on the attached petition demanding an end to homophobic attacks. KPH will present the petition to Polish authorities at Warsaw's Equality Parade on May 19, 2007. Read more...
(New York, USA) - City authorities in Chisinau, the capital of Moldova, should stop interfering with lesbian and gay rights demonstrations, Human Rights Watch said today. In a letter to Moldova’s president, Human Rights Watch stated that both European and domestic laws guarantee freedom of assembly and freedom from discrimination for all. Last month, Chisinau authorities banned a public march planned for later that month by the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights organization GenderDoc-M. Read more...
(New York, USA) - Columbia Law School’s Sexuality and Gender Law Clinic secured asylum for a Turkmen woman who feared persecution in this mostly Muslim country because she is a lesbian and because of her political opinions. The grant of asylum, issued by the Department of Homeland Security, is believed to be the first-ever issued to a lesbian from Turkmenistan. The woman granted asylum in the U.S. prefers to remain anonymous as she continues to fear persecution of her family members in Turkmenistan. Read more...
(London, UK) - Londoners will be demonstrating their condemnation of homophobia and transphobia with a series of high profile events to mark the International Day Against Homophobia (IDAHO) on May 17. “I am frankly overwhelmed by the enthusiasm for IDAHO this year both in London and elsewhere,” commented Derek Leonard, the IDAHO coordinator for the UK.
Note: Read full article on UK Gay News
(Strasbourg, EU) - A Polish proposal to ban discussion of homosexuality in schools would violate European law, the European commissioner for equal opportunity said Wednesday."Such a law, if it were to emerge, would be in contradiction with the European human rights convention and the EU charter on fundamental rights," Vladimir Spidla told the European Parliament as part of a debate on homophobia. Poland's deputy education minister, Miroslaw Orzechowski, said last month that legislation was being prepared that would lead to the dismissal of teachers who promoted "homosexual attitudes."
Note: Read full article on www.eubusiness.com
(Brussels, EU) - Following a debate on homophobia in Europe yesterday, the European Parliament adopted a resolution today voicing concern at the recent announcement by the anti-gay Polish Education Minister of a new draft law to outlaw ‘homosexual propaganda’ in schools. The resolution – adopted by 325 votes to 124, with 150 abstentions – calls for a fact-finding mission to be sent to Poland, for “worldwide de-criminalisation of homosexuality” and for the Commission to take Member States to court if they breach their EU obligations. Read more...
A 35-year-old gay Iranian refugee is about to be deported from the U.K. back to Iran, and he is now on a hunger strike to protest the deportation order. Meanwhile, an underground gay activist and blogger in Iran, who managed to flee to Turkey with the police on his heels, has been repatriated to Iran, where he faces trial shortly on charges arising out of his pro-gay activisities.
Note: Read full article on DIRELAND
(Strasbourg, EU) - The Intergroup on Gay and Lesbian Rights welcomed the news that the European Parliament would debate and adopt a resolution this week on homophobia in Europe following a vote striking down a motion for dismissal from the Union for the Europe of Nations political group. The news comes in the midst of increasing homophobia in European Member States. From the Netherlands to Italy, from Belgium to Latvia, in Poland and in Council of Europe states, homophobic remarks and homophobic violence are becoming more and more rampant. Read more...
(Strasbourg, EU) - British labour MEP Michael Cashman says he moved into politics after Margaret Thatcher's government in the 1980s expressed similar views on homosexuality as the current political leaders in Poland. While enjoying equality as a gay citizen in his own country, he argues that pressure from Europe can help Polish gays and lesbians to achieve the same. Mr Cashman says that hateful statements from leading politicians are harmful to the everyday life of homosexuals as they are echoed on the ground and create a feeling that it is alright to attack gays and lesbians.
Note: Read full article on EU Observer
A new project is to be launched to tackle homophobic violence in the Caribbean. The Caribbean Anti-Violence Project (CAVP), an initiative of the University of the West Indies (UWI), is to launch a web-based documentation project to record incidents of harassment and violence based on homophobia, gender and HIV-related stigma. The launch comes on the heels of increasing incidents of homophobia, prejudice and violence in the region.
Note: Read full article on www.voice-online.co.uk
(London, UK) - The Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, has this morning called for the Chisinau City Council to allow the Gay Pride Parade in the Moldovan capital. Last week, the Chisinau authorities banned the all public events, including the march, at the Pride which is scheduled to be held between April 27 and 29, despite a Moldova Supreme Court decision in February that the City Council had acted illegally in banning last year’s public events. Read more...
(Toronto, Canada) - An urgent appeal on behalf of a courageous Iranian gay activist and writer who was deported back to Iran from Turkey two weeks ago was made last night by the Canadian-based Iranian Queer Organization (IRQO). For security reasons, we call him Babak in this report. He is 27-years-old, and has been working as a translator/writer for Cheraq magazine, the Iranian Queer Organization’s on-line monthly magazine for the last year. Read more...
(New York, USA) - The Blue Diamond Society, Nepal's only LGBT civil rights organization, has been named the recipient of a prestigious international award. The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission will present the award to Sunil Pant, the founder of BDS, at two awards ceremonies to be held on May 1 in New York and on May 3 in San Francisco. Blue Diamond was founded in 2001 in an effort to address the needs of sexual minorities and people living with HIV/AIDS in the tiny Himalayan kingdom.
Note: Read full article on 365gay.com
(Tiraspol, Transdnestria) - The Chisinau city authorities has, for the third year running, banned a Gay Pride public event. Tiraspol's city authorities has instead welcomed the gay marchers, offering the city - about an hour away from Chisinau - as an alternative venue for the public Gay Pride march which Moldova has banned. Transdnestria has splitted from Moldova after the breakdown of USSR and is an unrecognized country so far.
Note: Read full article on Tiraspol Times
(London, UK) – Human Rights campaigners will be staging a demonstration next month outside the Polish Embassy in London to express their growing concern about the plight of the LGBT community in Poland. The demonstration will be staged on the International Day Against Homophobia (IDAHO) - Thursday May 17, at a time to be arranged. Read more...
(Brussels, EU) - The European arm of the International Lesbian and Gay Association expressed “disappointment” at the Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) Committee of the European Parliament following a discussion yesterday (April 11) on homophobia in Poland. The committee was split on the way forward to a request by two Dutch MEPs, Kathalijne Buitenweg (Greens) and Sophie in ´t Veld (ALDE), to discuss the worsening situation in Poland following the recent pronouncements by the country’s minister of education to restrict lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people’s entitlement to employment in schools and other education institutions. Read more...
LONDON, April 12, 2007 – The ‘Stop Murder Music’ campaign won the Advocacy Award at the Black LGBT Community Awards 2007 gala ceremony in London on-board on a luxury Thames river boat. The Advocacy Award was in recognition that the Stop Murder Music campaign had “brought together activists worldwide in challenging homophobic lyrics which incite people to violence against LGBT people”. Read more...
(UK) - Iraqi LGBT -- the London-based group with a network of members and supporters inside Iraq that documents anti-gay violence -- last week released details on the latest series of murders of Iraqi gays by fanatical Islamist death squads. At the same time, the group says lack of money will force it to close two of the five safe houses it maintains in Iraq for gay Iraqis who have been threatened with death and forced to flee their homes. And the group’s coordinator has himself been targeted for death by an anti-gay fatwa.
Note: Read full article on DIRELAND
(Iran) - It is the most dangerous civil rights movement in the world. And for the first time ever, Mani, and many others, have risked their lives to come on camera and tell their story. In this startling and unique documentary, Out in Iran, we go to Iran and get the world’s first look at life inside Iran’s persecuted gay community. We meet an astonishing group of courageous people with heartbreaking stories.
Note: Watch the 22-min video on CBC
(South Africa) - South Africa turned haven for many people as a result of war, prosecution and recently homosexuality as many African countries deplore this practice. Gay people from countries such as Nigeria, Uganda, Burundi just to mention a few constantly come to Behind the Mask (BTM) to tell their stories of prejudices for being gay. Burundian gay man, Iram Manirambona (27), has spent almost two years running from country to country fearing for his life because of his sexual orientation.
Note: Read full article on Behind the Mask
A nasty controversy has arisen on various blogs, listservs, and in some gay and straight publications over the decision by the New York-based International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) not to issue any statement on the portions of the U.S. State Department's annual report on human rights that deal with LGBT issues and HIV/AIDS-related incidents. The report was issued at the beginning of March. This latest cat-fight in the international gay community was initiated by controversial blogger Michael Petrelis, a gay and AIDS activist in San Francisco, who sharply criticized both IGLHRC and Human Rights Watch (HRW) for not issuing a press release on the State Department's findings.
Note: Read full article on Gay City News
For a number of years, Rick Rosendall of the Gay Lesbian Activists Alliance in DC, and yours truly, as unpaid volunteers interested in global gay issues, have done what we can to both pressure the State Dept to monitor and foster respect of human rights for gays around the globe, and to include the abuses and advances of gay people in the annual human rights report. Neither Rick nor I, nor our brother across the pond, Peter Tatchell, who has greatly assisted us in our work as USA gays committed to working with our State Dept to benefit gays globally, is part of a group with millions of dollars and paid executives and researchers.
Note: Read full article Petrelis Files
(Bahamas) - It isn't exactly a scene out of 'Norma Rae,' but workers at the private Half Moon Cay in the Bahamas say they'll strike if cruise ships full of nudists and gay people don't stop stopping by. The workers say managment never told them that they'd have to serve such folks, and they don't like it. Managers say the Cay doesn't discriminate against any guests.
Note: The rest of the story is at Bgay.com
(London) - The Iraqi regime that the US and UK are fighting for has long been abusive to gays and lesbians, but now government leaders there are conducting a full-scale campaign of 'sexual cleansing,' according to activists. Ali Hili, the coordinator of the human rights group Iraqi LGBT, has case histories and extremely graphic photos of their handiwork.
Note: The details are at Uruknet.info Just a warning: the pictures are quite grisly.
(Moscow) - The City Court ruled today that last year's ban on the local gay pride parade was justified, but organizers of last May's march plan to appeal. That demonstration last year went forward despite the city's refusal of a permit, and was beset by anti-gay violence. Organizers say they'll take their case to higher Russian courts, as well as the European Court of Human Rights.
Note: There's more info at Rainbow Network
(Beijing) - For the first time, Chinese producers plan to bring forth a TV program with a gay host, that talks about gay issues. "Tongxing Xianglian," or "Connecting Homosexuals," will debut Thursday on www.phoenixtv.com, and is expected to air once a week. Controversial Chinese AIDS activist Didier Zheng will host.
Note: More details are at CNN
(Ukraine) - Exercised patriots are taking to the streets of Kiev over Ukraine's controversial entry in the upcoming Eurovision Song Contest-- a sort of pan-European version of American Idol. The nationalists are upset, really upset, that their exalted Motherland is to be represented at the contest by a guy in drag. Never mind that the Ukrainian public voted for the song in huge numbers.
Note: The odd (and kinda funny) story is in Der Spiegel
(Riga) - Viktors Birze, hater-in-chief of Latvia's homegrown ultra-right wing National Force Union is under investigation, and is likely to be charged with inciting public disorder, hooliganism in a group, causing bodily injuries and damage of property, and resisting law enforcement authorities for his antics during last year’s gay pride march in Riga.
Note: More info is at Gay.com
See previous story: New Riga Mayor Ashamed of Events at Last Year’s Gay Pride
(New York City) - The human-rights watchdog group Amnesty International has released reports that GLBT activist Danny Reyes was arrested, beaten then gang-raped while in a local Honduran police lock-up earlier this month, and that police encouraged the attack. According to local activists, Reyes was picked up by cops in Tegucigalpa on March 18. Reyes is a leader of the Rainbow Association in Honduras.
Note: More info is at AmnestyUSA.org
(London) - While the draconian Same Sex Marriage (Prohibition) Bill 2006 appears to be ‘stalled in the Nigerian House of Representative – the lower house of the country’s parliament, there will be no celebrations in the gay community just yet. There is some confusion as to whether the House had last week gone into recess prior to next month’s Federal elections – AllAfrica.com reported on Sunday that the recess was due to commence March 28, while the Nigerian press itself was reporting that the recess started over a week ago. Read more...
(Brussels) - The European arm of the International Lesbian and Gay Association, ILGA-Europe, has welcomed a Council of Europe resolution that condemns bans in some countries of ‘Gay Prides’. Approved [Tuesday] in Strasbourg by the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe, the resolution reminds local and regional authorities throughout Europe that is it their duty to ensure that the freedom of assembly and expression is enjoyed by LGBT people without any discrimination. Read more...
(Israel) - There's only one gay Palestinian group in Israel, and none on the West Bank. The activists who formed that group, ASWAT, want to celebrate its fifth anniversary with a gathering in Haifa tomorrow. Trouble is, no one can guarantee group members' safety, as radical Jewish sects ally once again with fundamentalist Muslim groups to try to stop the proceedings.
Note: The full story is at Rainbow Network
(London) - IDAHO-UK will be joining 50 countries in the fight against homophobia on May 17. And so far it looks like one of the strongest areas in the country will be Northern England that will be marking International Day Against Homophobia [IDAHO]. “Exceeding Expectations”, the Manchester initiative aimed at ending homophobia through education is launching its third newsletter to be distributed to all adults working at secondary schools across the city to coincide with IDAHO day. Read more...
(Geneva) - The Yogyakarta Principles, named after the city [in Indonesia] where they were adopted, were launched today by 29 international human rights experts at a UN Human Rights Council session in Geneva. They address issues such as rape and gender-based violence, extrajudicial executions, torture and medical abuses, repressions of free speech and discrimination in the public services.
Note: Read the full article at Pink News
(Brussels) - The European Parliament’s Intergroup on Gay and Lesbian Rights last week expressed alarm over reports of the Polish national government’s intended plans to adopt a law which would ban LGBT people from working in education and would also ban awareness-raising of LGBT issues in schools. Such laws flagrantly violate the principles of non-discrimination enshrined in Article 13 of the Treaty on European Union and would also go against the acquis communautaire in particular the Employment Framework Directive, the Intergroup claim[s]. Read more...
(Nigeria) - The "Same Sex Marriage (Prohibition) Act 2006" was debated...[on] 22 March, by the Nigerian House of Representatives. The bill undermines the fundamental human rights of all lesbian and gay Nigerians, their families and friends. World opinion needs to urgently condemn further progress on this Bill in the Nigerian House of Representatives. It will make criminals of LGBT people simply for being who they are. "We urge all Provinces and Primates of the Anglican Communion to support international action in condemnation of this dangerous and inhuman bill", says the statement of Changing Attitude Nigeria. Read more...
[The recent move to criminalize any mention of homosexuality in Polish schools] came just it was announced that President [Lech] Kaczynski would deliver the opening address at a World Congress of Families organized this coming May in Poland by gay-hating U.S. Christian right groups. Read more...
(Manila, Philippines) - Philippine police issued a warning to gay officers not sway their hips or display other suggestive behavior while on duty — or they could risk losing their jobs. "If they sway their hips while marching, or if they engage in lustful conduct, I think that will be a ground for separation," ...[said a] Philippine National Police spokesman. **UPDATE:Top Cops Defend Their Policy
Note: Read the original story at MSNBC
(Phillipines) - The Commission on Elections on Thursday junked the bid of the gay and lesbian party-list group Ang Ladlad to join the mid-term elections. ...This was revealed by a ranking official who said that the Comelec en banc had already adopted a resolution junking totally the accreditation of Ang Ladlad. ...“There’s already a decision….it was denied," the official, who requested anonymity, said in an interview. ...“They failed to show proof that they represent a clear sector," the official added.
Note: More details at GMANews.com
See also: Gay-lesbian group makes last-ditch poll bid
(London, UK) – Fundamentalist Christians are set to demonstrate outside Parliament this evening as the House of Lords debate the Equality Act (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2007. The Government intends to bring-in the Act next month. It will outlaw discrimination against gay people in the provision of goods and services, though Prime Minister Tony Blair has said religious agencies would be given a 21 month transitional period to prepare for the new laws. Read more...
The European Parliament is prepared to investigate the legality of draft legislation restricting discussion of homosexuality in Polish schools, should the bill be officially submitted to the Polish lower house. The parliament's committee on civil liberties discussed the issue yesterday and decided to launch a study into whether the legislation violates EU rules.
Note: Read the full article at Pink News
(UK) - Brighton and Hove’s Green Party has shown its pink credentials by drawing up a 15 point manifesto for the LGBT community. While it’s a welcome and radical move, it’s quite a wise one considering the sizeable gay community. Spokesperson: “We pride ourselves on being the only local party standing in the upcoming council elections in Brighton and Hove to produce a comprehensive 15 point manifesto for LGBT people.... We’ve done this because we care passionately about the quality of life in our city for the LGBT communities. We hope LGBT people can see what a Green vote means in the 3rd May city council elections which are so important for the future direction of Brighton and Hove, renowned as the ‘gay’ capital of England.”
Note: Read full article at Gay.com
(Gloucester, UK) - A group of gay men and women in Gloucestershire will be going back into "the closet" in May to draw attention to the fact that there are still many countries in the world where gays are persecuted, and even executed. Organised by Gloucestershire Rainbow Day, the "back into the closet" event will be staged at Stroud’s gay and lesbian bar, the Lockkeepers in Wallbridge for 24 hours, from 6pm on Friday May 18. It is to be Gloucestershire's contribution to International Day Against Homophobia (IDAHO) which is observed worldwide on May 17. Read more...
(Poland) - The Polish government’s proposed legislation to censor all discussion of homosexuality in schools and other academic institutions would violate freedom of speech and impede free access to information, Human Rights Watch said last night in a letter to Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski. On March 13, the deputy minister of education, Miroslaw Orzechowski, said that the government is developing legislation to “punish anyone who promotes homosexuality” in schools and education establishments. Read more...
(Nigeria) - The Nigerian branch of the Anglican Church pressure group on LGBT rights, Changing Attitude Nigeria (CAN), is warning other countries that the passing of the anti-gay marriage bill could cause significant problems for them, too. Restrictions in the bill are so draconian and oppressive that it could result in a potential flood of gay Nigerians fleeing to other countries. The main targets would be other countries that Nigerians often travel to, such as Britain. Read more...
(Strasbourg, EU) -The European Parliament is to call on the Nigerian Government and Parliament not to adopt the proposed 'Same Sex Marriage (Prohibition) Act' in its current form. MEPs this afternoon voted 61-24, with one abstention, on a wide-ranging human rights resolution tabled by the EPP-DE group that also included a call to abolish the death penalty and to intervene in individual cases of persons tried under Sharia law and sentenced to death, amputation, flogging or other inhuman and degrading treatment that violates the Nigerian Constitution as well as international human rights law. Read more...
(USA) - The past several weeks have seen more rulings from federal appeals courts nationwide rejecting asylum appeals by gay or HIV-positive applicants, the common theme being that as the climate for gays and those suffering from HIV infection appears to improve around the world, judges are less inclined to find they are entitled to seek a safe haven in the U.S. What counts as "persecution" in the asylum system may in fact be truly extreme risk of harm or even death.
Note: Read full article on Gay City News
(Cologne, Germany) - An anti-gay bill pending in the legislature of Nigeria could result in that country running afoul of international treaties which outlaw genocide, according to a statement issued Wednesday by the Gay Homeland Foundation. Nigerian politicians and high officials of the Anglican Church in Nigeria pushing for the anti-gay Bill in their country might themselves become subject to international prosecution.
(London, UK) - A call for the repeal of laws in Ghana that criminalise same-sex relations has been made by gay human rights group Outrage! as the Ghanaian President, John Kofi Agyekum Kufuor, arrived in London on a State visit. The call comes in response to requests to the London-based group for help from Prince Kweku MacDonald, president of the Gay and Lesbian Association of Ghana (GALAG), and from Mac-Darling Cobbinah executive/national director of the Centre for Popular Education and Human Rights Ghana. Read more...
(Netherlands) - The non-governmental organisation Human Rights Watch has been fighting for human rights in countries all over the world for almost 30 years. The organisation does research into the protection of human rights and produces reports for national governments, the United Nations and the media. For all these efforts, Human Rights Watch (HRW) has now been awarded the Dutch Geuzen medal, giving the organisation what it regards as an ideal opportunity to call on the Dutch government to take a stand for human rights at a time when, because of the war against terrorism, they have become increasingly vulnerable.
Note: Read full article on www.radionetherlands.nl
(Riga, Latvia) - A letter of protest has been sent to British Prime Minister Tony Blair by the Latvian “No Pride” group, which organised the protest against Riga Gay Pride last year when demonstrators threw excrement at Pride participants. Signed by Igors Maslakovs, the group’s chair, the letter accuses the United Kingdom of “interfering with Latvia’s internal politics”. The government, the Mayor of London, and the UK Parliament, along with the Europe-wide ILGA-Europe NGO, are asked to “respect the views of the Latvian society” and their rights to self-determination and sovereignty.
Note: Read full article on UK Gay News
(Ghana) - Ghanaian gays in the United Kingdom are planning to meet President Kufuor in a bid to get the government to amend the country's laws banning homosexuality. The issue of gay rights came up in September last year following reports of an intended international gay conference in Accra. The conference never took place but stirred a debate and attracted condemnation from the public and religious groups.
Note: Read full article on www.myjoyonline.com
(France) - Mr Ndiki Samuel, as I wrote last year, was perhaps against his will, a symbol of all that is wrong in Cameroon. A country that has perfected fraud and discrimination against its minorities, and the prime targets has always been the English-speaking populations. However, the Cameroon government’s new front in her vicious discrimination campaigns is to focus on a minority within minorities. This second group now facing discrimination from a government that has ruin the economy of the country is a group that is linguistic/regional blind.
Note: Read full article on www.africanpath.com
(Brussels, Belgium) - The European Parliament is set to debate the proposed Bill that would not only ban gay marriage in Nigeria, but would also outlaw representations and advocacy of homosexuality in the country. This Bill is currently going through the Nigerian Parliament. The emergency European Parliament debate will be held on Thursday at the end of the plenary session in Strasbourg. Read more...
(Dublin, Ireland) - Senator David Norris has snubbed the Iranian embassy in Dublin by refusing to attend a diplomatic function in protest at the hanging of two young homosexual teenagers in the Middle Eastern country. Senator David Norris has snubbed the Iranian embassy in Dublin by refusing to attend a diplomatic function in protest at the hanging of two young homosexual teenagers in the Middle Eastern country. Norris, who is a member of the Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs, was invited to the function to celebrate Iranian National Day.
Note: Read full article on www.sbpost.ie
(UK) - In a 30-min broadcast, Peter Tatchell talked on 18 Doughty Street Talk TV to Russian gay activist/journalist Nikolai Alekseev. Russia's democracy is flawed and the struggle for the right to free expression and the right to protest.
Note: Watch onine
(USA) - A leading gay activist in Nigeria has denounced current government efforts to ban homosexuality in the country. For Voice of America, Gilbert da Costa reports the Nigerian government is facing substantial international pressure over the plan.
Note: Read full article on Voice of America
(London, UK) - The draconian Bill that effectively outlaws homosexuality in Nigeria could be on the statute book this month, a gay Nigerian activist said in London yesterday. Bisi Alimi, the executive director of the Independent Project who is in London attending an HIV/Aids conference, said: “The Bill is very political – it is expected to pass.” Mr. Alimi is one of the relatively few openly gay men in the country and was “outed” three years ago in a university newspaper.
Note: Read full article on UK Gay News
(Sacramento, USA) - According to a poll performed by the Field Research Corporaton, the support for same-sex marriages by Californians increased from 30% in 1985, to 43% in 2006 (wtih 50% opposing the idea to allow gay couples to wed). Asked to choose whether gay couples should be allowed to marry, enter domestic partnerships or get no legal recognition, about a third of Californians choose each category. Read more...
(London, UK) - The Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, today welcomed the statement of the new Mayor of Riga saying he was “ashamed” of the attack on the Gay Pride march in that city last year and urged him to ensure that the peaceful Gay Pride march in the city this year could proceed. Mr. Livingstone’s statement comes as officials from Pride London prepare to fly to Riga to seal a “twinning” arrangement between the Prides of the two capitals.
Note: Read full article on UK Gay News
(London, UK) - Russian gay leader Nikolai Alekseev spoke last night of his “delight” at the “massive coverage in the Russian media” of Wednesday’s London protest against Moscow’s notoriously homophobic mayor, Yuri Luzhkov. And he also revealed that while in London he had received threatening and anonymous phone calls. Mr Alekseev joined the protest outside City Hall, alongside the openly gay Green Party member of the London Assembly, Darren Johnson, and human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell.
Note: Read full article on UK Gay NewsRead more...
(London, UK) - London Mayor Ken Livingstone was yesterday accused of being “hypocritical” by gay Russian journalist Nikolai Alexeyev, one of the organisers of Moscow Pride, who is in London and attended the post-M4 Summit press conference. The cause of the outburst was the press release issued yesterday morning by the Mayor of London’s office which supported the rights of gay men and women to peacefully demonstrate in Eastern Europe, including Moscow. But the statement criticised Peter Tatchell of Outrage! for being “Islamaphobic”.
Note: Read full article on UK Gay News
The Women Affairs and Youth Committee of Nigeria's House of Representatives held a hearing on February. 14 on an extreme antigay bill that some activists had believed was not going to see any action. In a Jan. 31 “Public Statement of Warning,” Aken’Ova and 19 other African activists declared: “Until OutRage!’s action was issued, the bill was dead. By calling on people to begin a campaign at this stage, interest could be awakened in the bill. OutRage! is acting irresponsibly and in direct contradiction to the advice of leaders of the Nigerian LGBTI movement.” In an interview, Tatchell responded that his group “acted in good faith” and noted that he suspended the action four days later, after learning that some Nigerian activists were counseling silence on the matter.
Note: Read full article on UK Gay News
(London, UK) - A demonstration is to be staged outside London’s City Hall on Wednesday when the Mayor of Moscow, Yuri Luzhkov, visits for the annual “M4” summit of the mayors of Berlin, London, Moscow and Paris. Organised by Outrage!, the demonstration will protest Mayor Luzhkov’s stance on gays in general – and his banning of Moscow Gay Pride Parade. Wednesday’s demonstration at City Hall (Queens Walk, London SE1 – South Bank of Thames, near TowerBridge) is between 11am and 1.30pm. Nearest Underground is London Bridge (Northern and Jubilee lines), Tower Hill (Circle and District lines) or Tower Gateway (Docklands Light Railway).
Note: Read full article on UK Gay News
(New York, USA) - Voicing serious concern over a proposed Nigerian bill which would effectively outlaw same-sex relationships, four independent United Nations experts have said it would violate international human rights norms, and urged the Government to withdraw it immediately. In a joint statement, the experts said the proposed Bill for an Act to Make Provisions for the Prohibition of Relationship between Persons of the Same Sex, Celebration of Marriage by Them, and for Other Matters Connected Therewith would endanger the lives of those engaged in, or believed to be engaged in, same-sex relationships. Read more...
The issue of lesbian and gay Africans' human rights again came to the fore this week as Anglican Church leaders met in Tanzania amid the continuing row over the consecration of a gay US bishop in 2003. The meeting follows the World Social Forum held in Nairobi, Kenya, in January 2007 where hundreds of people flocked to the so-called Q-Tent in a country where homosexuality has been criminalised.
Note: Read full article on allafrica.com
(London, UK) - Condemning the refusal of the British and US governments to grant asylum to many refugees from the homophobic and sectarian violence in Iraq, the leader of the gay rights group Iraqi LGBT, Ali Hili said: “The West, which caused much the current chaos in Iraq, should be giving refuge to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Iraqis. “Right now, the US and Britain are turning down asylum claims by Iraqi LGBTs,” he added.
Note: Read full article on UK Gay News
(Brussels, EU) - The controversial draft law that is currently going through the Nigerian legislative process would violate basic human rights, the European Parliament’s ‘Intergroup’ on gay and lesbian rights reiterated today. “We’re very concerned to see this law remain on the agenda of the Nigerian legislature,” Michael Cashman (UK), president of the Intergroup commented.
Note: Read full article on UK Gay News
(Canada) - Days before a gay Nicaraguan man was set to be deported from Canada, he has been granted a two-month reprieve. His bid for asylum was rejected on the basis that he couldn't prove his sexual orientation. Alvaro Orozco, 21, was scheduled to be deported Tuesday, but the federal Justice Department agreed Friday to defer his removal by two months.
Note: Read full article on www.cbc.ca
(Toronto, Canada) The federal government has stepped in allowing a gay Nicaraguan fearing abuse if he is deported to remain in Canada, at least temporarily. Alvaro Orozco, 21, was facing deportation after an immigration board adjudicator did not believe he was openly gay when he fled his native Nicaragua at the age of 12. Following outrage by LGBT activists and immigration groups the federal Justice Department stepped in and issued a directive allowing Orozco to remain in the country for two months so that he can file a new application for refugee status on the basis of humanitarian and compassionate grounds.
Note: Read full article on 365gay.com
(London, UK) - British gays are coming to the aid of Latvia's beleaguered gay community. Last year hundreds of skinheads, members of the Orthodox Church and people identified as members of an extremist national group threw excrement and eggs at about 50 gay rights activists and their supporters as they left a gay pride service in the Latvian capital of Riga. The event was held after the city refused to grant a pride parade permit. Pride London is twinning itself with Riga's gay community. An official agreement is to be signed on March 8.
Note: Read full article on 365gay.com
(Russia) - Russian President Vladimir Putin last Thursday spoke in public for the first time ever about gays - but interpretations diverge about the meaning of what he said. "My approach towards gay parades and sexual minorities is very simple,' Putin replied, according to Reuters. "It is directly linked to my responsibilities. One of the key problems of our country is the demographic problem." At that point, the Reuters report continued, "The auditorium exploded in laughter and applause. The Kremlin leader quickly added, 'I respect the freedom of people in all respects. What was the other question?'"
Note: Read full article on www.gaycitynews.com
(Canada) - Alvaro Antonio Orozco, a gay teen runaway from Nicaragua, was denied asylum in Canada because the Immigration and Refugee Board didn't believe he was a homosexual. Mr. Orozco, now 21, is slated for removal next Tuesday to a country where sodomy is illegal and to a family that he says beat him and taunted him for his sexual orientation ever since he was a young boy.
Note: Read full article on www.theglobeandmail.com
(West Bank, Palestina) - A 21-year-old university student with serious professional ambitions, Nawal wouldn't dream of performing in his hometown, where homosexuality, as in the rest of the Palestinian territories, is strictly taboo, sometimes violently so. Last year, a group of gay Palestinians visiting East Jerusalem from the United States were threatened and one of them badly beaten after they announced plans to join an Israeli gay pride rally. The Web site of ASWAT, an organization of Palestinian gay women, says Palestinian society "has no mercy for sexual diversity and/or any expression of 'otherness' away from the societal norms and the assigned roles that were formed for women. ... The Palestinian woman has no right to choose an identity other than the one enforced on her by the male figures in her family and surroundings." So for Nawal and his friends, the only place where they can pursue a full social life is across the border in Israel.
Note: Read full article on www.sfgate.com
(Auckland, New Zealand) - A gay refugee who admitted repeatedly misleading immigration officials has been allowed to stay in New Zealand because he faced execution as a homosexual if sent back to Iran. Too embarrassed to disclose his homosexuality at the time of his first application in 2000, Mr Tahooni had "evolved into a confident - even flamboyant - man" able to express his sexual orientation without inhibition, the Refugee Status Appeals Authority said.
Note: Read full article on www.stuff.co.nz
(UK) - A group of 20 gay and lesbian activists from ten African countries have attacked the tactics of direct action campaigning group OutRage! In a strongly-worded statement they accuse the group, whose most public spokesman is Peter Tatchell, of having, "disrespected the lives, damaged the struggle, and endangered the safety of African human rights defenders."
Note: Read full article on www.pinknews.co.uk
(London, UK) - The gay and lesbian communities of London and Riga are to come together in a unique ‘twinning’ partnership to support equality and tolerance in both capital cities. Pride London and the Mayor of London will sign a statement of unity with Riga Pride at a ceremony in the Latvian capital on March 8.
Note: Read full article on UK Gay News
(Riga, Latvia) - February will mark the first birthday of Mozaika, an alliance of LGBT people and their friends in Latvia. And the group is asking for donations of books, magazines, videos/DVDs on sexuality and gender issues to help build up its ‘resource centre’ and library – a birthday present. Read more...
(Los Angeles, USA) - A Los Angeles immigration judge who previously denied a gay man's 2004 asylum bid on the grounds that the man simply could conceal his sexual orientation if he returned to his native Mexico reversed the decision Tuesday. In allowing Jorge Sota Vega to remain in the United States, Judge John D. Taylor said that gays should not be required to dress or act a certain way to avoid persecution and that Vega's lawyers proved he would be at risk if he were deported to Mexico.
Note: Read full article on www.contracostatimes.com
(Iraq) - For the very first time, an official United Nations human rights report released last week has confirmed the "violent campaigns" against Iraqi gays and the "assassinations of homosexuals in Iraq." "Attacks on homosexuals and intolerance of homosexual practices have long existed, yet they have escalated in the past year," says the latest bi-monthly Human Rights Report of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq (UNAMI), released on January 16. "Islamic groups and militias have been known to be particularly hostile towards homosexuals, frequently and openly engaging in violent campaigns against them. There have been a number of assassinations of homosexuals in Iraq," the report says.
Note: Read full article on Direland
ILGA-Europe is inviting to take part in a capacity building event which will take part in Romania on 18-20 April 2007. There will be two seminars organised simultaneously on the subjects of using video in monitoring pride marches and documenting human rights violations. Read more...
(Kathmandu, Nepal) - Monday January 8 may have passed as a normal day in Kathmandu. Yet, inside the Malla Hotel, new grounds were being broken. For the first time in the recorded history of Nepal, a conference was organized to discuss the constitutional rights of sexual minorities.
Note: Read full article on UK Gay News
(Dharamsala, Tibet exil enclave in India) - Mr. Tenzin Jigdel recently unfolded some real truths about himself as being a Tibetan Gay to Phayul.com. And we hope that this interview will positively demystify some myths, hopefully trigger certain change and establish some home truths about homosexuality in our society.
Note: Read full article on www.phayul.com
(USA) - The federal appeals court in Philadelphia has upheld a decision by the Board of Immigration Appeals that a lesbian from Jamaica had failed to show that things are so bad for gay people there that she would face a risk of torture were she to be returned to her homeland. Rejecting an appeal by Marcia Forrester, the court ruled on December 27 that although there was evidence of intolerance by the Jamaican public, there was no proof that the government abets it.
Note: Read full article on Gay City News
(EU/ILGA) - In a few months time LGBT people is Europe will come out for Pride marches across Europe. In anticipation of yet another year of battle for the right of LGBT people to assemble, the European Parliamentarians already now announce their warming to one of the countries which previously violated LGBT people’s right to free assembly - Moldova. Read more...
(LONDON, UK) - Twenty year old gay Nigerian asylum seeker, Emmanuel Obahiaghbon, has been deported back to Nigeria, it was learned today. He was deported on Monday December 4 on orders of the Immigration Minister, Liam Byrne MP. Mr Obahiaghbon had claimed asylum on the grounds of persecution because of his homosexuality. A psychiatrist had visited him in detention and confirmed that he had symptoms of trauma consistent with having suffered physical and sexual violence. Read more...
(BRUSSELS, BELGIUM) – A Finnish MEP has today expressed her “utmost satisfaction” with the European Commission’s condemnation of all discriminatory actions based on sexual orientation. The Commission’s view was expressed in an answer to a written question submitted by Piia-Noora Kauppi (EPP-ED)on a current case of homophobia in Poland - the Polish Selection Committee of the YOUTH Program had decided to reject the funding application of the European Voluntary Project on grounds that it would “propagate homosexual behaviour and attitudes among young people”.
Note: Read full article on UK Gay News
(BRUSSELS, BELGIUM) - The European Parliament’s ‘Intergroup’ on gay and lesbian rights is “dismayed” over revelations of further homophobic remarks made by Janis Smits, the new chair of the Latvian Parliament's Human Rights and Social Affairs Committee. And the LGBT Intergroup today reminded Mr. Smits that whilst he is perfectly entitled to his personal views, these views should not be used as platforms to infringe upon the rights of other groups.
Note: Read full article on UK Gay News
(ILGA) - On 11 December 2006, the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) of the United Nations approved ILGA-Europe’s application for consultative status. The consultative status was also granted to two of ILGA-Europe’s members - the Danish National Association for Gays and Lesbians - LBL, and the Lesbian and Gay Federation in Germany - LSVD. Read more...
(Lagos, Nigeria) - In the Muslim north of Nigeria, Bisi Alimi could be stoned to death for having gay sex. In the south, he could face three years in prison. Now, a proposed law would make it illegal just to share a meal at a cafe with gay friends. The proposal under debate in Nigeria's House of Representatives would outlaw not just gay marriages, but any form of association between gay people, social or otherwise, and publication of any materials deemed to promote a "same-sex amorous relationship."
Note: Read full article on www.iht.com
(UK) - Gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchell has described Iran’s plans to host a conference on Holocaust denial this week as an “incredible insult to all minorities who suffered under Nazism.” Since coming to power in 2005, Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has insisted that the Holocaust is a Zionist conspiracy, the event this week invites so called ‘experts’ to debate whether the event happened.
Note: Read full article on www.pinknews.co.uk
Hili spoke to me late Monday night, following President George W. Bush’s meeting with Abdul Aziz al-Hakim (left), president of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI). Al-Hakim heads the SCIRI-led United Iraqi Alliance, which has the largest number of parliamentary seats in the government alliance. "This has been a terrible day, I cried so much," Hili said, asking, "How can the American president meet this murderer, Hakim? He is the founder of the Badr Corps, which is killing us! He brought the death squads to Iraq! For Iraqis, his hands are full of blood. Our people say he is worse than Saddam! All day I’ve been talking to people in Iraq and getting e-mails from Iraq—there’s a lot of anger in Iraq that Bush is meeting with Hakim, and a lot of despair among gay people. Because when the president of America meets with the man who is the leader of the death squads which are killing gay people, given what we see every day, it makes us lose hope."
Note: Read full article on DIRELAND
(MINSK, BELARUS) - Plans are underway to organize ‘rainbow’ events, both underground in Belarus and in ‘exile’ during the next year. The move comes after the cancellation of last month’s Minsk stage of the 2006 ILGCN (International Lesbian & Gay Cultural Network) world rainbow cultural conference following the arrest of seven lesbian and gay Belarus activists.
Note: Read full article on UK Gay News
(LONDON, UK) - This weeks’ riot by detainees at the Harmondsworth immigration and asylum detention centre in west London was entirely predictable, given the centre’s grossly inhumane conditions. Harmondsworth is Britain's equivalent of Guantanamo Bay - a total disgrace to a supposedly civilised, democratic nation. Many of its detainees are refugees who have committed no crime, yet they are subjected to a draconian prison-style regime and allegedly criminal abuses by rogue staff.
Note: Read full story on UK Gay News
(AMSTERDAM, NIEDERLANDE) - A new website was launched today to promote the ‘Declaration of Montreal’, which was endorsed at the international conference on LGBT human rights, which was held in the framework of the 1st World Outgames in Montreal in July. “The Declaration of Montreal is an attempt to summarise and explain the demands of the international LGBT movement,” said the former Dutch MEP Joke Swiebel, a co-president of the Montreal conference.
Note: Read full article on UK Gay News
Peter Tatchell delves inside the gruesome injustices that face gay Iraqis. Let's just say it's not pretty. It's no secret that armed militias have taken advantage of the power vacuum to enact their own anti-gay justice. Since the fall of Saddam Hussein, Tatchell argues, there has been a startling rise in the strength and pervasiveness of these groups. Without intervention, the numbers will only continue to rise, certainly a dim outlook.
Note: Read full article on www.queerty.com
A petition calling for UN Resolution to decriminalise homosexuality world-wide is being coordinated by the international anti-homophobia group IDAHO (International Day Against Homophobia).
Note: Sign petition here
Nobel prize winners, politicians and writers have joined calls for the United Nations to approve a resolution decriminalising homosexuality in anti-gay countries. The International Day Against Homophobia (IDAHO) is leading a major campaign for a UN Resolution which will decriminalise homosexuality. There are 77 countries in the world where homosexuality is illegal and where punishments include imprisonment and the death penalty.
Note: Read full article on www.pinknews.co.uk
Petition: www.idahomophobia.org
(Kampala, Uganda) - A Ugandan lesbian who fled to Britain saying her Muslim father tried to kill her said on Thursday she feared for her life now she has been deported back to her homeland. Faridah Kenyini, 20, was sent back to Uganda on Monday following a ruling on her asylum application, in which she said the judge doubted she could know or was telling the truth about her sexuality at the age of 17, when she left. "I am so scared. I don't know what to do," she said in an interview at a secret location in Uganda.
Note: Read full article on www.iol.co.za
(BRUSSELS, BELGIUM) - In 1996 the General Assembly of the United Nations invited member states to observe the International Day of Tolerance on 16 November. ILGA-Europe welcomes all international initiatives promoting the issues of human rights and equality, tolerance and anti-discrimination.
Note: Press release by ILGA EuropeRead more...
(Cologne, Germany) - Gay Homeland Foundation has issued a statement condemning recent actions of Belarus autorities against gay activists in Gomel. The press release of GHF tells that the organization is "seriously concerned about the current situation of gay residents of Belarus."
Note: The press release can be accessed on the organization's websiteRead more...
On November 17 the Paris-based International Day Against Homophobia (IDAHO) will launch a global campaign for a United Nations resolution declaring that homosexuality should no longer be considered a crime anywhere in the world. The proposed U.N. resolution is the brainchild of IDAHO’s founder, Louis-Georges Tin, 32, a professor and author of a number of books (including the Dictionary of Homophobia) who is also a rising star of France’s emerging black movement for equality.
Note: Read full article on Advocate.com
(UK) Amnesty International is encouraging people across the UK to send a message of solidarity to William Hernández - a gay activist in El Salvador who has received death threats apparently intended to deter him from campaigning - as the campaign group launches its annual Greetings Card Campaign.
Note: Read full article on www.pinknews.co.uk
(UK) - A group of gay and lesbian Jewish students held a peaceful vigil in central London on Friday to coincide with the conclusion of the Jerusalem gay pride march to "show solidarity with our brothers and sisters in Israel" following the week of violence by sections of the haredi community in Jerusalem prior to Friday's gay pride march.
Note: Read full article on The Jerusalem Post
(UK) - Although today's gay pride march in Jerusalem was downgraded to a stadium rally, the fact that it took place at all was a setback for its opponents. Jewish and Arab gays have pulled off the biggest diplomatic coup in modern Middle Eastern history. They have managed to get warring Christians, Jews and Muslims working together for the first time since the foundation of the state of Israel.
Note: Read full article on guardian.co.uk
Doug Ireland: If we're to say that we have a gay movement that has any meaning, that is not just a bunch of self-satisfied bourgeois gays who send checks to organizations promoting gay marriage but instead are really engaged with the global human project of gay liberation, then our national gay groups have to devote some resources to educating and organizing around these issues of gay oppression in other countries.
Note: Read full article on www.politicalaffairs.net
(Jerusalem, ISRAEL) - Amidst mounting public opposition and threats of violence, Jerusalem police said Monday that they will reevaluate a permit given to hold a gay parade in the city next month. The debate over the event, which is slated to take place on November 10, mirrors a similar controversy over this summer's planned international gay parade in Jerusalem, which was eventually cancelled due to the war in Lebanon.
Note: Read full article on www.jpost.com
The Netherlands’ conservative Immigration Minister RIta Verdonk (right), who earlier this year set off a firestorm of protest in the Dutch parliament when she announced she intended to resume deportations of gay Iranians, has executed a 180-degree turnaround, and decided to make gay & lesbian asylum seekers from Iran a 'special group' who will get asylum on humanitarian grouds because their position in Iranian society marks them as specifically vulnerable.
Note: Read full article on DIRELAND
Mani, a courageous Iranian gay activist who is 24 years old, and who has been serving as the Health Scretary of the Persian Gay and Lesbian Organization (PGLO) in Iran, has fled from Iran. A little over three weeks ago, Mani's employer in the pharmaceutical firm in Iran where he worked found out he was gay, and reported him to the police. The police -- who thus were able to figure out that Mani was the person who had given recent interviews to the BBC and to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation about the persecution of gays and lesbians in Iran -- raided Mani's home several times looking for him.
Note: Read full article on DIRELAND
(Istanbul, Turkey) - The Public Prosecutor's Office has formally rejected request from Bursa Governorship to close down the Association to Protect Transvestites, Transsexuals, Gays and Lesbians and Develop Cultural Activities - known shortly as the The Rainbow Association (Gokkusagi Dernegi). The decision comes in response to an initiative made by the Bursa Governorship to have the association disbanded and locked down on grounds that the formation violated current association laws that governed no association could be founded with intentions against the law or public morality.
Note: Read full article on www.bianet.com
(BRUSSELS, Belgium, EU). As the Netherlands mulls resuming deportations of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender asylum seekers back to Iran, and Sweden begins such deportations again, both European governments must adhere to their international legal obligations not to send people back to the risk of torture, Human Rights Watch said yesterday. In letters to Dutch and Swedish authorities, Human Rights Watch said that states cannot return people to countries where they face torture, ill-treatment or death.
Note: Read article on ukgaynews.org.uk
(Jakarta) A decision by the Indonesian government to allow areas of the country semi-autonomous power is having a devastating effect on the country's gays a leading local newspaper reports. In granting local authorities the right to use Islamic law gays are reportedly being round up and prosecuted despite a federal constitution which has in the past guaranteed LGBT civil rights. Indonesia has the largest number of Muslims in the world. Although the federal government is secular the Jakarta Post reports that many provincial government have invoked Sharia law.
Note: Read article at 365gay.com
(Sweden, EU) A gay Iranian is to be deported from Sweden back to his homeland, a migration court in Stockholm decided on Friday. The court referred to a 2005 report from the Swedish foreign ministry, which said that Islamic law as applied in Iran prescribed "terrible penalties" for homosexual acts. Men who are found to have had penetrative sex can face the death penalty. But the report also said that most gay people in Iran managed to avoid danger by living "discrete and withdrawn" lives.
Note: Read full article at "The Local"
Sweden has again started expelling Iranian homosexuals seeking asylum here – ending the freeze which went into effect after the public hangings of 2 teen-age gays in Iran over a year ago. Swedish migration authorities say they are basing their decision on reports from the Swedish Embassy in Teheran which claim that homosexuals risk no dangers there – as long as they are discrete.
Swedish gay activists and the Swedish section of the global human rights organization, Amnesty International, sharply criticize this line as cynical – asking if other categories of persecuted refugees are being denied asylum here with the argument that they should go home and simply avoid detection by the regimes.
Note: Source: Swerige Radio
BRUSSELS, September 26, 2006 – The Latvian Parliament voted last week to support an amendment to the country’s Labour Law that will explicitly ban sexual orientation discrimination in employment. Until the vote, Latvia was the only member state of the European Union which failed to comply with provisions of the 2000 European Union employment equality directive requiring EU member states to protect employees from discrimination based on their sexual orientation.
(HOVE, UK) The Tony Blair Government continues to "blow hot and cold" on gay and lesbian human rights, Outrage! activist and human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell told the Green Party annual conference at the weekend.
(New Delhi) A campaign to repeal an Indian law that makes homosexuality a crime has split young people in New Delhi and Mumbai, with about half of them in favor of scrapping the legislation, according to a survey published Monday. The support for doing away with the anti-homosexuality law was surprisingly strong, and other findings of the poll appear to indicate that once-widespread prejudices against gays and lesbians are slowly disappearing. Read more...
(London) Two dozen people demonstrated in front of the Ugandan High Commission in London on Monday to protest at the persecution gays and lesbians in the African nation. Uganda outlaws male homosexuality, under laws originally imposed by the British colonizers in the nineteenth century. Offenders can face a maximum sentence of life imprisonment. Lesbians and gays are subjected to vigilante violence by homophobic mobs, especially in rural areas where most of the population live. Civil rights groups, including Amnesty International, have been critical of the Ugandan government for allowing the abuses to go on. Read more...
(MOSCOW, Russia) – Organisers of last May’s Moscow Pride have vowed to take the capital’s homophobic mayor to the European Human Rights Court in Strasbourg following today’s decision in a Russian Court. The Moscow City Court today heard the appeal against the decision of a lower court which backed Luzhkov’s ban of the Pride Parade on May 27. Read more...
(India) To build a truly democratic and plural India, we must collectively fight against laws and policies that abuse human rights and limit fundamental freedoms. This is why we, concerned Indian citizens and people of Indian origin, support the overturning of Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, a colonial-era law dating to 1861, which punitively criminalises romantic love and private, consensual sexual acts between adults of the same sex. Read more...
The Gay and Lesbian Association of Ghana [GALAG] feels compelled to issue this statement in the face of mounting misinformation being made public in both print and electronic media about an alleged two-day international gay conference, supposedly coming on in Accra International Conference Centre and in Koforidua, respectively.
Note: Discuss in forum: hereRead more...
(London) As Iraq continues to spiral closer to all-out civil war the situation for the country's LGBT community worsens by the day a British gay rights activist said on Monday. Read more...
A network of journalists established in Iran to report issues concerning sexual minorities. This body of reporters work along with Persian Gay & Lesbian Organization (PGLO); the network is set to work after months of research and contemplations regarding the need for its services. Read more...
British MPs from all parties have now signed an Early Day Motion in the House of Commons condemning Iran’s execution of gay people and children. Read more...
