(Dakar) Radio stations and newspapers in Senegal are urging people to attack gays. One station called on listeners to stone anyone suspected of “being a homosexual.”
One of the African country’s largest Islamic groups has issued statements over the past week describing gays as “vicious” and “perverts” and accuses them of spreading HIV/AIDS.
This homophobic frenzy follows the release of nine men who had been arrested on charges of homosexuality.
Senegal is one of 38 countries in Africa that criminalize homosexual acts.
An appeals court in the capital of Dakar overturned jail sentences last week for the nine after they had been convicted by a lower court and sentenced to eight years in prison on charges of ”indecent and unnatural acts” and “forming associations of criminals.”
All nine were involved in HIV-prevention work, their lawyer said.
The arrests came just weeks after Senegal hosted an international AIDS conference that included gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender participants.
Amnesty International called on the government to protect the nine, and other gay men in the country.
“These statements amount to advocacy of hatred constituting incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence,” said Veronique Aubert, Deputy Director of Amnesty International’s Africa Program.
Amnesty also called for an investigation into allegations of torture and other ill-treatment against the men while they were in custody, and for those responsible to be brought to justice.
The organization has said it is concerned that confessions reported to have been extracted from the men under torture were accepted as evidence by the lower court during their trial.
Over the last two years, Senegal has seen an increase in homophobic attacks, arbitrary arrests and increased hostility towards lesbian, gay, bisexual, same-sex practicing and transgender people Amnesty said.
“The Senegalese authorities must repeal the law criminalizing consensual sexual conduct between people of the same sex, and provide immediate protection for those who may be subject to discrimination or attack on the basis of actual or perceived sexual conduct,” said Aubert.
Source
Wednesday 29 April 2009
Out of jail, but Senegal gays risk death
Monday 27 April 2009
IRanian Queer Railroad Refugee Sponsorship Plan
What is RSP?
RSP is an IRQR initiative that aims to provide aid and care for the most vulnerable and at risk Iranian queer asylum seekers, who have fled Iran to save themselves from torture, arrest, prosecution and death. It aims to create a community of friends and supporters who would be willing to sponsor Iranian queer asylum seekers during part or all of their stay in transit countries before they are assigned to and settled in safe countries.
What are the conditions of Iranian queer asylum seekers?
Most of Iranian queer asylum seekers have no source of income, no parental support, no work rights and no access to health resources and medication. They often live in crowded houses in traditional satellite cities in countries such as Turkey, Malaysia and European countries. Their houses often have no heat and sanitary facilities. Many of them are young educated individuals who have fled Iran due to a well-founded fear of threatened or ongoing violence or persecution on grounds of sexual orientation. They are often traumatized, tired, and destitute and in need of support, be it food, medical care, counseling or accessing the right legal advice.
How can you help Iranian queer asylum seekers?
With $50 a month, you can sponsor an Iranian queer asylum seeker and ensure his/her access to basic food and accommodation.
SPONSOR NOW
After completing your sponsorship, you will immediately receive more information about your sponsored friend. We will also mail you more about his or her life, including information about his or her status and ways you can communicate with him or her via phone or e-mail.
Just send an email to rsp@irqr.net or call us at 001-416-548-4171 and we will give you more information that how you can become one of RSP members. Become Member of IRanian Queer Railroad Refugee Sponsorship Plan - RSP
Please visit our website to find more information about this humanitarian plan http://www.irqr.net/RSP.htm
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Saturday 25 April 2009
Civil Rights Groups Urge Ninth Circuit to Reconsider Denial of Asylum to Gay Man from Guatemala
In 1992, when Martinez initially applied for asylum, the U.S. had not yet recognized sexual orientation as a ground for asylum. Afraid of being forced back to Guatemala, where he feared for his life, and unaware that persecution based on sexual orientation might be a basis for asylum in this country, Martinez did not disclose his sexual orientation in his initial asylum application, stating that he feared returning to Guatemala because of his political opinion.
When Martinez was placed in deportation proceedings, he retained an attorney and immediately told the Immigration Judge the real reason he feared returning to Guatemala—he had already been mistreated there and feared further persecution because of his sexual orientation. The judge denied him asylum, finding that since he had failed to make that claim in his initial application, nothing else he said was credible, even though Martinez’s life partner testified in court about their relationship. In March of this year, the Ninth Circuit upheld the immigration court’s decision. Without any analysis of Martinez’s actual claim or the conditions in Guatemala for lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT) people, the Court simply declared him not credible and denied his claim.
"This case creates a precedent that is truly dangerous for LGBT asylum seekers," said Victoria Neilson, legal director of Immigration Equality. "It is common for LGBT people to fail to disclose their sexual orientation or gender identity in an initial application either because they don’t know this can be a ground for asylum or because they’re not completely ‘out’ about being gay. If this ruling stands, it will be much more difficult for LGBT people to win protection from persecution."
Shannon Minter, legal director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, added, "It is understandable that a person who has been brutalized by his own government for being gay may be afraid to disclose his sexual orientation when he first applies for asylum. To find Martinez not credible simply because he was fearful of telling a U.S. government official he was gay—after he had been sexually assaulted and beaten by government officials in his country—is a travesty."
NCLR and Immigration Equality are urging the Court to rehear the case and grant Martinez asylum.
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I'm Gay and Iraqi: Please Help Me!
By Michael Luongo
A contact of mine told me he came across this comment in an e-mail. The only thing more extraordinary than the message was the location. He was sitting in the U.S. embassy in Baghdad when he read it.
My contact said he was reaching out to me because things were “heating up” for gay men in Iraq. Over the years, he said he'd received several e-mails from gay Iraqis that came through the U.S. embassy’s website -- they are a “single source of frustration, because I feel completely helpless and heartbroken reading stories about an Iraqi that is sending an e-mail probably just a few miles from where I am sitting in the embassy, and telling me that there is a militia coming just down the block and they have a list.”
I traveled to Baghdad in the summer of 2007, during the height of the U.S. surge, to get a better handle on the situation for gays in Iraq. During my visit I met with a few gay Americans who worked at the embassy, all of whom spoke off-the-record when giving me quotes and providing information.
In recent months, things have certainly been "heating up" -- articles from The New York Times, the BBC, and the Los Angeles Times, as well as many other mainstream and gay publications, point to the horrors of what is happening in Iraq. Each article seems more harrowing than the last, attempting to make sense of something that's hard to fathom for the readers who digest these articles from the comfort and safety of an America where "dont ask, don't tell" and same-sex marriage make up the bulk of news coverage.
Some outlets -- particularly in the gay press -- point to reports by Iraqi LGBT, a London-based activist group reporting that gay men in Iraq are on death row and that they've received a letter from a gay Iraqi pleading for help, all of which has been next to impossible to verify. Others point to the reassertion of power by militias, particularly in Sadr City, a Shia slum within Baghdad where the Mahdi Army has for years engaged in a reign of terror against locals and the U.S. military.
In addition to the direct killings of gay men by the militia was the report of a fire-bombing of a neighborhood café popular among gay men. Still more articles look to the influence of militias in combination with family honor killings -- gay men who have been thrown out into the streets to fend for their safety, or Iraqis who have killed gay family members.
The most disturbing report comes from the Arab-language news source Alarabiya, describing the torture and killing of at least seven gay men who have had their anuses closed using a special glue, with Iraqi officers having forced them to take a medicine inducing diarrhea and death. While the English-language media has conflicting reports on what is happening in Iraq, this report, created by those who speak the language and have the best resources to interview local political and religious officials, gives perhaps the best indication of how terrible the situation has become for LGBT Iraqis.
In the course of my work, I often come across horrific stories like these. I am a journalist, not an activist, so the priority is to cover them -- still, people often ask what they can do. The answer is to put the pressure on Washington -- to show our leaders this is a serious topic -- one that needs their attention now.
As a child, I grew up in a neighborhood where many of my friends were the grandchildren of Holocaust survivors. Because of the direct connection to this historical event, it always baffled me when we would learn in school of American indifference to the 1930s buildup to that era. Certainly, reading about overseas suffering can seem an abstraction, whether 70 years ago or today. Yet, whether today or then, how many people could have been saved by writing letters, contacting politicians, or by directly sending money to organizations which aid refugees?
Though what is going on in Iraq with gay persecution is not at the same level of the Holocaust, the major difference is that the reign of terror is the direct result of the U.S. invasion, which completely changed the balance of power, unleashing the situation that exists today. In addition to the impact on the LGBT community, the refugee situation in Iraq impacts literally millions of people who have had to flee their homes since 2003.
My visit in 2007 lasted a month, with interviews in both the safer Kurdish region as well as Baghdad. Even with a direct visit trying to look at facts on the ground, it was hard to parse what exactly was going on. Iraq is a place wracked by violence, where even gathering information can be deadly. Killings of gay men are often random -- seen as a side effect of living in Baghdad. Signs someone is gay -- long hair and stylish clothes -- are often the signs one is Westernized, an excuse for murder by those bent on overthrowing the occupation. It is also apparent that men who are stereotypically gay are targets for abduction and murder, even at military checkpoints our own government has established throughout the city.
Scott Long, who heads the LGBT division of Human Rights Watch, is currently in Iraq aiding gay men seeking refuge. He told me via e-mail that “I spoke today to a gay man who escaped Baghdad after multiple attempts by armed men to abduct him off the street. He was almost speechless with terror.”
Long added, “There’s obviously an enormous moral burden upon the U.S. for creating a climate in which violence against all kinds of vulnerable groups could metastasize with impunity. That doesn't detract from the responsibility of the government of an independent Iraq to institute rule of law and protect all its own population.”
As Americans looking into this issue from the relative safety of our own lives, we must ask what responsibility the United States bears and what can be done to put pressure on the Iraqi government. Baghdad under Saddam was a cosmopolitan city with a relative tolerance toward gays as part of the fabric of society. Saddam even kept a network of gay spies to sleep with gay foreign diplomats and extract secrets, perhaps the strongest acknowledgement of gay culture before the occupation.
But the invasion changed all of that, wiping out the cosmopolitan society, with gay culture, music, art, women in the workforce, and other factors under attack as militias and religious leaders asserted power in the chaos.
Openly gay U.S. congressman Jared Polis, a Colorado Democrat, visited Iraq in early April and found in his discussions by phone with gay Iraqi men that “many fondly reminisced about life under Saddam.”
He said most gay people are closeted, as they are in places like Jordan and Syria, where many gay Iraqis, among other refugees, have fled to escape violence and, in many cases, await asylum. These countries do not have perfect LGBT rights records, Polis commented, but “at the very least, [gay citizens] don’t live in constant fear for their lives.”
Polis’s findings mirror the comments made by the gay men I met in Iraq. It is not hard to argue that the locus of responsibility for the deaths of gay men in Iraq lies squarely with the U.S. decision to invade the country. The occupation changed the political structure of the country, creating a power vacuum that led to the rise of a militant insurgency, using Islamic fundamentalism as a cover for its horrific deeds.
No matter one’s opinion of the war, the question is what to do now. According to Polis, there are “some friendly elements in the Iraqi government,” but the “problem is the breakdown of the chain of command and the failure of duty to protect their lesbian, gay, and transgendered citizens.” His visit was a way “to make sure our government is aware of the issue and raise the issue with our counterparts in Iraq.”
The recent killings reflect a dilemma in U.S. policy. The situation in Iraq is overall significantly safer than it was during my 2007 visit. By suppressing the militant and religious elements, the surge created a more vibrant Baghdad, more akin to the cosmopolitan society that once existed. Shops have reopened, artists are displaying in galleries again, women are returning to work, and young couples have begun to hold hands again in parks that dot the city. But the safety induced by the surge has also allowed for a more visible presence of Baghdad’s gay community, and with this has come the resurgence of the once-discredited militant groups, particularly the Mahdi Army based out of Sadr City.
According to my contact at the embassy, “our local staff, some of whom live in Sadr City, have told us that word on the streets is that this is the work of JAM,” referring to the Mahdi Army. He emphasized these are “not tribal and not familial disputes.” My contact explained that since the surge, the security situation has improved and militant groups have been suppressed, leading to the Mahdi Army saying they are not “there protecting the virtues of the community; this is why guys are coming out now -- they’re starting to act more Western, they’re acting more effeminate.”
"The impression is that these incidents are a way for these JAM elements to reassert their presence in a way that is culturally acceptable.” As the surge has discredited them, “they have to take issues overall that make them look legitimate, and the culture being what it is in this part of the world, Iraq in this case, in their minds, this is a legitimate cause, rooting out homosexuality.”
Under the Obama administration, a similar surge will be conducted in Afghanistan, diverting resources from one occupied country to another. Ultimately, the United States will leave Iraq. While a new government exists within the country, how long it will hold up without the U.S. presence remains to be seen. Perhaps we can look at gays in Iraq as canaries in a coal mine, an indication of what is to come in a future Iraq. The absence of American and other international forces may lead again to the deadly chaos that existed just after the invasion.
The question now for gay Americans is, What can we do? Myriad organizations are focused on the issue, from Iraqi LGBT to Human Rights Watch to the San Francisco–based Organization for Refuge, Asylum, and Migration, whose executive director Neil Grungras said, “Even if the West is helpless to stop the antigay terror in Iraq, the U.S. and other enlightened nations can save the lives of thousands of gays who will otherwise be returned to certain death. In 2008 the U.S. accepted over 12,000 Iraqi refugees. In 2009 it intends to take in 17,000. We are urging the U.S. and other traditional resettlement countries to set aside sufficient slots to save these vulnerable refugees' lives.”
My contact in Baghdad told me that “arguments have been made for expanding the refugee program, to allow for processing of minority groups such as LGBT Iraqis at the American embassy in Baghdad. But there are other minority groups -- Christians, women, Sunnis who live in and are surrounded by Shiite communities, Shiites surrounded by Sunnis -- that face just as great a threat and danger.”
He added, “Requests for help that come our way do not go unnoticed or unheard. But making public any effort to assist gay Iraqis is precarious because we are operating in what remains -- relative to the rest of the world -- a very conservative society. It is suspected that the Sadr City murders carried out earlier this month were by militias and conservative elements within Iraqi society, which tend to be anti-American to begin with. If the U.S. government is publicly seen by these groups as putting pressure on the government of Iraq, that will, quite possibly, make things worse for gay Iraqis.”
It is clear though that in another occupied country, Afghanistan, outside international pressure can change things. Afghanistan recently approved what has come to be called the "marriage rape law," interpreted to mean that men can force their wives to have sex with them and deny them the right to leave the home without permission. It seemed something that the Taliban would pass, not an elected U.S.–backed government. An international uproar ensued, along with the implicit threat that billions of dollars in aid would be denied Afghanistan if the law were not reexamined.
Polis suggests using those “friendly elements in the Iraqi government” to work on gay issues. The importance of this ultimately will be similar to what was experienced in Afghanistan on women’s issues, and he said, “The eyes of the international human rights community will judge Iraq by how they treat those who face discrimination in their society.”
My contact at the embassy told me to let readers of The Advocate know that “if there is any piece of advice I can give our community and those who care about the plight of gay Iraqis, it is this: Put pressure on Washington to do more, put pressure on your government. The only way our leaders ever know something is serious is when we stand up and show just how serious we are about it.” He added, “If these killings in what remains a war zone don't show the world that people do not choose at their leisure to be persecuted, I don't know what will.”
Source
Video: Iranian, Gay & Seeking Asylum
A remarkable insight into the lives of two gay Iranian men living in Leeds. We follow them as they establish their new lives in the UK and the setting up of a new support group by the two who have become friends since arriving in Bradford. They both fled Iran after after their boyfriends were captured by the authorities, one of whom was tragically executed.
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Friday 24 April 2009
Major US gay group backs action on Iraqi LGBT pogrom
By Brian Moulton, HRC’s associate counsel
Gay advocacy groups call for the end of violence against LGBT people in Iraq
Increased persecution of and violence against LGBT people, particularly gay men, in Iraq has been widely reported by the traditional media, stirring action by the LGBT community and our allies on the Hill.
Recently, openly-gay Congressman Jared Polis (D-CO) travelled to Iraq and witnessed the dire situation of Iraqi’s LGBT community firsthand. He returned to raise his strong concerns with the State Department. The Council for Global Equality, of which HRC is a member organization, has been in communication with the State Department in Washington, as well as the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, calling on them to investigate this critical situation and to intervene with the Iraqi government. Our fellow Council member, the International Lesbian and Gay Human Rights Commission, has also directly called on the Iraqi Minister of Human Rights to take action. Grassroots activists have organized protests in New York and San Francisco.
Last month, the U.S. abandoned the past administration’s opposition and joined a UN resolution supporting the human rights of LGBT people. It is imperative that the State Department now put that commitment into real practice. HRC, working with the Council for Global Equality and our coalition partners, will continue to lobby the State Department to condemn the violence against LGBT people in Iraq and pressure the Iraqi government to end the persecution.
Thursday 23 April 2009
Australia raises Iraq’s gay killings
The Rudd Government has sought answers to claims that 25 men and boys were killed in anti-gay attacks in Baghdad in the last month.
“Concerned by media reports that homosexual men have been the target of violence and extra-judicial killings in Iraq, officials in Canberra have raised these concerns with the Iraqi Ambassador to Australia [Ghanim Al Shibli],” a spokeswoman for the Department of Foreign Affairs said.
“Australia is a principled advocate of human rights for all and supported the statement on discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation at the 63rd United Nations General Assembly on 18 December 2008.”
Australia’s Ambassador to Iraq, Bob Tyson, also raised human rights protections for minority groups, including gay Iraqis, during discussions with the Iraqi government in February.
However, the talks appeared to have had no effect as a month later Amnesty International warned that dozens of “executions” for homosexuality were imminent as Shi’a religious leaders urged followers to eradicate homosexuality from Iraqi society.
“Three corpses of gay men are reported to have been found in al-Sadr City on 2 and 3 April 2009; two of the bodies are said to have had pieces of paper bearing the word ‘pervert’ attached to them suggesting the victims had been murdered on account of their sexual identity,” the human rights group said in a statement.
The killings appear to have been conducted outside the judicial process or criminal code, which does not explicitly forbid homosexuality.
Amnesty International also wrote to Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki calling for enforcement of the law against those responsible.
Source
Gay executions "being carried out by Iraqi government officials"
Of the five or six members of Iraqi LGBT who reportedly have been sentenced to death in Baghdad for belonging to a supposedly banned organization, one has escaped custody and one has been executed, says U.S. Rep. Jared Polis, D-Colo.
According to Polis, the "egregious human rights violations" are "being carried out by Iraqi government officials from the Ministry of the Interior."
"While I do not know if these executions are being sanctioned at the highest levels of the Iraqi government, it is nonetheless disturbing that government officials and state-funded security forces are involved in the torturing and execution of LGBT Iraqis," Polis wrote to Patricia Butenis, the chargé d'affaires at the U.S. Embassy in Iraq.
Polis said the U.S. government "appears to be largely unaware that the executions of gay and transgender Iraqis have been able to occur in Iraq" and has expressed an "unwillingness to seriously consider these allegations and examine the evidence (from) international human rights watchdog organizations."
Report continues
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In Brazil Gay-Bashing Murders Are Up 55 Percent
RIO DE JANEIRO, Apr 22 (IPS) - In 2008, 190 homosexuals were killed in Brazil, one every two days, representing a 55 percent increase on the previous year – a veritable "homocaust" according to gay rights activists.
The Annual Report on Murders of Homosexuals, produced by the Grupo Gay da Bahia (GGB), says that 64 percent of the victims were gay men, 32 percent were transvestites, and four percent were lesbians.
"A transvestite is 259 times more likely to be murdered than a gay man," says the study which is based on media reports, since there are no official statistics on hate crimes in Brazil.
The findings in GGB’s 2008 report, which has been cited by institutions like the government’s National Secretariat for Human Rights and the U.S. State Department, are "disturbing," says the head of the gay rights group, Marcelo Cerqueira.
In a telephone interview with IPS, Cerqueira explained that the report documents crimes that are "specifically motivated by homophobia and prejudice."
The study, coordinated by former GGB head Carlos Mott, one of the country’s most outspoken defenders of gay rights, says that 13 percent of the victims were under the age of 21.
The largest groups of victims were transvestites, sex workers, hairdressers and street vendors, although there were also people working in sales, doctors, engineers and lawyers.
Cerqueira said that because of high poverty rates in many states, transvestites often had no option but to turn to sex work, at least on an occasional basis.
The report says the predominance of sex workers among the victims "is explained by the practice of prostitution on streets and highways, areas that are heavily frequented by ‘marginals’ and traffickers."
In fact the most violent state is the impoverished Pernambuco - in the northeast, Brazil’s poorest region - which accounted for 27 of the gay-bashing murders.
"A gay ‘nordestino’ (northeasterner) faces an 84 percent greater risk of being killed than a gay man in the south or southeast," says the report.
Cerqueira said the sharp rise in gay-bashing murders indicates "an increase in more effective instruments of control and registration of this kind of homicide."
But the activist also said the figures, although they fall short of reflecting the true dimension of the phenomenon, represent a rise in homophobic violence – in his words, an "alarming" situation that he blamed on the impunity surrounding such crimes in this country of 190 million people.
According to the report, Brazil is the regional "champion in homophobic crimes," followed by Mexico, with 35 gay-bashing murders in 2008, and the United States, with 25 such killings last year out of a population that is 100 million people bigger than Brazil’s.
The figures reflect a veritable "homocaust" – a term coined by gay activists to refer to widespread murders of homosexuals – says the GGB, which counted 2,998 victims of such killings between 1980 and 2008.
The number of murders has continued to rise, despite the growing frequency of gay pride parades and demonstrations and marches against homophobia, and the election of five homosexual or transgender city councilors, the GGB report says.
The National Secretariat for Human Rights launched the "A Brazil Free of Homophobia" programme in 2004 aimed at promoting the citizen and human rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people through support for institutions that fight homophobia, training of activists, and dissemination of information on the fundamental rights of persons.
But, said Cerqueira, the programme is still weak and needs to take more compelling action.
For example, special police units should be created to deal with hate crimes, and sex education should be included in school curriculums "to teach young people to coexist with sexual diversity," he said.
Another important step, he added, would be to carry out official media campaigns against homophobia, along the lines of the government’s "Water for All", "Electricity for All" or "Homes for All" campaigns.
This kind of awareness-raising campaign is needed, he said, "to educate people so that they understand that homosexuals are not second-class citizens, and that their homosexuality is just one part of their identity."
The activist criticised the Brazilian media, especially comedy programmes, saying they fuelled homophobia by poking fun at and ridiculing homosexuals.
This kind of humour strengthens the idea that "it’s ok to laugh at or insult gays," and from there to homophobic hate is just one small step, Cerqueira argued.
The idea that Brazil is a sexually liberated country is "a myth" created by symbols like carnival, he said. But despite the fact that the proportion of LGBTs in Brazil is reportedly higher than the international average, "homophobia is very widespread," said the activist.
The GGB is calling for the creation of a government secretariat to defend the rights of homosexuals, similar to the ones that already exist for women’s affairs and racial equality.
Such a secretariat could strengthen campaigns like the ones called for by the gay rights movement to fight homophobia, and could help educate gays and transvestites about how to avoid risky situations, such as taking strangers home or having sex "with marginals," said the head of the GGB.
The group warns that if the government of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva fails to adopt more effective measures to combat homophobic violence, it will file complaints with international bodies like the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.
The GGB report says 48 homosexuals have been murdered so far this year.
According to the report, 45 percent of gays were killed in their homes, and 31 percent were not only stabbed with knives but also strangled or beaten – signs of homophobic hate, which can also be reflected by the number of stab wounds or blows received by the victim.
By contrast, 60 percent of the transgender persons were victims of firearms, and 80 percent were killed in public spaces.
Source
On April 3, 2008 a 35 year old gay man called Daniel, was killed with a brick on land located near the Residential Divaldo Suruagy in the neighborhood of the lighthouse in Alagoas
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Senator Dianne Feinstein, et al save Shirley Tan
By Melanie Nathan
Today Senator Feinstein introduced a very rare private bill on behalf of Shirley Tan; Shirley will not have to leave the USA for now and hopefully never. The essence of its introduction is that Tan does not have to leave the USA on May 10th, in terms of the voluntary order issued by DHS. This enables her to stay in the USA, legally, until the private bill passes ( a rare occurrence)- and if it does not come up for a vote then she can stay for the duration of this Congress’s session, which has approximately a year and nine months left. However Shirleys ultimate saviour will be UAFA and nothing else!
This is unbelievably miraculous and indeed an extraordinary measure on behalf of the family. This also gives all our wonderful activists, LGBT organizations, and community suporters and opportunity to hit the streets, the phones, the faxes, the e-mails, the blogs etc. and to fight like crazy for the Uniting American families ACT (UAFA) - in truth the only real long term option for Shirley and the 40,000 other couples/families in this dire situation.
Hence the fight has truly just begun. We now have a face and a family to the desperate situation of all Binational families.
A great big thanks from the Tan-Mercado family to Rep. Speier and her amazing staff as well as Sen. Feinstein and her staff, all of whom showed extraordinary solicitude and diligence through the process. A special mention to the organizations that provided guidance and support; Marriage Equality, Immigration Equality, Out4 Immigration, Love Exiles and all the Media that remained so patient and supportive.
Senator Boxer is co- sponsoring UAFA and we now hope that Sen. Feinstein will do the same as many many others are in as bad a predicament as Shirley Tan has been.
When I spoke to Jay today she was crying with joy and said the whole family including the boys were absolutely overwhelmed with emotion. The news was conveyed to her directly by Senator Feinstein’s office. It has been a long and arduous process and so a very special thank you goes to Attorney Phyllis Beech, San Francisco and Fresno. I will write more later - but now I have to call and tell everyone the good news.
A great big thanks to all the offersof support and help - please join the fight for UAFA as there are many couples suffering the lack of rights. A special thanks to the straight Felipino Organizations andmainstream Press who came forward and recognized the impotance of family and offered all out unconditional support for Shirley and Jay.
Source
Wednesday 22 April 2009
An appeal from Pakistan
The following is by a reader from Pakistan who contacted us desperate for help.
This post is offered for republication under a Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported Creative Commons license.
Please credit LGBT Asylum News and link to http://www.medhikazemi.com
Please contact us if you would like to help Adnan (not his real name). You can also contact Adnan if you would like him to write as a correspondent from Pakistan.
You can read more about LGBT in Pakistan at Wikipedia.
An appeal from Pakistan
First of all I want to thank LGBT Asylum News for giving me a chance to write about myself and the situation in Pakistan. My country has been in the news for quite some time and for all the bad reasons. Thanks to our government’s support of Taliban and military extremists, they are taking control of one area after another.
I live in Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan and the so-called most ‘liberal’ city in this country. It has never been easy for LGBT community to even open up here let alone fight for their rights. Pakistan and India share a clause – Article 377 that was enacted by the British in 1861 – under this clause, homosexuality is punishable under law.
The clause, however, has hardly been implemented and police use it as an easy threat to extort money from gays. Despite this clause, homosexuality thrives in Pakistan. Man-on-Man sex is common but people don’t accept that they are gay. The segregation of gender is considered the reason behind this phenomenon where old men lust after young hairless smoothies.
There is also a very tiny and secluded real gay society but that is confined to the filthy rich and powerful class (Pakistan has huge class differences and a tiny segment has amassed massive wealth due to corruption and smuggling, among other things). They just socialize with each other and do nothing for the gay rights. Most of them are married as well and cheat their wives regularly.
The biggest problem is faced by guys who are from lower middle classes, somewhat educated and at the mercy of society and Islamic fanatics. When I try to open about my sexuality and live a life like gays in west live, I face the danger of death. I want to marry a guy, adopt children and lead a life as a good citizen. If I dare speak about my sexuality, Taliban would kill me.
My family and neighbors have suspicions about me as my flame burns quite high. I try to suppress that by growing beard and act manly but I fail miserably. I am feeling totally lost here and even have thought about committing suicide.
I want to get out of this mess as soon as possible as otherwise I would continue to rot in this hell. I appeal to my gay brothers to help me get out of this situation. I would appreciate any type of help.
Thanks,
Adnan
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Brighton vigil for Iraqi LGBT
A candlelit vigil to remember those in Iraq who have died from homophobic violence, for those who are hiding and for those who are trying to recover. We will remember them, we will keep them alive, we will support them in seeking asylum in the UK.
Host: |
Date: | Friday, May 1, 2009 |
Time: | 8:45am - 9:30am |
Location: | The Indian Gate (Gateway to South) The Pavilion, Brighton |
Street: | Palace Place, North Road |
City/Town: | Brighton, United Kingdom |
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Tuesday 21 April 2009
Cardiff Protest against deportations to Iraq
At 1pm today people gathered outside the UK Border Agency (UKBA) on Newport Road in Cardiff to protest in solidarity with the International Federation of Iraqi Refugees who have been holding a two day protest outside the United Nations office in Geneva, there was also a solidarity protest in London yesterday.
Over twenty people braved the drizzling rain, hung banners, held placards and distributed over 150 copies of a leaflet against deportations to Iraq to people passing by. Several refugees from Iraq and elsewhere joined the protest and the reaction from the public was one of the most positive we’ve experienced, with a a number stopping to express their support and beeps of support from passing cars and trucks.
A number of Police officers were waiting outside the UKBA offices and according so some people who has passed by earlier, they had been there for some time. Nevertheless, they barely acknowledged the demonstration, and beyond requesting a copy of our leaflet, left everyone alone, previous issues around where we can hang banners or where we can stand on certain bits of public land have been forgotten.
We are opposed to the entire process of deporting people due to their place of birth, but the injustice is more clear when it is to places like Iraq, a country the British government has a key hand in turning into the unsafe place it is.
'Being Discreet' - HJ Iran and HT Cameroon
The Court of Appeal has recently considered the circumstances in which homosexuals who had been compelled to be discreet in their country of origin ought to be recognised as refugees. Although the case concerned two gay men, one from Cameroon and the other from Iran, the Court’s decision will be applied to the claims of lesbians, unless it is overturned.
It was accepted that both men formed part of a particular social group for the purposes of the Refugee Convention as “practising homosexuals”. Both men had suppressed the expression of their sexual identity in their country of origin before coming to the UK in order to avoid adverse
consequences there.
The judgment was given by Lord Justice Pill with the two other members of the Court agreeing with his decision. It focuses upon whether the decisions of the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal in both cases were compatible with an earlier Court of Appeal decision in the case of J.
Confusingly the appellant in J was also the appellant, known as HJ, in this case. In its earlier judgment, the Court of Appeal had been persuaded by a decision of the High Court of Australia.
The Australian decision had taken a broad view of gay sexual identity. The judgment did not confuse or conflate sexual behaviour with sexual identity, but saw it as one of the constituent parts of such an identity.
With regard to discretion, it stated that:
“Persecution covers many forms of harm…Whatever form the harm takes, it will constitute persecution only if, by reason of its intensity or duration, the person persecuted cannot reasonably be expected to tolerate it. But persecution does not cease to be persecution for the purpose of the Convention because those persecuted can eliminate the harm by taking avoiding action. … The Convention would give no protection from persecution for reasons of religion or political opinion if it was a condition of protection that the person affected must take steps – reasonable or otherwise – to avoid offending the wishes of the persecutors”In the Australian High Court’s view it was a “fallacy” to assume that “the conduct of the applicant is uninfluenced by the conduct of the persecutor”.
In J the Court of Appeal concluded that the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal should have asked itself why an appellant had “opted for ‘discretion’” before leaving the country of origin, and whether such behaviour was something that “the appellant can reasonably be expected to tolerate”, not just with regard to sexual behaviour, but “in relation to ‘matters following from, and relevant to, sexual identity’ in the wider sense recognised by the High Court of Australia”.
It also noted that it was relevant to consider that the appellant may have to “abandon part of his sexual identity.... in the circumstances where failure to do that exposes him to...extreme danger”.
Both appellants’ argued that the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal’s decision in their cases were incompatible with the Court of Appeal’s decision in J. However the Court of Appeal dismissed both appeals on the basis that the Tribunal had understood and applied the test correctly. In HJ’s case, “[t]heir conclusion that HJ could reasonably be expected to tolerate conditions in Iran was firmly based on the evidence in the case considered in the context of the in-country evidence”.
With regard to HT, no evidence was before the Tribunal to show that he could not reasonably be expected to tolerate a life of discretion. In coming to this conclusion the Court of Appeal noted that:
“Both in Muslim Iran and Roman Catholic Cameroon, strong views are genuinely held about homosexual practices. In considering what is tolerable in a particular society, the [Tribunal] is in my view entitled to have regard to the beliefs held there. A judgment as to what is reasonably tolerable is made in the context of the particular society.”It continued later to hold that:
“...a degree of discretion can be required in all sexual relationships, heterosexual as well as homosexual...Having said what I have, I recognise of course, that there are limits, if a contracting state is to fulfil its obligation to uphold fundamental human rights, to what can be tolerated, when considering an asylum application, by way of restrictions in the receiving state. Whether a requirement to respect social standards has the effect of violating a fundamental human right is a matter of judgment for the Tribunal.”WAN understands that the applicants representatives will be seeking to appeal the decision of the Court of Appeal to the House of Lords.
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Iraqi pogrom of LGBT: ways you can help
Iraqi pogrom of LGBT: horrific report upon horrific report
As you can see from the latest report on LGBT Asylum News the situation in Iraq is getting worse
http://madikazemi.blogspot.
There are a number of ways in which you can take action.
Support Iraqi LGBT through fund raising and donations
This support is desperately needed and will be put to good use both inside Iraq itself and to support the exiled movement. You can find out how to do this on the Iraqi LGBT website http://iraqilgbtuk.blogspot.
Contact your local representative to urge them to ask for your government's pressure on the Iraqi government to take action
In the USA
You can get contact information for Representatives and Senators on this website http://www.visi.com/juan/
The only statement so far from the State Department is carried in this post http://madikazemi.blogspot.
In the UK
Contact your MP through this website http://www.theyworkforyou.com/
Suggested letter
The following is a letter for a UK MP which you can adapt for your locality
Dear XX XXXXX
I write to draw your attention to the pogrom of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people which is currently taking place in Iraq.
Although this has yet to draw much mainstream media attention the reports are truly horrifying and escalating. They have draw the attention of Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch and US Representatives.
However the UK Foreign Office does not appear to be taking any action.
I refer you to the statement of Bill Rammell [http://madikazemi.blogspot.
The following are reports concerning the pogrom:
- http://madikazemi.blogspot.
com/2009/04/iraq-torture- cruel-inhuman-and.html - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/
8005482.stm - http://madikazemi.blogspot.
com/2009/04/iraqi-gay-murders- surge-world-finally.html
Sincerely
XXXXXXXXX
Please take action today!
Interview with Iraqi LGBT's Ali Hili
QUEERTY: How did Iraqi LGBT get its start?
Ali Hili: Well, we started the group in 2005 after receiving information and reports from inside Iraq about attacks on individual friends I knew personally inside Iraq when I lived there and I was very torn and upset by these reports. Then, me and a couple friends started to do more research inside Iraq, contacting our old friends and looking at the situation for what it feels like to be a gay, lesbian, or trans person in Iraq, or even bisexual, and we started to get repeated stories of attacks, arrests, killings, and gruesome information about people who have been tortured severely for being homosexual.
We decided to do an action here in London about it and do a campaign to raise awareness at the beginning about it. We found a couple of friends here who are working with human rights and gay rights organizations and they helped us to set up our web blog and helped us to launch a campaign, and it was quite a good beginning for the long term of the campaign.
Then we started to do more research and we found out that a fatwa had been issued by Ayatollah Sistani in Iraq, the Iranian cleric who lives in Iraq, stating that all homosexuals should be killed in the most severe way of death possible and we thought we should also launch a campaign and attack and challenge this fatwa and urge him to remove it from his website. After a few months of battling with Sistani people in Iran they decided to remove the fatwa from his website and it was very successful and they did, they removed it.
Can you describe what the situation is for LGBT people living inside Iraq right now?
The situation is very difficult. It's the most dangerous time in the history of the Iraqi queer rights movement as far as I know. Since 2004, we've had reports and information of over 600 people who've been reported to our organization as being killed until this day. As far as I know, this is the highest number ever attacking a group of homosexuals in the history of the world in such a short time. In that short time, it's been an organized and systematic cleansing of sexual minorities in Iraq. It's led by the Iraqi government, militia, members of the family and tribal [groups] and it's specifically targeting all LGBT people.
Why do you think there's this specific focus on going after LGBT people in Iraq right now?
Well, Iraq has moved from a secular state under the Saddam regime into a very religious fanatical government led by an Islamic leading party: The Supreme Council of Islamic Revolution in Iraq and Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq. I believe they are trying to adopt a similar regime imported from Iran into Iraq.
What is Iraqi LGBT doing to help people in Iraq? Who's in danger?
We are trying to do as much as possible to help them in these hard times. The problem is we have very limited resources to support [the community in Iraq]. We used to have safe houses to provide food, shelter, safety. Unfortunately, three of them are closed. We have only one left. We have to let the people to their own destiny and fate, because we can not provide and give help anymore for these people.
Have you tried reaching out to other gay rights organizations for resources?
Yes, we have. We've been trying for the last few years and I tell you, the battle to get any kind of help and support, even logistic support, is very difficult. The gay communities are so divided and we're not as united as we might think we are.
Do you think Americans, and American gay rights groups, have a special responsibility to get involved because it was the United States which started the war?
There's a moral responsibility for the American government, in particular, and the American people. We get lots of support from American sympathizing people inside the United States and they're wonderful supporters, especially [considering] the role that the United States government has caused in Iraq from disturbing lifestyle in general for all Iraqis. But I think it's a worldwide and international issue.
We need support from all the world to stand up for this. This is a human rights issue. This is not just a gay rights or homosexual rights issue. Killing people for their well-being is against any law in the world.
People are being killed, hunted, slaughtered because of who they are. Not for any other reason. That, I believe in my very humble opinion, is against every moral belief in the world. Homosexuality is not a crime and I believe the world needs to help this small group to fight their battle for existence.
The gay community, also, in the United States and anywhere who listens to this, needs to understand: It could be you. It could be any one of you. What are you going to do if you are in these poor people's shoes? We need your help. These people need your help. We need to stand up together to save lives.
What specific things is your group doing right now?
Mainly, our campaign to highlight the issue and raise awareness is only a small part of what we're trying to do to help stop the killing in Iraq, but there are so many activities we're doing inside Iraq to help. We have the safe houses project. We're trying to launch an HIV [program] inside Iraq, but this campaign has stopped because of a lack of funds for our organization. We have [been doing] research and collecting information from all over Iraq regarding the situation.
We could do more in Iraq and help more in Iraq if we had the capacity to do more. It's a very youthful movement. To start having a queer rights movement in the Middle East and in our country and in Muslim countries, we need the back-up and support from all over the world.
Is there any political force inside of Iraq right now advocating for gay rights or even speaking out against this?
I don't believe there is anyone who is sympathizing with LGBT people or even condemning this kind of war against homosexuality. Everyone is afraid. We have been trying over the last four years to get sympathy and support even from secular, nonreligious groups and they tend to distance themselves from what they call "a shame".
We need to reach out to the society in Iraq and get to the Iraqi people to explain to them that homosexuality is a well-being. It's a human, natural thing. We have to accept the others. They have to start to accept the others, for their well-being. People are born this way. They didn't choose to be this way. It's the role of the Iraqi government, the whole society to be educated and that's the Iraqi government's role, to explain to Iraqi society what is homosexuality, why people are born this way, and why people do not choose to be this way.
Do you think there's any chance of Iraq becoming a more secular, more tolerant nation?
This is the hope we live for. This is the hope we all live to see one day soon, because we have lived in an Iraq [where] all sexual freedom has been celebrated and flourished, even under a brutal dictator's regime. So, it could happen if we could remove these religious fanatic parties and these religious fanatics like Sistani and his people. They are suppressing people.
I even hear it from so many of his ex-supporters that they have been fooled by these people. They have been misled that this is what religion is supposed to be. They even explain to us that this is not religion, it's people who have taken religion and tried to impose their personal ideology on it to suppress sexual and all minorities. This is against any rights for humanity in the world.
What are the immediate, most pressing concerns for your group right now?
We need two things. We need the killing to stop. We need to highlight the issue through governments, like the United States government and the United Kingdom government and pressure the Iraqi government to stop the killing and to stop it now. We need support from human rights organizations and urgent support from anyone who can help. This is a very dangerous situation. People are losing their lives by the hour, by the day. We are unfortunately unable to do much to help them in some cases. It's time to rise up. The gay community needs to rise up again, just like the time of the Castro area in San Francisco.
We continue to urge American LGBT gay rights organizations to step up to the plate on this issue. If you would like to do your part in helping end the killing of LGBT Iraqi's, donation information is available at the Iraqi LGBT website.
Source
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Iraq: Torture, Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment of LGBT People
The following is a translation of a story from Alarabiya, a UAE-based media network, which was published on its Arabic website a few hours ago. While International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) has not verified all of the allegations, many are consistent with patterns of human rights violations being reported from within the country. As a signatory to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), the Iraqi government has an obligation to protect the right to life (Article 6) and the right of all its citizens “to be free from torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment” (Article 7).
On Friday April 17, IGLHRC sent a letter to the Iraqi Minister of Human Rights, asking her to take specific measures to protect LGBT Iraqis. On April 8, IGLHRC and Human Rights Watch submitted an urgent appeal to the Special Procedures of the United Nations to ask for an investigation. In 2006, after a wave of violence targeted LGBT Iraqis, IGLHRC sent a letter to then Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, requesting that the U.S. government conduct a thorough investigation of the violations.
IGLHRC will continue to monitor the situation and gather more evidence about the recent wave of violence against Iraqi LGBT people.
Bodies of 7 Gays in Baghdad Morgue
by Hayyan Neyuf -Dubai/ Ali Al-Iraqi - Baghdad
A prominent Iraqi human rights activist says that Iraqi militia have deployed a painful form of torture against homosexuals by closing their anuses using “Iranian gum.” … Yina Mohammad told Alarabiya.net that, “Iraqi militias have deployed an unprecedented form of torture against homosexuals by using a very strong glue that will close their anus.”
According to her, the new substance “is known as the American hum, which is an Iranian-manufactured glue that if applied to the skin, sticks to it and can only be removed by surgery. After they glue the anuses of homosexuals, they give them a drink that causes diarrhea. Since the anus is closed, the diarrhea causes death. Videos of this form of torture are being distributed on mobile cellphones in Iraq.”
According to this human rights activist, for the past 3 weeks a crackdown on homosexuals has been going on based on a religious decree that demands their death; dozens have been targeted. She says that the persecution of homosexuals is not confined to the Shiite clerics. Some Sunni leaders have also declared the death penalty for sodomy on satellite channels.”
63 People Tortured
According to Hassan from the Iraqi LGBT group in London, attacks against homosexuals have been abundant in Shiite neighborhoods, especially poor regions and remote areas such as the southern provinces and the Hurriya, Sho’la and Sadr neighborhoods in Baghdad. So far, 63 members of the group have been tortured.
Hassan also confirmed the use of “Iranian Gum” in the torture process, adding that, “I talked to many young men who have been tortured by this method. They went to the hospital for treatment and in some cases they were refused treatment.” According to Hassan, “all religious leaders, whether Sunni or Shiite, call for the eradication of homosexuals, but the Shiites are the ones who are most involved in these attacks.”
Vigilante Groups
According to newspaper reports from local news sources in Sadr City in East Baghdad, a previously unknown group “Ahl al-Haq (the followers of Truth) have stepped up the persecution of Iraqi homosexuals after the murder of a number of them in the past few days. The news sources say that, “3 lists, each with the name of 10 gay men were circulated in Sadr City for a few hours.” The lists included a quote saying, “You, prostitutes, we will punish you!”
7 Bodies in Bagdad’s Morgue
The Alarabiya reporter, visited the Baghdad Morgue in Bab-al-Moazaam in central Baghdad, where the Neman Mohsen, the medical examiner, confirmed that they have the bodies of 7 homosexuals in the morgue. He said, “We were not able to identify the culprits who dumped the bodies in front of the morgue and fled, without being seen.”
He explained, “There were bodies with gunshots in the head and chest and the rest of the body without any obvious causes of death.”
Khalaf Abdul Hussein, from the Legal Affairs Office at the Police Station in Sadr City, told Alarabiya: “the extra-judicial killing of any citizen is a crime punishable by law. No one has the right to become a substitute for judicial authorities or executive authorities, and if there are complaints against individuals, there is law and there are police and there are government agencies. No group or class has the authority to punish people instead of the state.”
He said: “We, like everyone else, have heard rumors about these cases, but we can’t comment on something that is not evidence, and there is no evidence for these crimes either in terms of motivation or in terms of the nature of the criminal acts. We do not know the motives of the killers and we do not know the intentions of those killed.”
“Son of a Bitch”
Officials and tribal leaders in Sadr City are reluctant to provide details about the murder of homosexuals. However, Sheikh Hashem Mokhani, one of the tribal elders in the city, said: “The people refer to these sexual perverts as ‘son of a bitch,’ but most of the victims were not residents of Sadr City. They used to hang out in a [gay] cafe, on Palestine Street in Baghdad.”
Sheik Salal Al-kaabi, one of the elders of Sadr City says: “we have heard that the tribes, to whom these perverts belonged, declared their lives worthless and allowed their death, but we have also heard that an organization calling itself the followers of Truth (ahl-al Haq) are reponsible for the murders and have written on the chest of victim a sentence that reads: This is the fate of a son of a bitch.”
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Lesbian Mom Shirley Tan is All Out of Options, Faces Deportation
A lesbian mom facing deportation has received good news and bad news.
Shirley Tan has been facing deportation from the United States to the Philippines was initially ordered to be deported on April 3rd.
Shirley fled to the U.S. from the Philippines in fear for her life after a family member attempted to murder her, and murdered other members of her family, because of a dispute over her grandfathers estate. Shirley took the proper steps to gain political asylum when she came to this country, and since she had not been notified that she should do otherwise, she built a life for herself in this country.
Twenty three years later, Shirley Tan is living with her domestic partner Jaylynn “Jay” Mercado and their two twin boys; plus a looming deportation case - effectively bringing the fight for rights of bi national LGBT couples to the forefront. The family has been coping as best as they can, with Tan wearing an ankle bracelet to monitor her while awaiting deportation. After U.S Representative Jackie Speier intervened on her behalf, Tan’s deportation had been delayed until April 22.
Most recently, on April 10th, Shirley received notice from the BIA that a deportation order was re-issued giving her 30 days to voluntarily leave the USA.
The good news here is the admittance that the prior order was not properly served, thereby endorsing Shirley’s claim that she knew nothing about it. This wipes the slate clean for her so to speak, showing she was never out of compliance as she was characterized by her detention.
The bad news is that she is out of options.
Her application to BIA has been turned down and she is ordered to leave.
There is no legal procedure to assist her in remaining in the US with her wife and American children - she needs a miracle.
If you support Shirley and her family, please feel free to e-mail Melanie Nathan at nathan@privatecourts.com to express your support. Cards can be sent to Tan-Mercado c/o Melanie Nathan, Private Courts, 1100 Larkspur Landing Circle, Ste 112, Larkspur, CA 94939.
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Monday 20 April 2009
Stonewall Inn hosts symbolic Jamaican 'Rum Dump'
Activists gathered with the owners of New York's historic Stonewall Inn for a ceremonial pouring of Myer's Rum into the gutter in protest of the treatment of LGBT people in Jamaica. Activists are calling for a boycott of all Jamaican products including cruise ship tourism.
Wayne Besen spoke with a gay Jamaican exile now living in the USA, who escaped serious injury and potential death when his home was set on fire. The young gay Jamaican man talks about his experiences living in his country and fleeing for his life. He also is a supporter of the boycott effort.
Note: The boycott has been controversial with LGBT Jamaicans speaking for and against it. LGBT Asylum News does not support or oppose the boycott - merely report it.
Audio: Australian interview with Iranian asylum seeker
From JoyFM, Melbourne, Australia
This is a rebroadcast with some updates of an edition of Allegro Non troppo from 2005.
This is the story of a young Iranian man Armin, who fled Iran just after two teenage boys had been publicly hanged for sexual crimes, i.e. they were homosexual. This story has not gone away there are still horrific stories of execution and persecution coming out of Iran, yet despite this we also are hearing amazing stories of people living in a repressive and violent culture but still trying to form their secret community networks.
If player does not load the interview can be downloaded from here (16.4mb MP3).
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Saturday 18 April 2009
BBC video: Fears over Iraq gay killing spate
TV news report
The Iraqi government must do more to protect homosexuals in the wake of a reported spate of killings of gay young men, Amnesty International has urged.
In the last few weeks, 25 boys and men are reported to have been killed in Baghdad because they were, or were perceived to be, gay, Amnesty said.
In a letter to Prime Minister Nouri Maliki, the rights organisation called for "urgent and concerted action".
It also criticised the government's failure to condemn the killings.
'Corpses found'
The recent killings are said to have been carried out by armed Shia militiamen as well as by members of the tribes and families of the victims, Amnesty said.
It cited reports that three corpses of gay men were found in the Shia area of Sadr City last week - two of which were reported to have had pieces of paper bearing the word "pervert" attached to them.
The letter also raised concerns that religious leaders may be inciting violence against members of Iraq's gay community, and over reported statements by one senior police officer that appear to condone or even encourage the targeting of gay Iraqis.
Amnesty called on the government to bring those responsible for the killings to justice and to afford effective protection to the gay community in Iraq.
Friday 17 April 2009
Iraqi Gay Murders Surge; World Finally Takes Note
By Doug Ireland
As organized killings of Iraqi gays have escalated in recent months amid a homophobic campaign in that nation's media, openly gay Democratic Congressman Jared Polis of Colorado has asked the US State Department to investigate. Polis, the first non-incumbent openly gay man ever elected to Congress, who returned from a visit to Iraq at the beginning of April, told Gay City News that while in Baghdad he had met with the chargé d'affaires, who is overseeing the US embassy pending the arrival of a new ambassador.
"We asked the embassy and the State Department to investigate the reports of killings of gay men, and turned over to the chargé d'affaires the names and phone numbers of all the gay Iraqi contacts we had and a letter detailing our concerns," including allegations that the Iraqi government is involved in the killings, Polis told this reporter, adding, "They seemed very willing to investigate."
If the State Department does undertake such an investigation, that would reflect a significant change in US policy by the Obama administration. In 2007, two openly gay members of Congress, Democrats Barney Frank of Massachusetts and Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, wrote a lengthy letter to Bush Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice detailing the anti-gay death squads' murder campaign and asking the US to investigate and intervene.
Their letter, which cited extensive reporting in Gay City News on repression of gays in Iraq, had no effect.
Polis, a millionaire Internet entrepreneur and philanthropist, traveled to Iraq at his own expense before his election last year and attempted to investigate the ongoing campaign of "sexual cleansing" of Iraqi homosexuals, and on his return contributed $10,000 to the London-based all-volunteer association Iraqi LGBT, which has a network of members and correspondents throughout Iraq that has been tracking the organized campaign of assassinations of Iraqi gays.
Ali Hili, the coordinator of Iraqi LGBT, who briefed Polis by telephone for his Iraqi trip, told Gay City News from London that "we have been able to confirm 63 more murders of gay people in Iraq just since December," bringing to nearly 600 the number of cases of LGBT Iraqis killed for their sexuality that his group has documented since the Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the spiritual leader of all Iraqi Shiite Muslims, issued a death-to-all-gays fatwa in 2005. But, Hili added, "Since there are parts of Iraq where we have no correspondents or members, we are convinced that the actual number of gays killed in these last months since December is much higher."
At the same time, the BBC reported last week that according to Amnesty International "in the last few weeks 25 boys and men are reported to have been killed in Baghdad because they were, or perceived to be, gay." In an unusual move, Amnesty International wrote to the Iraqi President, Nouri al-Maliki, demanding "urgent and concerted action" by his government to stop the killings.
Hili told this reporter, "There is an intensive media campaign against homosexuals in Iraq at this time which we believe is inspired by the Ministry of the Interior, both in the daily newspapers and on nearly all the television stations. Their reports brand all gays as 'perverts' and try to portray us as terrorists who are undermining the moral fiber of Iraqi youth." Hili said the current homo-hating media campaign appears to have been sparked as an unfortunate reaction to an April 4 Reuters dispatch that reported: "Two gay men were killed in Baghdad's Sadr City slum, a local official said, and police said they had found the bodies of four more after clerics urged a crackdown on a perceived spread of homosexuality... The police source said the bodies of four gay men were unearthed in Sadr City on March 25, each bearing a sign reading 'pervert' in Arabic on their chests."
"After the Reuters dispatch, the Iraqi media spoke about the murders of gays for the very first time," Hili said, "but unfortunately in such hate-filled and incendiary terms that their reports and commentaries only encouraged further violence." On April 8, the New York Times published a story, headlined "Iraq's Newly Open Gays Face Scorn and Murder," in which it recognized for the first time the existence of anti-gay death squads, which Gay City News first reported three years ago (see this reporter's March 23-29, 2006 article, "Shia Death Squads Target Iraqi Gays,"). "Gay men and lesbians have long been among the targets of both Shiite and Sunni death squads" in Iraq, the Times reported.
Unfortunately, the Times article omitted any mention of the anti-gay death squads of the Badr Corps, the military arm of the former Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), which in 2007 changed its name to the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq when it entered the coalition government as its largest Islamist party, and which acknowledges Sistani as its supreme leader and spiritual guide.
The estimated 11,000 members of the Badr Corps militia, which has been responsible for a large majority of the murders of gays since Sistani's fatwa calling for such killings, was integrated into the Ministry of the Interior in 2006, and since then its Badr anti-gay death squads have operated in police uniforms with complete impunity, as Gay City News has previously reported on many occasions.
Iraqi LGBT activists in Iraq have been the victims of Badr Corps members operating in police uniforms, including five key gay activists arrested in a police raid on a secret organizing meeting in 2006; no word of them has since surfaced, and they are presumed to have been killed (see this reporter's December 7-12, 2006 article, "Iraqi Gay Activists Abducted" ).
There have been 17 Iraqi LGBT activists killed since the Ayatollah Sistani's 2005 fatwa, including Hili's own brother.
Hili said the Times article also gave a somewhat misleading impression about the degree to which Iraqi gays are able to be open. Iraqi LGBT had maintained a network of four safe houses in Baghdad for queers targeted by the anti-gay death squads. But now, Hili told Gay City News, "We have had to close three of them out of fear. The guys we were trying to protect in those safe houses became so afraid in the current climate of vicious anti-gay crusading by the media and the clerics, and following the latest assassinations of gays, that they were afraid to continue living collectively, that this made them easy targets. So they simply left our safe houses.
We have now only one safe house left." Hili also said that he had received reports from Iraq of five gay men, all Iraqi LGBT members, who are in prison awaiting execution. Hili said "We have been told they are expecting to be executed in two weeks."
Hili said it is unclear on what precise charges the gay men will be executed. "One of our informants who was in detention with these five guys and then was released told me by phone how these men told him that their trial was a lightening-quick kangaroo court. It was an incredibly brief trial, and these five members of ours weren't able to obtain legal representation or defend themselves in that kind of context." Hili said that according to this account, the five members of his group "thought they were being accused of being a part of a 'terrorist organization,' meaning Iraqi LGBT," Hili recounted. The five were found by police in possession of literature from his group. Hili has spoken with both Amnesty International and with Human Rights Watch about the case of his five members awaiting execution.
Dalia Hashad of Amnesty International told Gay City News, "Amnesty has been unable to get from the Iraqi government any confirmation that the men are in custody or that they are facing execution, but from what we have heard from individuals in Iraq, they were sentenced to die for belonging to a 'banned group.' We are protesting to the Iraqi government and are continuing to try to investigate, but it is very difficult to get any information about such prisoners in Iraq." Scott Long, director of Human Rights Watch's LGBT desk, told Rex Wockner's gay news service, "Together with other groups, members of Congress and concerned activists, we're doing everything we can to investigate and determine who's jailed and what their fates may be. The Iraqi government and the US government must both investigate these charges immediately." Long is traveling to Iraq to pursue an HRW investigation.
Polis is also trying to ascertain the status of the five imprisoned Iraqi LGBT members, but a statement given by a State Department spokesman to Edge.boston.com, a gay news website, raises concerns that the US may not yet be taking the charges seriously, despite the congressman's recent visit. The site quoted John Fleming, public affairs officer for the State Department's Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, as pooh-poohing the notion that the five gay men facing execution were being targeted for belonging to Iraqi LGBT, saying that homosexuality "is immaterial to Iraqis." Fleming, according to Edge, stated, "Frankly, there are other issues they are concerned about like basic survival, getting food and water. It's a luxury for the average Iraqi to worry about homosexuality." This statement by Fleming, who served a year in Iraq under the Bush administration, is, of course, contradicted by the recent media reports this month by such diverse sources as the Times, Reuters, CNN, and the British dailies The Independent and The Guardian, confirming Gay City News' three years of reporting.
This State Department staffer's statement suggests rather strongly the urgent need to keep up the pressure on the Obama administration and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to thoroughly investigate the dangers facing gay Iraqis and act decisively to save those threatened with death.
Iraqi LGBT is desperately in need of contributions to finance its work in Iraq. Donations may be made on credit cards through PayPal on the group's web site.
Doug Ireland can be reached through his blog, DIRELAND
Thursday 16 April 2009
US Rep Polis continues work on anti-gay Iraqi pogram
The U.S. State Department must not stand idly by if the Iraqi government fails to protect basic human rights, even if the persecution stems from traditional cultural or religious beliefs.
We applaud Colorado Congressman Jared Polis for his efforts last week to shine the spotlight on the killings of homosexuals in Iraq, and to press the State Department to demand accountability from the Iraqi government.
The first openly gay man to be elected to the House, Polis has been investigating the treatment of gays in Iraq for several months, according to The Post's Michael Riley. His research led to the discovery of a transgender Iraqi man who told the congressman he had been arrested, beaten and raped by security forces with Iraq's Ministry of Interior.
Human-rights groups have passed information to Polis that claims another man was beaten into confessing he belonged to a gay-rights group and that the man had been sentenced to execution by an Iraqi court.
Dear Ms. Butenis:Over the past week, I have become aware of egregious human rights violations against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) Iraqis being carried out by Iraqi government officials from the Ministry of the Interior called "Magaweer al-Dakhilya."
The information I received was derived from two separate testimonials of gay and transgender Iraqi men that were detained, tortured and sentenced to death for being members of an allegedly forbidden organization in Iraq called Iraqi LGBT. One of these invidividuals was able to escape, while the other was subsequently executed by Iraqi Ministry of Interior Security Forces.While I do not know if these executions are being sanctioned at the highest levels of the Iraqi government, it is nonetheless distrubing that government officials and state-funded security forces are involved in the torturing and execution of LGBT Iraqis.Even more disturbing was that the United States government appears to be largely unaware that the executions of gay and transgender Iraqis have been able to occur in Iraq given the enormous American presence. After reaching out to State Department officials in Washington, I was disappointed by their unwillingness to seriously consider these allegations and examine the evidence given to our office by international human rights watchdog organizations.I urge you to use every channel at your disposal to properly and promptly invetigate these grave human rights violations. Please know that I will continue to monitor this situation and hope to be of assistance in this investigation."
"The United States should not tolerate human rights violations of nay kind, especially by a government that Americans spend billions of taxpayer dollars each year supporting. Hopefully my trip and letters to US and Iraqi officials will help bring international attention and investigation to this terrible situation and bring an end to any such offenses."
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Global Gaze: When Falling in (Same-Sex) Love is a Crime
Click image to enlarge map
By Jolly
In the last installment of the Global Gaze series, in which we looked at the gay rights struggle in sub-Saharan Africa, I alluded to the fact that one of the issues that gay rights activists struggle with is the criminalization of homosexuality in many parts of the world. I also referenced a declaration in the UN about LGBT rights. In the time since writing that, I’ve been thinking more and more about the phenomenon of criminalized homosexuality around the world and how easily taken for granted this issue can be in modern queer community in the US and throughout the West. What follows is a look at what it means when being gay is illegal around the world
In terms of the international community as a whole, UN documents and institutions are fairly quiet on the issue of criminalized homosexuality. This isn’t that surprising, since such instruments rarely address issues affecting sexual minorities around the world in general. While this may seem like a simple matter of terminology or oversight, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, former Secretary-General of the United Nations, put it best when he said, “We know that when a community is left out of the mainstream of international life, it is very difficult for its members to preserve even the most elementary human rights.”
The United Nations Declaration on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity, which was sponsored by the French, backed by the European Union and presented to the UN General Assembly in December, is meant to address this. Article 11 of the declaration says, “We urge States to take all the necessary measures, in particular legislative or administrative, to ensure that sexual orientation or gender identity may under no circumstances be the basis for criminal penalties, in particular executions, arrests or detention.”
This proposal, of course, resulted in intense debate within the UN. First of all, it should be noted that General Assembly declarations, unlike international treaties and conventions, are legally non-binding. This means that states aren’t actually bound by it if they sign it, though approval does have significant symbolic and rhetorical value. 66 states, including all of the members of the EU and other Western countries, except for the US, signed it right away. The Obama administration has already said that the US will sign the declaration in the near future.
Shortly after its presentation, the Vatican joined many Arab and African states in criticizing the declaration. In a formal statement, 57 countries emphasized many common arguments against having human rights for homosexuals, namely that it could lead to “the social normalization, and possibly the legitimization, of many deplorable acts including pedophilia,” and that the criminalization of homosexuality is a domestic issue and therefore interfering in such policies violates the sovereignty of individual states.
Until the original declaration passes or is superseded by a legally binding document, scholars like Phillip Tahmindjis have pointed out that any norm regarding sexual orientation “has to be gleaned by inferences drawn from language addressed to issues of non-discrimination in the way they are implemented.” This is exactly what happened in 1994 when the UN Human Rights Committee ruled that the criminalization of homosexuality and homosexual acts is a violation of international non-discrimination laws in the famous case known as Toonen v. Australia. The case was brought by Nicholas Toonen, an Australian man who was challenging anti-sodomy laws in Tasmania, the last region of Australia to enforce such a law. The HRC ruled that passing different laws for gay men regarding sexual activity was a violation of international law because it made gay men unequal before the law and in terms of its implementation.
Despite this interpretation of international law, as of this moment homosexuality and/or homosexual acts remain illegal in 77 countries and are considered offenses punishable by death in seven: Saudi Arabia, Iran, Pakistan, Mauritania, northern Nigeria, Sudan, and Yemen. (As a matter of perspective, it’s important to remember that anti-sodomy laws weren’t overturned country-wide in the US until 2003 when the decision in Lawrence v. Texas was handed down). This criminalization is not, in most countries, merely an antiquated law which is no longer enforced, but rather legislation which is actively supported and carries serious punishments. In fact, countries throughout the international community continue to pass additional and increasingly harsh laws against homosexuality and homosexual acts as a backlash against greater condemnation of such policies.
A recent example of this can be found in Jamaica. Last month, despite international and domestic pressure, Jamaican Prime Minister Bruce Godling supported a new sexual offenses bill and promised to “protect” the country from homosexuality. “We are not going to yield to the pressure, whether that pressure comes from individual organizations, individuals, whether that pressure comes from foreign governments or groups of countries, to liberalize the laws as it relates to buggery,” Golding told Parliament. As I mentioned last time, Burundi, among other countries in sub-Saharan Africa, has also made a bid toward criminalizing homosexuality and passing tougher laws as well.
While all of this legal jargon is important and has an impact on individuals around the world, it’s also vital to take a look at the roles these laws play in people’s everyday lives. The Middle East is a region which I haven’t directly addressed yet in a Global Gaze column. The region contains, however, one of the most compelling stories regarding the impact that anti-gay laws have on sexual minorities around the world.
Israel stands with only Jordan, Turkey, and Cyprus as countries in the region in which homosexuality is legal. Israel goes beyond this and is considered the leader in terms of LGBT rights in the area. This creates a very real dilemma of identity for Palestinian sexual minorities living in areas such as Gaza and West Bank. In one of the most dramatic embodiments of the conflict between multiple identities that all LGBT people feel to some degree, young gay and lesbian LGBT Palestinians are forced to choose between living with their families and communities and hiding their sexuality in the face of anti-gay laws, or sneaking into Israel where the laws are much more tolerant and risking deportation and harassment due to their ethnic identity.
And the situation only gets more complicated as Israel’s relationship with its neighbors fluctuates, meaning it gets harder and harder to enter the country at all. Also, these young men and women cannot apply for asylum because Israel interprets international refugee law, and therefore asylum policies, to read that they do not apply to Palestinian nationals.
This scenario, as sad as it is, also shows the power that coming together as a global community can have. Despite their obvious differences, Israeli gay rights groups have helped to protect LGBT Palestinians and keep them in the country as best they can. As Hagai El-Ad, an Israeli gay rights activist, said in an interview last year: “The struggle for our rights is worthless if it’s indifferent to what’s happening to [gays in the occupied Palestinian territories] a kilometer from here.”
So what can the international community do about this issue? Encouraging states to sign the declaration before the UN is important, of course. Usually in the case of a declaration, national NGOs in signatory countries can use such an action to hold countries to their word and encourage them to fully implement the ideals enshrined in the declaration in their domestic legal systems. In this case, however, this strategy is less effective, as most of the signatories have already abolished their anti-gay laws. The focus, therefore, must be on trans-national advocacy to get additional states to agree to sign on.
The UN Human Rights Committee, the body which ruled in the Toonen case, now routinely requests information from states regarding what they’re doing to prevent, address, and prohibit discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation domestically. It urges states not only to repeal laws criminalizing homosexuality but to go a step further and prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation in their constitutions and laws. States and activists should support this work and encourage it to continue.
Beyond this, it’s up the international queer community to stay vigilant and monitor individual states for abuses. When your very existence is considered a crime against the state, not much hope exists for living a free or open life. It’s up to all of us to remain mindful of our LGBT brothers and sisters across the globe and support them in any way possible until we can achieve a world in which we are all free to be who we are.
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