Report: Trans woman killed by Cuban police

Image by flippinyank via Flickr

By Paul Canning

Florida-based news website Cubanet is reporting that a young transgender woman has been beaten to death in police custody in Cuba.

Eighteen-year-old Leidel Luis, who was known as Jessica, originally from the province of Santiago de Cuba and who lived with her partner named Yariel in Las Tunas, died after receiving a brutal beating in Guáimaro in Camaguey, southern Cuba.

It is alledged that she was picked up at a traffic stop 4 January by police calling her "faggot, nigger and disgusting."

The report is sourced to a prison inmate, Rolando Castro Sanchez who names those he alleges beat Luis to death as police officers Galindo Yarian Larena, Juan Ramon Lorenzo, their commanding officer Heriberto, and the sector chief Boris Luis Caballero. It is alleged that her body was removed after she was found dead in her cell in the middle of the night to an unknown location.

Cuba's Communist Party Congress, which opens 28 January, will reportedly adopt pro-gay provisions. Mariela Castro Espín, the daughter of Cuban President Raúl Castro and the leading advocate for LGBT rights in Cuba, wrote on her blog this week that the revision of the Family Code in 2013 will include recognition of same-sex couples.

However, continuing police harassment in Cuba, including arrests, has been reported on a number gay Cuban blogs, such as that of the Reinaldo Arenas Memorial Foundation. Gay Cuban blogger Francisco Rodríguez Cruz has also condemned 'irregularities' committed by Cuban police, who, he says, have repeatedly fined visitors to a gay meeting spot in central Havana. In September a death in custody of a transgender man was reported in Havana.

Dissident Roberto de Jesús Guerra, who was released from prison after two years in 2007, said last year that raids by police on LGBT meeting at several sites in the Cuban capital have been stepped up.

According to Imbert Leannes Acosta, director of El Observatorio Cubano de los Derechos de la Comunidad LGBT (OBCUD LGBT, Cuban Observatory of the Rights of the LGBT), repression of LGBT in Cuba is increasing, not only in Havana but "we have documented Matanzas [North Cuba] and Guantanamo [East Cuba] cases." He said that his group would protest repression to the United Nations.

The independent organisation has not been allowed to officially register. Under the slogan "Homosexuality is a matter of rights, not of opinions", OBCUD LGBT ran the "National Campaign for LGBT rights" in June 2011 which included a march 28 June.

A US State Department document released by Wikileaks last September suggests that non-state supported LGBT initiatives in Cuba are receiving American funding.

Related articles

• Cuban communists to oppose LGBT discrimination (madikazemi.blogspot.com)

2011 round up: Part three: Decriminalization of homosexuality and anti-discrimination

Image via Wikipedia

By Paul Canning

I'm rounding up the year in a series of posts - in which no doubt I've missed something, so please let me know what I've missed in the comments!

Decriminalization of homosexuality and anti-discrimination

We saw an increased impact in 2011 of the work of the UN Human Rights Council, particularly its Universal Periodic Review (UPR) process of interrogating country's human rights records, and other long term work by activists starting to bear fruit in other parts of the United Nations and other international bodies as well.

The passage of a resolution against killings of LGBT at the end of last year, reversing an attempt by the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) and some African countries at halting LGBT progress in international bodies, sparked a global reaction, including demonstrations and novel contact with governments by local LGBT.

It marked the change in approach by Rwanda in particular, which had previously backed off criminalization, with its UN ambassador drawing on the country's experience of genocide to send a message to those claiming that LGBT is not defined or that LGBT don't even exist.

It marked the first sign of historic change in Cuba, which appears likely to culminate in same-sex unions and anti-discrimination laws agreed by the Communist Party next year. The way that other Caribbean countries changed positively on the UN vote on killings also marked a development which continued in several island nations during 2011.

A change of approach by South Africa on the international LGBT rights front, due to internal civil society pressure, led to them proposing the historic July resolution affirming LGBT rights at the Human Rights Council, which then led to the publication of the first UN report on LGBT human rights in December. That July resolution also caused further ripples, including the first public affirmation of LGBT rights by a Gulf civil society group, in Bahrain.

It emerged that the organised backlash against LGBT rights in international bodies, led by the OIC, Russia and the African group, was receiving support from American Christian fundamentalist bodies such as CFAM. The same people who are losing the 'culture war' at home have shifted to intervening in Africa and the Caribbean and various countries repeated their arguments/lies, such as Uganda claiming at the UN Human Rights Council that lesbians and gays 'recruit'. However it was also clear from investigative reporting at UN HQ that many of the no-shows, abstentions or yes votes of various countries during key UN LGBT rights votes was largely down to US diplomatic pressure. This showed how both US and European pressures on LGBT rights is already happening, and working, in a year which saw extensive simplified and often inaccurate reporting on the use of such 'leverage', like the supposed 'colonialist' tying of development aid to LGBT rights.

Four countries committed themselves to decriminalization: São Tomé and Príncipe; Nauru; The Seychelles, and; Northern Cyprus.

In Botswana LGBT launched, then put on hold, a legal push for decriminalisation. and in Belize LGBT started their legal challenge to criminalisation on constitutional grounds. Jamaican law is to be challenged at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) and the opposition leader called for a review of the buggery law.

In Chile all anti-gay discrimination was banned. Colombia passed an anti-discrimination law which includes prison terms. In South Africa government action began on so-called 'corrective rape', following massive international attention. But in Brazil, passage of a hate crimes law failed due to increased evangelical Christian influence in that country. And in Malawi, the government criminalized lesbians and used LGBT rights as a wedge issue against its opponents.

The anti-criminalization effort at the Commonwealth Summit failed but it did raise the issue widely in media worldwide.

Several former African leaders came out for decriminalization. In her fantastic speech on gay rights at the UN in December, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pointedly mentioned one, former Botswana leader Festus Mogue. But only the Zimbabwean leader Morgan Tsvangarai offered support for LGBT amongst current African leaders.

Related articles

• UN publishes landmark LGBT rights report (madikazemi.blogspot.com)
• What preceded Hillary Clinton's UN speech? (madikazemi.blogspot.com)

Cuban communists to oppose LGBT discrimination

Image by flippinyank via Flickr

By Paul Canning

Cuban blogger Francisco Rodríguez Cruz reports that the official papers for the January Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba, its first in fourteen years, includes opposition to discrimination against LGBT people.

Cruz says that the document includes two new party objectives:

54. Confront racial, gender, religious, sexual orientation and other prejudices that may generate any form of discrimination or limit people from exercising their rights to, among others, occupy public posts, and participate in the political and mass organizations and in the defense of the country.

65. To reflect in the audiovisual media, the printed and digital press Cuban reality in all its diversity regarding the economic, labor and social situation, gender, skin color, religious beliefs, sexual orientation and territorial origin.

Furthermore, the document's introduction states that “the current challenges require (...) confronting prejudices and discrimination of all kinds that still persist in society”.

Cruz believes that:

"With regards to the specific topic of sexual diversity, the enunciation is sufficiently broad to cover a series of transformations that are necessary to guarantee respect for the free sexual orientation and gender identity in Cuba. This has to do with the legal status of homosexual unions and the participation of LGBT persons in responsibilities of any kind, including military institutions."

Cuban Minister of Justice, María Esther Reus, says that the Family Code will be updated in 2013. This could include legal marriage for couples of the same sex.

Progress on LGBT rights in Cuba has been led by Mariela Castro Espín, the daughter of Cuban President Raúl Castro. In June she told a conference in Glasgow, Scotland, that Cuba’s Communist Party may soon be ready to recognise gay rights.

In a September  interview with Havana Times Castro Espín said that it is "the prejudices of Cuban society" which is holding back progress on LGBT human rights: "obstacles exist because prejudices dominate institutional decisions here."

She cited prejudice as the reason why the Ministry of Justice has refused to accept proposals for legal change, rather than Catholic Church opposition saying:

"The Catholic Church has been consistent in outlining its disagreement with what we’re doing, but it isn’t waging war against us. I don’t feel that they’re the obstacle."

Despite this progress, continuing police harassment in Cuba, including arrests, has been reported on gay Cuban blogs, such as that of the Reinaldo Arenas Memorial Foundation. Francisco Rodríguez Cruz has also condemned 'irregularities' committed by Cuban police, who have repeatedly fined visitors to a gay spot in central Havana. In September a death in custody of a transgender man was reported in Havana.

Dissident Roberto de Jesús Guerra, who was released from prison after two years in 2007, has said that raids by police on LGBT meeting at several sites in the Cuban capital have recently been stepped up.

According to Imbert Leannes Acosta, director of El Observatorio Cubano de los Derechos de la Comunidad LGBT (OBCUD LGBT, Cuban Observatory of the Rights of the LGBT), repression of LGBT in Cuba is increasing, not only in Havana but "we have documented Matanzas [North Cuba] and Guantanamo [East Cuba] cases." He said that his group would protest repression to the United Nations.

The independent organisation has not been allowed to officially register. Under the slogan "Homosexuality is a matter of rights, not of opinions", OBCUD LGBT ran the "National Campaign for LGBT rights" in June which included a march 28 June.

A State Department document recently released by Wikileaks suggests that non-state supported LGBT initiatives in Cuba are receiving American funding.

Translation by Walter Lippmann

HT: Francisco Rodríguez

Related articles

• Cuba: First "Gay" Marriage (globalvoicesonline.org)

In Cuba, a death in custody, a flag raising, a raid

Mariela Castro Espín image via Wikipedia

By Paul Canning

A number of expat Cuban websites, such as EU-funded Cuba Encuentro, are reporting the death in police custody in Havana of a trans man 8 September.

Nelson Linares García, 34, had been arrested along with "about a dozen of homosexuals, transvestites and transsexuals in Old Havana" in Fraternity Park and "died while under arrest". A doctor certified "respiratory arrest" as the cause of death, but the authorities did not conduct an autopsy, according to Penúltimos Días.

According to Imbert Leannes Acosta, director of El Observatorio Cubano de los Derechos de la Comunidad LGBT (OBCUD LGBT, Cuban Observatory of the Rights of the LGBT), Linares García's friends informed the police repeatedly that he had hypertension but they did not pay attention.

The report is traced to Ignacio Estrada, a "noted dissident and gay rights activist" who married his transgender partner 14 August in what was billed as Cuba's 'first gay wedding'.

Another dissident, Roberto de Jesús Guerra, who was released from prison after two years in 2007, said that recent weeks had seen repeated raids by police on LGBT meeting at several sites in the Cuban capital.

Progress on LGBT rights in Cuba has been led by Mariela Castro Espín, the daughter of Cuban President Raúl Castro. In June she told a conference in Glasgow, Scotland, that Cuba’s Communist Party may soon be ready to recognise gay rights.

Despite this progress, continuing police harassment in Cuba, including arrests, has been reported on gay Cuban blogs, such as that of the Reinaldo Arenas Memorial Foundation.

Herb Sosa, president of Unity Coalition, a Latino LGBT organization based in Miami that has provided materials and resources to LGBT groups, has accused the Cuban government of engaging in extrajudicial executions.

According to Acosta of OBCUD LGBT, repression of LGBT in Cuba is increasing, not only in Havana but "we have documented Matanzas [North Cuba] and Guantanamo [East Cuba] cases." He said that his group would protest repression to the United Nations. The organisation has not been allowed to officially register. Under the slogan "Homosexuality is a matter of rights, not of opinions", OBCUD LGBT ran the "National Campaign for LGBT rights" in June which included a march 28 June.

Read more »

Are Cuba's communists getting ready to support LGBT rights?

Mariela Castro at Cuba IDAHO rally

By Paul Canning

Mariela Castro Espín, the daughter of Cuban President Raúl Castro and a leader for LGBT rights on that island, told the 20th World Congress for Sexual Health, held in the Scottish city of Glasgow 18 June, that Cuba’s Communist Party may soon be ready to recognise gay and lesbian rights, even though her father has cautioned her that the time may not yet be ripe.

“I’ll be frank with you. My father, with all his experience in outlining strategies, and getting them implemented, has told me one first has to create the right conditions - and Cuban society lacks them in many areas," she said.

"When the Revolution declared itself socialist after the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion, people took up arms to defend it, hardly knowing what socialism was exactly. It seems a contradiction, but what I’m trying to say is that, in this macho culture, we’ve made a lot of progress regarding women’s rights."

"So I’d tell my father: why don’t we do the same thing with these issues? But he’d say: look, some things have such deeps roots in our culture, that you’ll face a lot of resistance unless you sort out some other things first. That’s why it’s necessary to wait until the party conference in January [2012] and make progress informing the population with the help of the media. That way we’ll get things ready in order to get a good result."

June 17 Cuba supported the historic resolution for LGBT rights at the United Nations Human Rights Council. At the UN, Cuban activists had previously scored an abstention as a victory.

The official blog of the Centro Nacional de Educación Sexual (National Center for Sexual Education, CENESEX), the organisation which Mariela Castro Espín heads, said:

"Cuba’s affirmative vote shows the political will of our Party and State to eliminate all forms of discrimination that unfortunately still persist in Cuban society."

LGBT rights march in Santiago

However independent LGBT groups have also been lobbying the government, including to support the June 17 UN resolution, such as this march held in the Eastern city of Santiago.

Alejandro Armengol, a Miami-based commentator and veteran observer of Cuban politics, says that the change in attitudes at the UN demonstrates: "how forceful the gay movement in Cuba has become."

"There are times when Cuba uses gays, or certain gays, especially writers and artists, to show how things have gotten better," says Armengol. 

"That’s how they throw the focus off matters of censorship and repression, for sure. But that can’t erase that there’s real progress in this area, sometimes even more than the government bargained for."

Cuba's history on LGBT rights includes anti-gay statements by Fidel Castro, sanctioned anti-gay persecutions and purges, and labor camps in the 1960s created specifically for LGBT people (which Fidel has since apologised for). This period was dramatically documented by the 1980s documentary "Improper Conduct", and by the renowned author Reinaldo Arenas in his 1992 autobiography, Before Night Falls, as well as his fiction, most notably The Color of Summer and Farewell to the Sea. The criminal laws against homosexuality were gradually liberalised, starting in 1979.

Continuing police harassment in Cuba, including arrests, has been reported on gay Cuban blogs, particularly that of the Reinaldo Arenas Memorial Foundation.

Herb Sosa, president of Unity Coalition, a Latino LGBT organization based in Miami that has provided materials and resources to LGBT groups, has accused the Cuban government of engaging in extrajudicial executions.

Ms Castro has made the fight against homophobia in Cuba a personal struggle, giving countless talks and interviews.

"Prejudices are still deeply rooted in our culture and in our history as a nation. Finding new ways to change the reality of such views is very hard," she said.

"What I try to do is to dismantle prejudices and offer alternative perspectives on the sexual reality of human beings. Making progress in these areas, especially in those of gender and equal women’s rights, has helped us make progress in respecting sexual diversity and gender identity."

Related articles

• In the Caribbean, homophobia varies widely (madikazemi.blogspot.com)
• Gallery | Cubans march against homophobia in Havana gay rights parade led by Mariela Castro (miamiherald.typepad.com)

In the Caribbean, homophobia varies widely

Mariela Castro at Cuba IDAHO rally

Source: IPS

By Dalia Acosta

Note: Trinidad & Tobago's Coalition Advocating for Inclusion of Sexual Orientation (CAISO) comment that this article includes innacuracies:

"the frequency of sentences for buggery in Jamaica; the range of penalties (that extend to life in two territories); the role of CARICOM or its member nations in hosting regional GLBT activity; ILGA's impact in the region. We'd welcome journalism that simply talked to folks in the organizations cited here."

~~~~~

While homosexuality is punishable by law in nine Caribbean island nations, gay activism is increasingly taking root in countries like Cuba.

"The situation in the Caribbean today is one of contrasts," Gloria Careaga, co-secretary general of the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA), founded in 1978 and with close to 700 member groups in over 110 countries, told IPS.

Differences are greatest between the Spanish-speaking and English-speaking areas of the Caribbean, Careaga, a Mexican psychologist who is also in charge of the Latin American and Caribbean region (ILGA-LAC), said by email on the occasion of International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia, Tuesday May 17.

Careaga said "clear" signs of progress were the work of Cuban institutions in favour of the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) people and of strengthening their groups, the growing presence of studies on sexual diversity in Puerto Rican universities, and the emergence of lesbian organisations in the Dominican Republic.

However, "the English-speaking Caribbean seems to be unable to shake off the influence of Victorian morality, and not only maintains laws that criminalise gays and lesbians, but also argues the case for homophobia, for instance in Jamaica," she said.

A national survey carried out in Jamaica by the University of the West Indies in 2010 found that 89 percent of respondents were homophobic. The study polled 1,007 adults from 231 communities in the island nation.

Jamaican courts often sentence men who have sex with men (MSM) to prison terms with hard labour.

Read more »

Cuba goes both ways on gay rights

The daughter of Cuban President Raul Castro, Mariela Castro, marches in a gay parade in Havana, May 15 2010

Source: In These Times

By Achy Obejas

In its 52 years, the Cuban Revolution has had a less than stellar queer history, complete with on-the-record anti-gay statements by Fidel Castro, sanctioned anti-gay persecutions and purges, and labor camps in the 1960s created specifically for LGBT people.

Officially, all that has changed. Fidel Castro apologized for the persecution of gays on his watch, there are no explicitly anti-gay laws on the books, and LGBT rights have found an unlikely champion in Mariela Castro, President Raul Castro’s daughter, a sexologist who runs the National Sex Education Center (CENESEX, as its known by its Spanish acronym).

But, unofficially, there’s still plenty of police harassment of LGBT people (documented by both pro- and anti-government bloggers, mostly for foreign readers), and no recognition of LGBT citizens and their families, which effectively frustrates, if not denies, access to housing, certain medical services, adoption and travel.

Cuba’s split personality on LGBT issues came onto the international stage at the United Nations in November, when it was the only Latin American country that voted to have “sexual orientation” removed from a list of discriminatory motivations for extrajudicial executions. The amendment would have changed the LGBT-specific language to the vague phrase, “for discriminatory reasons, whatever they may be.” Citizens around the globe raised such an outcry that, a month later, the international body reversed itself and passed an inclusive resolution.

Read more »

Historic UN vote on 'gay killings' sparks international reaction

By Paul Canning

Updated, see end.

The reversal last month of a UN vote to exclude sexual orientation from a resolution against extrajudicial killings has sparked reaction around the world.

The vote followed a move by the United States to reverse action led by Islamic and some African countries to strip LGBT from a resolution urging States to protect the right to life of all people, including by calling on states to investigate killings based on discriminatory grounds. For the past ten years, the resolution has included sexual orientation in the list of discriminatory grounds on which killings are often based. These included persons belonging to national or ethnic, religious and linguistic minorities, persons acting as human rights defenders (such as lawyers, journalists or demonstrators) as well as street children and members of indigenous communities.

It was the latest attempt by Islamic and some African countries to reverse gains made for LGBT at the United Nations.

Dan Littaeur, reporting for Gay Middle East, says these countries object to the idea of any legal definition to sexual orientation, call sexual orientation a “personal choice” and an “individual sexual interest” which has no legal foundations in International Human Rights Instruments. The no vote was lead by Tajikistan on behalf of the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC), the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on behalf of the Arab Countries, and Benin on behalf of the African countries.

UAE and OIC signaled that member countries will now seek to fight the issue through the “defamation" of religious ideas resolution, also passed at the UN, as a human rights violation. OIC further cryptically added that adoption of sexual orientation will lead to less flexible voting on “other issues."

Read more »

Big victory for USA in fresh United Nations 'gay killings' vote

By Paul Canning

The United Nations General Assembly tonight voted 93 for, 55 against with 27 abstaining to reinsert 'sexual orientation' into a resolution condemning extrajudicial killings. The vote followed the United States insistence on bringing the resolution back for another vote.

It was removed last month in a move led by African and Islamic countries.

This means that 23 nations changed their vote to yes, 15 didn't vote no and nine more abstained - 47 in total went in a positive direction. This is a quarter of the UN membership.

• One third of African countries changed their vote positively, including Rwanda and Angola voting yes. 
• Almost the whole of the Caribbean changed their vote positively, including Jamaica.

In the debate at the UN the most moving contribution was from the Rwandan delegate who said that a group does not need to be "legally defined" to be targeted for massacres and referenced his countries experience. "We can't continue to hide our heads in the sand" he said."These people have a right to life."

The reference to 'legal definition' was a pointed reference to the argument of other African countries, led by Benin, as well as the Islamic countries, led by Tajikistan and Arab countries, led by UAE, that 'sexual orientation' wasn't defined and wasn't covered by international human rights agreements.

The debate also saw South Africa pointedly reverse its previous vote citing its constitutional protections for LGBT but at the same time lamenting the 'sensitive' nature of the subject. Colombia, which had previously abstained, spoke strongly in favour.

A low point came from the Zimbabwean delegate who said sexual orientation "is not a human right" and compared it to bestiality and pedophilia.As well the Benin delegate said that 'this vote determines the very future of humanity! and that it "go down in annals of history".

As well as the United States, the EU and other countries, numerous human rights organisations as well as individual activists have been lobbying UN delegates for the past two weeks.Cuba's Foreign Ministry met with LGBT representatives prior to the vote, though it did not say whether it would reverse it's previous support for the removal of sexual orientation from the resolution.

The full break down of the vote is now available. Here's how the votes changed:

Read more »

Cuba to legalise same-sex marriage?

Dr. Alberto Roque

Source: ILGA

[Google translation]

The Cuban Parliament would see the legalization of same-sex unmarried partners in July next year. This was stated by Dr. Alberto Roque, representing the National Center for Sexual Education (CENESEX) during his speech at the XXV International Conference ILGA going on in Sao Paulo (Brazil) in the public policy panel on sexual diversity of which members of the Ministry of Health of Brazil, and Germany and Cuba.
Roque spoke about the advancement of LGBT rights in Cuba during the last decade, as opposed "to what he believes the collective imagination." This progress comes from the implementation of an Education Strategy for Self-Respect Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity, led by governmental CENESEX and other institutions on sexual diversity.

In this context, highlighted the performance of the Cuban Conference Against Homophobia for three years, the creation of networks for the health of lesbians throughout the country, and transgender sex reassignment.

Roque said that in the legislative framework, is still pending discussion by the Cuban parliament's new Family Code, which recognises domestic partnerships between same sex and respect for transgender people under family. Despite resistance from some policymakers, it is reported that this debate is scheduled to be tried in July 2011.

Finally, the activist said that after the Cuban vote in favor of the amendment that eliminated sexual orientation within the items listed in the resolution condemning extrajudicial killings, the authorities regretted being the only Latin American country in taking this position, noting that thus joined countries that legally condemn homosexuality.

In an unprecedented move, the Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla, met with LGBT representatives where they said that this vote does not mean a change in policy on these issues and the Cuban position was due to a fact "cyclical and unexpected"! In what was at stake solidarity with African countries. As a result, activists succeeded in an official statement to the Permanent Mission of Cuba to the United Nations where the Cuban Government expresses its rejection of extrajudicial killings, including those committed on the grounds of sexual orientation.

Related articles

• Cuba: UN Vote on LGBT Rights Sparks Controversy (globalvoicesonline.org)
• ILGA world conference sends key message: activists should forge alliances (madikazemi.blogspot.com)

In the Czech Republic, asylum applications processed at snail's pace

Image via Wikipedia

Source: ČTK

The official deadline for answering an asylum application is three months but some refugees have been waiting for years for the decision on their asylum, lawyer Eva Hola, from the Czech Organization for Aid to Refugees (OPU), has said.

They have to wait so long even though the number of refugees applying for asylum in the Czech Republic has been dropping, Hola noted.

The number of applicants for Czech asylum has been decreasing since 2004. While 1878 applications were registered in 2007, it was 1656 in 2008 and 1258 last year.

After the three months, a refugee usually receives letters that postpone the deadline by which the decision is to be made, Hola said.

She pointed to the case of Cuban political prisoner Rolando Jimenez Pozada who was recently welcomed to the Czech Republic by Interior Minister Radek John.

"As a lawyer representing refugees in their asylum proceedings, I am shocked by the totally different attitude of the Interior Ministry to all the other refugees. Why other refugees are not welcomed as cordially as the prisoner from Cuba?" Hola asked.

Read more »

International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia

By Paul Canning

Hundreds of events have been scheduled across the world to mark the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia (IDAHO), 17 May.

Cuba will commemorate for the third consecutive year the International Day against Homophobia with activities May 11-18, announced Mariela Castro, director of the National Centre for Sex Education (CENESEX).

The major Hungarian LGBT organisation Hatter, is organizing a workshop to celebrate IDAHO titled 'Rainbow families: the question of same sex couples and their children in light of political debates and international requirements'.

There will be more than 150 events mark IDAHO across France. Highlights of the programme include :
A national conference on Religions, Homophobia and Transphobia, with high level representatives of the Catholic, Protestant, Jewish and Muslim cults. The French Minister for Interior/Domestic Affairs will chair the conference that will take place in the Parliament building.

In Kenya, GALCK shall mark the day by presenting dances, and acting a play based on the Ugandan Law. IDAHO shall also be marked in at least two other cities in Kenya, including Nakuru and Kisumu.

In Solvakia Idaho day will be marked by the first Pride March ever to be organised.

Various Brasilian Ministerial agencies, Members of Parliaments, UN agencies and civil society organisations will come together on 18 May in Brasilia to discuss the perspectives of Human Rights.

In Cambodia, this year, a Pride Parade will mark the International Day Against Homophobia, with an extensive program of activities. In addition to the parade itself, the association organized Pride Cambodia also a whole series of events between 10 and 17 May.

• See the Idaho website for more on international events.

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Is the US helping or hindering internet freedom?

Image via Wikipedia

Source: Brian Whitaker

One of the more significant changes since the Obama administration came it power is that the US is beginning to recognise the importance of the internet in struggles for freedom in many parts of the world.

This is highlighted in the State Department's latest annual report on human rights which describes 2009 as ...

"... a year in which more people gained greater access than ever before to more information about human rights through the internet, cell phones, and other forms of connective technologies. Yet at the same time it was a year in which governments spent more time, money, and attention finding regulatory and technical means to curtail freedom of expression on the internet and the flow of critical information and to infringe on the personal privacy rights of those who used these rapidly evolving technologies."

The US Treasury has now modified its sanctions against Iran, Cuba and Sudan "to ensure that individuals in those countries can exercise their right to free speech and information to the greatest extent possible". Voice of America explains:

"US companies will now be able to legally export certain free services and software related to the exchange of personal communications over the internet, including web browsing, blogging, email, and social networking.

"US Deputy Treasury Secretary Neal Wolin said, 'As recent events in Iran have shown, personal internet-based communications ... are powerful tools. This software will foster and support the free flow of information – a basic human right – for all Iranians'."

So far, so good. But American companies are also complicit in curtailing freedom on the internet. Just a few years ago, for example, they were queing up – along with others from Europe – to sell filtering software to the Saudis. ''This would be a terrific deal to win," one of them said. ''Once we sell them the product, we can't enforce how they use it,'' another said, shrugging off any responsibility for the consequences.

Now, Microsoft seems to be getting in on the censorship act too, with its Bing search engine. Research by the OpenNet Initiative (ONI) has found that "users in the Arab countries – or, as termed by Microsoft, 'Arabian countries' – are prevented from conducting certain search queries in both English and Arabic."

Testing of Bing using the "Arabian countries" setting showed that various sex-related keywords, in both Arabic and English, are filtered out. Searching for these terms produces no results but a short message from Bing saying "Your country or region requires a strict Bing SafeSearch setting, which filters out results that might return adult content."

ONI wonders whether that is actually true. It says:

"It is unclear ... whether Bing’s keyword filtering in the Arab countries is an initiative from Microsoft, or whether any or all of the Arab states have asked Microsoft to comply with local censorship practices or laws.

"It is interesting that Microsoft’s implementation of this type of wholesale social content censorship for the entire 'Arabian countries' region is in fact not being practised by many of the Arab government censors themselves. That is, although political filtering is widespread in the MENA [Middle East and North Africa] region, social filtering, including keyword filtering, is not practised by all countries in MENA. ONI 2007-2008 and 2008-2009 testing and research found no evidence of social content filtering (eg, sex, nudity, and homosexuality) at the national level in countries such as Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, and Libya."

The problems with this kind of "keyword" filtering are widely recognised and Microsoft really ought to know better. ONI explains:

"Microsoft’s declared aim from this type of censorship is to filter out 'results that might return adult content'. However, filtering at the keyword level results in overblocking, as banning the use of certain keywords to search for websites, not just images, prevents users from accessing – based on Microsoft’s definition of objectionable content – legitimate content such as sex education and encyclopedic information about homosexuality."

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Gay Life in Cuba - Not much has changed since Reinaldo Arenas’ time

Source: LGBT Cuba News Today (via In These Times)

EDITOR’S NOTE: The following posts are from the blog LGBT Cuba News Today. In These Times offers this selection in lieu of the article that was to have been written by Mario José Delgado Gonzáles (ultramarino321@yahoo.com), who was jailed in August for trying to organize a Mr. Gay Havana contest. Delgado is the vice president of the Reinaldo Arenas LGBT Memorial Foundation, a group named for the Cuban poet and author of Before Night Falls.

JUNE 3, 2009

Several young homosexuals arrested in May are sentenced to prison

Several young gay people, arrested on May 15 on the Island hours before the official celebrations of the Day Against Homophobia, were sentenced to two to four years of prison, according to a press release from the Reinaldo Arenas LGBT Memorial Foundation and the Cuban LGBT Committee for Human Rights.

The organizations didn’t specify the exact number of those sentenced.

The young people were part of a group of 58 homosexuals detained in a raid called “Operacion Pio” (Operation Tweet), who were forced to sign off on charges against them, fined and sent back to their provinces of origin.

JUNE 4, 2009

Havana

“I don’t want faggots walking around Havana—sooner or later I’m going to throw you all in jail after I exhaust all the warnings I’m going to give you,” said Police Capt. Ángel of the Reina district, between San Nicolás and Rayo Streets, after he arrested 58 young people for homosexuality, according to José Luis, an HIV+ transvestite who was arrested four blocks from his home for being homosexual.

“When I got to the station and asked why I’d been detained, an officer tried to hit me—I’m not sure how I avoided it. During the day, I have no complaints, but at night it’s impossible for a transvestite to walk the streets. We live in a great state of fear on the streets. They come and detain you, just like that. And if you complain or defend yourself, it’s worse because they beat you.

“I was on the P7 bus when suddenly it was stopped. The police blocked the transit bus and one of the officers came on the bus looking for homosexuals. He made me and two others get off. I was dressed as a woman. In the Reina district, the police are very violent and aggressive; it’s directed by Capt. Ángel. He hurled insults, told us to shut up and hit us. The Captain said that if we wanted to walk around on the streets, Mariela Castro [Raúl Castro’s daughter, who runs the CENESEX, Cuba’s National Sex Education Center, and has started an anti-homophobia campaign] would have to buy us our own island.” …

JUNE 23, 2009

Havana

Thirty homosexuals are arrested around the Capitol Building.

Thirty homosexuals were arrested Saturday, June 13, when the National Police from the Dragones station parked two Hyundai vans downstairs at the Capitol Building, according to Amaury Cabodevilla Torriente, a blogger and member of the Center for Human and Sexual Rights (formerly Cuban Committee for LGBT Human Rights), an organization focused on monitoring police activities against gays.

JULY 7, 2009

Seven young men are arrested in Playa del Chivo

Seven gay youths were arrested this Sunday in Playa del Chivo, outside Havana, for gathering in a public bathing area.

Ignoring the the petition filed with the Ministry of Justice by the board of directors of the Reinaldo Arenas LGBT Memorial Foundation asking for a stop to the police persecution and arrests currently going on in the capital’s homosexual community, seven young gays were arrested at Playa del Chivo for insisting on swimming in the public beach, said Rene Alonso, 18, who was fined 30 pesos after the raid.

“We resisted being displaced; we didn’t want to be forced out of the beach. They don’t have a right to kick us out just because we’re homosexuals. It’s sad but true. The rest of the boys ran when they saw the squad cars.”

SEPTEMBER 1, 2009

Organization asks for help to produce gay event in Havana

After suffering persecution, arrest of its members and confiscation of computers, the board of directors of the Reinaldo Arenas LGBT Memorial Foundation asked for support from international LGBT organizations to produce Havana’s first Mr. Gay contest. Recently, the members of the organizing committee of the contest were seized, beaten, arrested, and had their equipment confiscated by members of state security and the National Revolutionary Police. It happened as organizers met to go over the final details of the contest at the home of Mario José Delgado Gonzáles, a sociology student and the foundation’s vice president. The repressive actions resulted in the arrest of Delgado Gonzáles and Belkis, also a university student and committee member, with the goal of having the contest canceled. Mrs. Gonzáles, mother of Mario José, did not know of her son’s whereabouts for 12 days. In fact, he had been detained by state security and was imprisoned at Villa Marista.

SEPTEMBER 2, 2009

Amidst Repression, Cuba Celebrates Mr. Gay Havana

After a 50 year wait, the Cuban queer community finally celebrated Mr. Gay Havana.

Cuban government security forces and police tried to shut down the cultural event. The repressive state forces beat organizers, arrested activists, confiscated materials and, finally, banned the foundation’s vice president, Mario Jose Delgado Gonzalez, from continuing his university studies in sociology. Delgado Gonzales had been jailed for more than a week without charges after a raid on his home during an organizing meeting. [He has since been released from jail, but is still banned from the university.]

In the days prior to the Mr. Gay Havana event, the leadership, members and supporters of the foundation underwent state persecution, interrogations and intimidation with the explicit purpose of terrorizing them and breaking up the organization. In spite of these repressive actions, the contest took place August 29, at 2 p.m., on Chivo Beach, on the other side of the Havana tunnel, usually one of the places of greatest police persecution and hounding of queers in the capital.

The winners of the Mr. Gay Havana contest are:

THIRD PLACE: Rafael Chávez González, 21 years old, medical student.

SECOND PLACE: Roger de Cruz Caballero, 19 years old, library science student.

FIRST PLACE: Asley Sarriá Arrondo, 21 years old, dancer and culinary student.

Next year, the foundation and the Mr. Gay organizing committee seek support to bring this cultural event to the interior of the country and in this way conduct a nationwide Mr. Gay Cuba contest.

SEPTEMBER 10, 2009

Mr. Gay Havana, a medical student, detained for questioning

Rafael Chávez González, third place winner of the Mr. Gay Havana contest, was detained last Thursday and interrogated by members of State Security for participating in the illegal beauty contest, Mr. Gay Havana, which took place August 29, in Playa del Chivo.

“They told me the Cuban LGBT Foundation was an organization seeking to destroy the revolution, that the Mr. Gay contest was a distraction, one of the many fallacies of capitalism, that it was not a serious contest in any part of the world, and that they didn’t understand how a medical student, educated by the revolution, could take part in an event against the revolution.

“They told me the best thing I could do was to make a public statement saying everything was fraudulent, that what happened in Playa del Chivo was an event organized by homosexual anti-revolutionaries in Florida, and that they could prove that Efren Martinez, the homosexual counter-revolutionary monkey, was behind it all so as to draw attention to alleged human rights violations in Havana.

“They barely let me talk. It was impossible to make them see that the event was a completely cultural thing, that we weren’t being used by anybody, that we’d been told many times by the organizers that it was possible that there would be repercussions because of the event … we heard about what had happened at the home of the foundation’s vice president, how the police beat them and confiscated the electronic equipment in the home, which made some of those who were there flee in fear.

“They insulted me when I told them the contest had been open and held with transparency, that it was the spectators who chose the winners, and how I saw for myself how the foundation formatted the only memory stick they had so they could offer it as a prize—a memory stick the government sells for 30 to 40 CUCs [Cuban convertible currency, roughly equivalent to the U.S. dollar], which would have been impossible for a student from a typical family to buy.

“That’s when they asked me if I was interested in continuing my medical studies. They said all Cuban doctors have to be committed to the revolution and they need to have an unbreakable revolutionary conscience. They said they’d never allow a Cuban medical student to support the counter-revolution being orchestrated in Florida.

“I just hope they don’t ban me from studying medicine just because I took part in a beauty contest.”

Gay Iranian refugee flees Tehran for uncertain fate in Brazil

Image by mbp via Flickr

“Can you at least tell us what's going on? Why are you taking my son's belongings? What has he done?” These are a mother's saying whose son had left home on September 25th, whom she has never seen again after this date. She called her son and explained everything to him; she asked him not to come home until they could find a way out of there for him.

At first, Adison, 29, was guilty because of participating in a peaceful demonstration after the presidential election in Iran, but after being overheard while conversing with his boyfriend in Canada, he was considered guilty for having same sex relations as well.

After a number of days living in absolute solidarity combined with anxiety and fear, the family was able to bribe a man in Tehran’s international airport to allow him to escape Iran to Havana, Cuba, in hopes of going to Canada to start a new life with his boyfriend, a country in which he hopefully would not be treated like a criminal for asking for his primary right of freedom, and not be sentenced to death because of loving a same-sex individual.

From Havana to Mexico, form Mexico to Sao Paulo… He was left alone along the way even by the people smugglers and was arrested in Sao Paulo airport with a fake Canadian passport. He tried to explain the situation for the police officer, but he was captured there and imprisoned in the Transit Terminal of Sao Paulo airport.

According to the interview that we had with his boyfriend, Milad, 25, in Canada, after explaining the situation for us, he asserted that he is really concerned about his boyfriend's mental and physical conditions. He also mentioned that his boyfriend is not eating any foods as a sign of protest. After contacting the federal police of Brazil, we were told that it is not possible for him to be accepted as a refugee in Brazil, and that he would be sent back the exact same way he got here, that is first to Mexico and so on. As a result, he would likely be sent back to Iran eventually and would share a similar fate as those that were persecuted.

Their immigration lawyer in Toronto, Canada has told them that if he could be accepted as a refugee in one of these countries with help from certain human rights organizations, they would be able to help him not be sent back to Iran. So far, we have much tried to be in touch with some of these organizations, but unfortunately there has been no protection for him.

We ask all international organizations such as United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and other local and international organization to help us support Adison and stop his deportation. Also we need lawyers and immigration experts’ advice especially in Brazil and Mexico in order to find a legal solution to help him.

Please contact us at info@irqr.net or 416-548-4171

U.S. grants asylum to gay Cuban

By Lou Chibbaro Jr.

U.S. immigration officials have granted political asylum to a gay man from Cuba who said he would face anti-gay persecution and internment in an AIDS sanatorium because of his HIV-positive status if forced to return to his homeland.

"It has been determined that you are eligible for asylum in the United States," the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services informed D.C. resident Raul Hernandez in a May 26 letter.

"We're just elated and relieved that justice was finally done in this case," said Christopher Nugent, Hernandez's attorney.

Nugent, who disclosed the news about the asylum approval on Friday, said the favorable decision by the immigration agency marked the end of nearly a decade-long odyssey for the 40-year-old gay man, who first arrived in the U.S. in 2000. At that time, Hernandez intended to defect to the U.S. under a law passed by Congress in 1966 that provides an expedited process for admitting Cubans seeking to flee the Communist regime of Fidel Castro.

But after a lengthy application and appeal process, Hernandez, who initially settled in Arlington, Va., was turned down in 2005 for admission under the Cuban Adjustment Act because he's HIV positive.

U.S. immigration authorities informed him that the longstanding U.S. ban on HIV-positive visitors and immigrants would take precedent over the Cuban Adjustment Act, which normally provides an almost automatic approval process for Cuban immigrants. The Blade first reported on Hernandez's plight last month.

Last year, Congress repealed the law that put in place the HIV visitor and immigrant ban. However, the ban remains a part of a regulation carried out by the Department of Health and Human Services governing the admissibility of immigrants with potentially communicable diseases.

The Obama administration is currently taking steps to repeal the regulation, but the administrative process for removing it is not expected to be completed until late this year or early next year.

AIDS activists this week criticized the Obama administration for not moving fast enough to repeal the regulation after as many as 60 Canadians complained that they were subjected to burdensome and "humiliating" hurdles in their effort to enter the U.S. to attend an AIDS conference in Washington because of their HIV status.

U.S. officials said the Canadians were eligible to apply for a waiver that would allow them to enter the country. The AIDS advocacy group Housing Works said the Canadians claim the waiver application process involved overcoming a number of unnecessary hurdles, including traveling to a U.S. consular office in Ottawa and being forced to reveal details about their personal medical condition on a form and in an interview.

Nugent said because Hernandez couldn't benefit from the Cuban Adjustment Act, he had to assemble specific evidence to show that gay people and people with HIV are routinely subjected to discrimination, persecution and often are forced against their will to live in isolation centers created for people found to be HIV positive.

"Mr. Hernandez…established that there exists a pattern and practice of state-sponsored and condoned persecution of political dissidents, openly gay men, and people with HIV," Nugent wrote in a legal brief filed with the Citizenship and Immigrant Services office.

"These people are commonly quarantined in sanatoria, obviously in violation of their human rights, and/or sent to military prisons when considered dissidents," he said in the brief.

Spokespersons with the Cuban Interests Section office in Washington, which serves as an informal Cuban embassy, and with Cuban Mission to the United Nations in New York, did not respond to requests by the Blade for comment on the Hernandez case.

"This will bring real peace to his life," Nugent said Friday, in discussing Hernandez's reaction to the asylum status.

As someone approved for U.S. political asylum, Hernandez is eligible to apply for permanent U.S. residency status in one year.

He currently works as a caseworker assisting HIV patients at Washington's La Clinica Del Pueblo. He could not be immediately reached for comment.

HIV immigrant ban complicates Cuban’s US asylum request

By Lou Chibbaro Jr.

Raul Hernandez, a gay man who defected from Cuba in 1993 to live in Brazil, had hoped to obtain permanent U.S. residency under the 1966 Cuban Adjustment Act after he arrived in 2000.

Congress passed the Cold War-era act to provide an expedited and mostly automatic approval process for Cubans seeking refuge in the United States from Cuba’s Communist government, which U.S. officials and human rights advocates labeled as highly oppressive.

But following a lengthy application and appeal process, Hernandez, 40, who lives in Arlington, Va., was turned down for admission under the Cuban Adjustment Act in 2005 because he’s HIV positive.

U.S. immigration officials told him that the longstanding U.S. ban on HIV-positive visitors and immigrants — a part of U.S. law and regulation — would take precedent over the Cuban Adjustment Act.

Last year, Congress repealed the law that put in place the HIV visitor and immigrant ban. However, the ban remains a part of regulations governing admissibility of immigrants under the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services’ handling of infectious diseases.

The Obama administration has taken steps to repeal the regulation, but the bureaucratic process for repealing the regulation is not expected to be completed until later this year or early next year, according to HHS officials.

Meanwhile, Hernandez has put aside his application under the Cuban Adjustment Act and has applied for U.S. political asylum, which is not influenced by his HIV status.

Hernandez, who works as a caseworker assisting HIV patients at Washington’s La Clinica Del Pueblo, was considering but had yet to agree to an interview for this story.

His asylum application comes at a time when President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton are reviewing U.S. policies toward Cuba. Some members of Congress are calling for the lifting of U.S. economic sanctions against the government of Raul Castro, brother of longtime Cuban dictator Fidel Castro.

Hernandez’s attorney, Christopher Nugent, has filed legal briefs with immigration officials pointing to anti-gay persecution in Cuba. The briefs also state that Cuba has a longstanding policy of “isolating” HIV-positive Cubans by placing them against their will in treatment facilities known for failing to provide adequate medical care.

An immigration official initially rejected Hernandez’s asylum application April 1, saying the gay Cuban failed to provide adequate evidence that he would face government-sanctioned persecution if he were to return to his homeland.

Another official has since reinstated the asylum application after Nugent asked the earlier ruling to be reconsidered on grounds that the first official didn’t take into consideration the voluminous documentation submitted by Nugent indicating Hernandez would face incarceration and possible torture if forced to return to Cuba.

Nugent said Hernandez could have received an exemption from the HIV immigrant ban if he had “qualifying family members” in the U.S. But a legal filing shows Hernandez has no close relatives in the country, and his parents and siblings in Cuba are affiliated with the Communist Party and have long since disowned him.

“Mr. Hernandez … established that there exists a pattern and practice of state-sponsored and condoned persecution of political dissidents, openly gay men, and people with HIV,” Nugent says in one of his briefs.

“These people are commonly quarantined in sanatoria, obviously in violation of their human rights, and/or sent to military prisons when considered dissidents,” he says.

“Due to his defection to the United States, Mr. Hernandez will be treated as an enemy of the state,” Nugent says, meaning Hernandez likely would be “imprisoned and tortured due to his opposition to the Cuban government, as evidenced by his defection.”

Upon being “imprisoned in a sanatoria or military prison by virtue of his dissidence and homosexuality,” Nugent says in one of the briefs, Hernandez “will be invidiously provided inferior medical care, which will only accelerate his demise from complications of his HIV disease.”

Nugent says that Hernandez has developed a resistance to a number of widely used anti-viral medications used to treat HIV, raising concern that more sophisticated treatment regimens may not be available to him in Cuba.

Spokespersons for the Cuban Interest Section in Washington, which serve as an unofficial Cuban embassy to the U.S., could not immediately be reached. A spokesperson for the Cuban Mission to the United Nations in New York did not return the Blade’s call.

Hernandez’s application and appeal process for Cuban Adjustment Act admissibility — for which the Whitman-Walker Clinic’s legal department represented him — lasted until 2005. At that time, Nugent’s law firm, Holland & Knight, agreed to take Hernandez’s case on a pro-bono basis.

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