22 years after they
first met, Mark and Frédéric, now with four children, faced a hearing at
the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services office in
Philadelphia to be interviewed in connection with the marriage-based
immigration petition they filed last summer.
If the petition is not accepted, the family will be forced to leave
the country. They will not separate. All because the federal government
does not recognize same-sex married couples under DOMA and outdated
immigration laws.
A small group of LGBT Russians have taken their protest against laws intended to silence their movement to every region - and last night they produced images of their protesting arrest in front of the Kremlin.
Their protest, signaled on social media to happen in another Moscow location, in fact occurred in front of the most famous location in all of Russia. Within seconds they were swarmed by police.
A small group of activists within the past fortnight have protested a law passed in the northern city of Arkhangelsk which effectively bans all gay organising. Supposedly to 'protect children', the law actually bans all LGBT public events and protests and the rhetoric surrounding it is explicitly against the emerging LGBT movement in Russia.
The dolls - Piggy, Stepashka, Fili and Karkushi - at the Red Square protest were from popular children's TV shows and the banners said "Good night, kids!"
Two Russian regions have already adopted the same law and the supposedly 'liberal' city of St Petersberg has voted in favour but has yet to pass the law. It is reportedly under discussion in Moscow and Novosibirsk and some have suggested it may become a federal law.
About 30 asylum seekers have escaped from an Indonesian detention centre by digging a tunnel under the wall.
The men escaped through the two-metre tunnel in Surabaya city after using spoons, nails and sticks to dig their way from a toilet, under the main gate to freedom.
As some dug, others had played the traditional South Asian board game of carrom to distract the guards.
All of them, including one who survived the shipwreck which killed about 200 people last month, are believed to be from the Hazara ethnic group.
Immigration officers learned of the Sunday night breakout when an elderly escapee was spotted on the road outside the detention centre in East Java.
So far just 12 have been recaptured.
"The migrants dug the tunnel from the restroom in the church, which is positioned close to the main gate," the head of the East Java provincial ministry, Mashudi, told AFP.
"They managed to dig a space wide and long enough to eventually find their way out."
The escapees said they were frustrated because they had been waiting more than a year for the UN refugee agency to assess their claims.
Some have travelled to Jakarta to press their case while others are believed to be trying to arrange a boat trip to Australia.
The immigration department chief in the province, Arifin Somadilaga, has ordered a crackdown on asylum seekers in the wake of the escape.
He has directed his staff to report all future breaches of discipline to the police who will be urged to treat the asylum seekers as criminals.
He says guards at the centre did not notice the detainees digging a hole under the wall because they are understaffed.
"Saman" is a graduate student in Sri Lanka who was doing research on 'safer sex' for his thesis. He told me that while he was working in the southern city of Galle, the local police detained and tortured him assuming he was gay.
While in detention he witnessed how the Sri Lankan police discriminated against other allegedly gay men who were locked up in jail. Fearing retribution, Saman did not want to show his face or use his real name in recording this experience.
Under the Sri Lankan penal code Section 365 A, homosexual acts are prohibited and "violators" face a penalty of up to 10 years in prison. While few cases have ever been prosecuted, the threat of public shame and blackmail looms large for Sri Lanka's gay community and this "dead letter" has become a greater threat in light of pervasive police corruption.
This is only one example of the codified homophobia in Sri Lanka and its oppressive side-effects. Similar incidents are still happening to LGBT individuals in Sri Lanka on a regular basis.
These incidents include, but are not limited to blackmail, violent threats, employment discrimination, and rejection by friends, family, the police, and society at large. Cases of physical assault, harassment, and detention are not uncommon.
Regardless, these incidents are more or less ignored by the Sri Lankan media; even when they are reported, their connection to homophobia is rarely articulated. Of course, many LGBT individuals are happy to keep these incidents quiet, fearing that they would be subject to further attacks if they were outed. Both gay and straight Sri Lankans hold a negative view of homosexuality.
Sometimes an image or a word says more
than an action. Sometimes things cannot be expressed as bluntly because
of fear and stigma.
Growing up, we were taught that society is
where men and women get married, and that's how a relationship works.
But at least 10% of the total population of a country belongs to the
non-normative gender and sexuality.
My
cargo shorts and graphic tees weren't exactly what my mother had in
mind when she envisioned showing off her daughter who'd "just returned
from America with an MIT degree!" to her friends at church.
The prodigal daughter, I'd returned home to Nigeria for my high school bestie's wedding.
We hadn't seen each other in five years; during that time I'd not only
come out as queer, but founded an organization for immigrant and/or
queer women of color (QWOC+ Boston),
cut my hair into a frohawk, and started dressing as a boy. I'd pretty
much gone from a lip-gloss-wearing straight girl to the gayest person
ever, but nobody had witnessed the transition, not even my friend who
was getting married. I hadn't reached out to her for fear that I
wouldn't be able to lie about who I was, and that soon after she'd tell
her mom, who would tell other moms, and eventually the rest of Lagos
where my parents lived, forcing my mother to endure becoming the center
of gossip and ostracizing her from the very social networks she needed
to survive as an aging entrepreneur. In order to make ends meet, my
mother relied heavily on referrals from her religious community about
various contract jobs -- event planning, hotel management etc; the last
thing she needed was a taboo subject like "lesbianism" turning off
potential clients.
Needless to say, I hesitated when my
friend invited me to be part of her bridal train, but I couldn't refuse
an invitation to be part of my girl's wedding, even if it meant wearing a
bridesmaid dress. I tried to get out of it but she firmly
insisted that the dress wasn't up for negotiation. "Well, what then if
you don't wear a dress?" she'd asked laughing, "So, you're going to wear
a suit and stand with the boys?" It hurt my feelings, but I laughed
along with her and retorted, "Obviously not. That would be ridiculous."
That was just the beginning.
I spent the entire two weeks
of my first visit home since my queer transformation absorbing my
mother's daily jabs at my clothing (and eventually, anything I said):
"So you're earning all this money and can't even afford some nice
tops?", "You really should dress your age", "What, you think you're a
boy now?" Gender binaries. If there was ever a place for them to thrive
unchecked, it would be Lagos, Nigeria, a place where being gay is not just viewed as a choice, but a crime,
and -- pending the new anti-LGBT bill being deliberated -- holding
hands with your best friend or choosing same-sex roommates could be made
punishable for up to 14 years in prison.
But while I was plenty aware of the political debate around my identity
as a queer African, I couldn't have cared less about the law; I was
still trying to survive within the confines of my own home.
A Ugandan gay activist who wrote a New York Times op-ed piece in December, speaking out against homophobia in his country enforced by the government and the police, has received threats and says he fears for his life, afraid to even go shopping alone or eat in a restaurant for fear of being poisoned.
"Just two days ago there was a very big piece of news about me," said Frank Mugisha, executive director of Sexual Minorities Uganda, in an interview by phone from Kampala on my radio program on SiriusXM OutQ yesterday, referring to an article he says was written in a local newspaper, attacking him for writing the New York Times op-ed.
"It said that everything we are saying is not true. That we are just trying to get sympathy in the Western world. They put my picture in the newspaper with all these hate words and of course I got a lot of bad emails, bad phones, a lot of harassment against me."
[Edited to add: This article in the Daily Monitor is the one Mugisha is referring to. It accused gay activists of producing the Red Pepper tabloid newspaper, which 'outed' people and called for them to be hanged, in order to elicit international sympathy and attention. The tabloid's reports were eventually outlawed by a Ugandan court. Melanie Nathan spoke with Giles Muhame, publisher of Rolling Stone, who ridiculed the suggestion in the Monitor article.]
Mugisha, who in November received the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award at a ceremony in Washington, had written in the Times back on December 22 about the conditions for LGBT people in in his country, which came under international criticism beginning in 2009 for its consideration of what had come to be known as the "kill the gays" bill, a law that if enacted would make homosexuality punishable by death or life imprisonment.
The bill was shelved in May of 2011, but Mugisha wrote that it could be introduced again at any time.
"Here, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people suffer brutal attacks, yet cannot report them to the police for fear of additional violence, humiliation, rape or imprisonment at the hands of the authorities," Mugisha wrote in the Times.
"We are expelled from school and denied health care because of our perceived sexual orientation or gender identity. If your boss finds out (or suspects) you are gay, you can be fired immediately. People are outed in the media -- or if they have gay friends, they are assumed to be 'gay by association.'"
Mugisha also discussed Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's historic speech in Geneva last month which put pressure on countries around the world, calling for gay rights to be included as human rights and tying foreign aid to a country's record on LGBT rights. Uganda, like other African countries is a recipient of U.S. foreign aid.
"Every day of my life here in Uganda I have to be careful of what I do," Mugisha said in the radio interview yesterday.
"It has reached the point that where I even have to be careful when I'm going to get food in a restaurant, to be sure that the food I'm getting, that I trust the restaurant, because I'm scared I could get poisoned. Even when I want to go shopping I have to call a friend and say can you come with me because my face has been in the newspapers, my face has been in the media. Just two days ago when my face was put in the newspapers I received harassment already. Now it is my fear of stepping out my house. If I want to go and buy food, because I have to eat, what is going to happen to me today?"
Mugisha fears what happened to the best-known gay activist in Uganda, David Kato, could happen to him. Kato was found dead in his home last year, bludgeoned to death with a hammer.
"That gives me more fear because he was murdered [in] his house," he says. "That is more scary. Not having the privacy. Not having the closure. It's very fearful for me."
Mugisha says all he can do is continue to keep speaking out:
"Maybe if I keep talking, maybe they will stop, maybe the homophobia will stop. People call me up and they, 'My family, they beat me up, they throw me out.' All I can do is shout and say, 'Please listen. We are hurting our own children, our own people.'"
'My Child' is an independent feature documentary-in-production where
parents of LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) individuals in
Turkey intimately share their experiences with the viewer, as they
redefine what it means to be parents, family, and activists in a
conservative, homophobic, and transphobic society.
LGBTs in Turkey
'I believe homosexuality is a biological disorder, a disease. It needs to be treated.'
Public statement by Selma Aliye Kavaf, the Turkish State Minister Responsible for Women and Family (March 2010)
In Turkey, every day, LGBT individuals are subjected to various forms of
discrimination and violence, some unfortunately resulting in loss of
life. Such violence cannot solely be explained by conservatism and
various phobias. The discriminatory laws, police violence, banning of
LGBT associations, and censoring of web sites with LGBT content are only
a few examples of the systematic government policies and ongoing human
rights violations.
The Free to be Me project has produced a video encouraging LGBT's living in anti-gay contexts to be cautious about coming out, but to "know inside your own self who you really are, and that you are cherished, you are valuable and you are loved, and know that your voice matters." Other videos are also available on their website.
Free to be Me describes itself as a resource for sexual minority youth of any or no faith. It is produced by the New Direction for Life Ministries Inc., whose website states that "it exists to nurture safe & spacious places for sexual minorities to explore & grow in faith in Jesus Christ." New Direction for Life Ministries was formerly an ex-gay ministry, but no longer advocates sexual orientation change. It appears to promote celibacy.
Introducing the first Belarusian movie, touching upon the subject of same-sex love.
The three-minute video shows that love applies to all, regardless of gender or sexual orientation, age, race, nationality.
There are two couples, with the gay couple being Vova Maruk and Nick Antipov. The director, cameraman and mastermind behind the video is Max Anatskaya with music by Alexander Maas.
It is noteworthy that all work on the film was carried out in full in Belarus, Belarus and Belorussians. Part of the filming took place at the Komsomolsk lake, other parts in Drazdy. Several scenes were filmed in other locations within the boundaries and outside of the city of Minsk.
Souvenez-vous. En février dernier, Yagg avait interviewé
Brenda Mutesi, jeune lesbienne tout juste débarquée d’Ouganda et
demandeuse d’asile en France. Elle venait de fuir son pays, où, après le
meurtre de l’activiste gay David Kato, la traque des homos avait pris
une nouvelle ampleur.
Après de multiples démarches, parfois humiliantes – l’accueil des
étrangers en préfecture n’est pas digne de la cinquième puissance
économique du monde – Brenda a pu déposer sa demande à l’Ofpra (Office
français de protection des réfugiés et des apatrides). Elle a aussi
obtenu l’aide de l’Ardhis (Association pour la reconnaissance des droits
des homosexuels à l’immigration et au séjour) dans ses démarches.
Le 13 décembre 2011, soit près de dix mois après son arrivée en
France, Brenda obtenait enfin le document tant attendu et qui la place
sous la protection de la République française. C’est quelques jours
après que nous l’avons à nouveau interviewée.
~~~~
Translation by F Young
Last February, the Yagg website did a video interview of Brenda Mutesi, a young lesbian from Uganda seeking asylum in France. She had just fled her country, where, after the murder of gay activist David Kato, the hunt for gays had taken on unprecedented dimensions.
She was assisted by ARDHIS (association for the recognition of gay rights to immigration and residence). After undergoing numerous, sometimes humiliating, procedures, Brenda was able to submit an application to OFPRA (french office for the protection of refugees and stateless persons).
On December 13, almost ten months after her arrival in France, Brenda finally received the document that places her under the protection of the French Republic. This is a video of her interview by Yagg a few days later.
The US State Department has followed up on Hillary Clinton's historic speech to the United Nations in Geneva with this video - one which could have been produced by an LGBT organisation and actually has the same style as those produced by many working for international LGBT rights.
The video uses some of the most reported excerpts from the hour long speech she gave on the same day that the White House issued a memorandum ordering all agencies and departments to support LGBT rights internationally.
Across the globe this year, binational LGBT couples are living in exile or living separated from one another simply because of discriminatory laws in the United States. Despite being U.S. citizens, the American half of these couples is forced to choose between love and country.
But this wrong could be solved tomorrow. Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano has the power to issue these couples "humanitarian parole," bringing binational couples home for the holidays. Please go to www.getequal.org/gethome to sign our petition asking Secretary Napolitano to bring Jesse, Max, and thousands of other exiled and separated couples home this holiday season!
In a moment described as 'historic' by activists, the Jamaican opposition leader has come out for LGBT rights during an election debate.
Jamaicans will go to the polls on December 29 and People's National Party leader Portia Simpson-Miller made the positive comments during an election debate yesterday with Prime Minister Andrew Holness.
Simpson Miller also said that no one should be discriminated against because of their sexual orientation and that if elected Prime Minister she would review the anti-gay buggery law.
She said that she would have no problem with appointing gays to her Cabinet.
Former Prime Minister Bruce Golding famously told the BBC in 2008 that he would never appoint a gay person to his
cabinet.
Responding to the same question, Holness articulated the need for Jamaica to achieve minimum standards governing human rights and suggested that such steps were being taken through measures such as the passage of the Bill of Rights. He has previously argued that gay rights are civil rights, not human rights, and therefore not covered by international human rights instruments.
He added that any change to the existing legislation should be made on the basis of due consideration to the views of the people.
“We are an open society and the issues that are difficult and uncomfortable to discuss, as the society progresses, these issues are being discussed. People are entitled to their opinions but as leader of the country I have to respect everybody’s opinion (and) make sure that the institutions of freedom are well in place so that the debate can continue,” said Holness.
The People's National Party (which is in Opposition and trailing in the polls) has selected a non-gender conforming candidate who has been the subject of a barely veiled homophobic campaign by the ruling Jamaica Labour Party (JLP).
Jamaican LGBT rights group J-FLAG has written to the JLP complaining about this tactic.
The PNP has selected another candidate for the traditionally "safe seat" of the tourist resort city of Montego Bay who is rumored to be gay.
Elsewhere in the English speaking Caribbean there has been slow but positive movement on LGBT rights.
This followed almost the whole of the Caribbean changed their vote positively - including Jamaica - in a UN vote on killings of LGBT people.
In a January letter to Jamaica's leading newspaper The Gleaner
(as well as other regional newspapers), a group of Caribbean LGBT
activists, led by the veteran Jamaican LGBT leader Maurice Tomlinson,
said that they were proud that a majority of Caribbean nations voted together,
in the words of the Rwanda delegation, to "recognise that ... people (of
different sexual orientation) continue to be the target of murder in
many of our societies, and they are more at risk than many ... other
groups".
Yes votes included Antigua and Barbuda, The Bahamas, Barbados, Belize,
Dominica, the Dominican Republic and Grenada and St Kitts-Nevis. Only St Lucia
amongst Caribbean nations voted no.
They said that:
We, in the Caribbean, have lived largely free of the levels
of violence experienced by postcolonial nations like Rwanda . But we
continue to harbour a colonial mentality that some groups are more
worthy than others; and homophobic killings are a reality in several
places in the region. We hope that, without the need for atrocity to
teach us this lesson, our governments will mature in their understanding
that everyone has an essential right to equality and protection because
they are human.
The vote is a hopeful sign that in 2011 Caribbean governments may get serious about their commitments to these rights at home.
In June, the oldest political party in the Bahamas came out in support of LGBT rights.
The leader of The Progressive Liberal Party (PLP), who are currently in opposition, Perry Christie, said that his party supports “progressive policies.”
In Trinidad and Tobago (T&T), Gender, Youth and Child Development Minister Verna St Rose-Greaves has strongly supported LGBT rights saying in August that 'all citizens of T&T must respect people’s sexual preferences'.
According to veteran Trinidadian gay activist Colin Robinson
"[Verna] is unusual, but not unique. A number of Caribbean politicians have said some very commonsense things on SOGI [sexual orientation and gender identity] issues, notably Barbados's Esther Byer-Suckoo who, when she had the gender portfolio two years ago, proposed domestic violence legislation that would include gay and lesbian people. Her PM has said discrimination based on sexual orientation is wrong."
"In Guyana, the health minister in one of my favourite speeches, at a regional HIV conference in 2009, said, "I will again place myself in harm’s way. But I need not be timid. I am the Minister of Health and I must be driven by public health reality, not by moral judgment. We live in a world where personal freedom must be acknowledged within the realm of reasonableness and within our legislative dicta. In this regards, sex between consenting adults, even if it is adults of the same gender, in private, falls into the category of personal freedom. I believe our laws are in contradiction of this expression of personal freedom.""
"Then there's the St. Kitts PM Denzil Douglas since the Toronto AIDS conference, both Bahamas parties after the Human Rights Council resolution, our [T&T] PM days after election at an event by the main Hindu group. And the Jamaica Senate President during the vote on the homophobic Charter, followed by the Police Commissioner's apology [for a homophobic statement]. And that's just part of the list."
The remains of at least 6,000 migrants have been found in U.S. desert land since U.S.-Mexico border policies were implemented in the 1990s. Some groups estimate that for each set of remains recovered, those of 10 more people are lost to the harsh desert elements.
Advocates and authorities attribute the escalating number of deaths not only to rising heat but also to ever-tightening border security forcing migrants into more remote and dangerous terrain. Deserted calls on viewers to recognize these deaths as a humanitarian emergency and human rights crisis.
The video includes chilling images of a morgue in Tucson, Arizona in which row after row of body bags contain human remains that may never be identified, of people whose families may never know what happened to them.
Stand with Breakthrough and recognize this human rights crisis that is taking place at our border. Watch and share this video, and take action against this human rights crisis with No More Deaths (www.nomoredeaths.org) and Coalition de Derechos Humanos (derechoshumanosaz.net).
VIDEO CREDITS: Directed, filmed and edited by Dana Variano with Ishita Srivastava; music by Denver Dalley; post-production audio by Hobo Audio. Produced by Breakthrough.
Ranjith Kulatilake, an immigrant from Sri Lanka, has been a volunteer at the Access Alliance Multicultural Health and Community Services for the past five years. He is a founding member of "Among Friends", a three-year initiative to improve access to public services for lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and queer (LGBTQ) refugees and immigrants in Toronto.
Ranjith's story describes his journey as a new immigrant to Canada after fleeing his home country due to sexual persecution. It is a story about building new friendships amongst others facing similar challenges and dealing with the stigma of homosexuality within his community.
A Montenegrin actor who took part in a pro-LGBT video has received death threats.
Todor Vujošević received serious threats after starring in a video for LGBT rights in the small Balkan country.
The video shows Vujošević as one of the players in a spot where two
boys kiss passionately while celebrating the success of their football
team. Titled 'We are also part of the team', the spot is part
of the first campaign for LGBT rights launched in Montenegro. The
campaign, whose slogan is 'okay to be different!', was conducted by the Center for Civic Education (CGO ), in collaboration with the group LGBT Forum Progress, and has the support of the Embassy of Canada.
Danilo Marunović, director of the video, said that he was extremely concerned by the threats and fears that this is "just the beginning". Marunović revealed
that none of the actors is actually gay, and just wanted to help in a
campaign for LGBT rights. The news of the threats has attracted the
interest of the media throughout the former Yugoslavia.
Montenegrin Prime Minister, Igor Luksic,
has publicly supported LGBT rights, including what would have been the
first LGBT Pride march in the country and which was eventually
suspended by the organizers after a tear gas attack against a 'gay-friendly' concert.
Kaggwa has led the fight against a draconian anti-homosexuality bill in Uganda that aims to make engaging in any homosexual act a crime—in some cases punishable by death. Kaggwa also works to create a more tolerant environment for sexual minorities and their supporters in Uganda. Kaggwa has been harassed and threatened because of his work, but he continues to fight for human rights, playing an increasingly public role despite the danger he faces daily.
In June 2010, Khaled Said was sitting in an Alexandria internet café when Egyptian police attacked him, publically beating him to death on the streets. His death -- and the attempted cover-up of state torture - was among the sparks of a revolution that erupted in Egypt in January 2011. An alternative forensic assessment coordinated by member centre El Nadeem and the IRCT rejected the state's report, criticizing that it had not been conducted properly under international standards.
The promotion of the use of forensic evidence is a key aim of the IRCT, an international membership-based organisation that works to prevent torture, to provide access to justice and to provide rehabilitation to victims of torture worldwide. This film highlights the impact of this work on preventing torture and on rebuilding the lives of victims around the globe.
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