Video: Brave LGBT Russians protest in Red Square

Video source by VladimirIVANOV1945

 

Image gayrussia.eu

By Paul Canning

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.

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Honduras is test of new American policy on gay rights

Protester holds up image of murdered gay leader Walter Trochez

Source: Tri-City Herald

By Tim Johnson

From U.N. chambers to the halls of the State Department, global pressure on countries to protect the rights of homosexuals and transgender people is rising.

For Josue Hernandez, the new emphasis can't come fast enough.

The 33-year-old gay activist bears the scar of the bullet that grazed his skull in an attack a few years ago. He's moved the office of his advocacy group four times. Still, he feels hunted in what is arguably the most homophobic nation in the Americas.

"We are in a deplorable state," Hernandez said of homosexuals in Honduras. "When we walk the streets, people shout insults at us and throw rocks. Parents move their children away."

Three months ago, a U.N. report declared that discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people — or LGBT — violates core international human rights law. It listed nations where violations are most severe.

Joining a push that originated in Europe, the Obama administration said in December that respect for LGBT rights is now a factor in its foreign policy decisions.

"Gay rights are human rights, and human rights are gay rights," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in what diplomats described as a landmark speech Dec. 6 in Geneva. "It is a violation of human rights when governments declare it illegal to be gay, or allow those who harm gay people to go unpunished."

But even as that view grows more prevalent, it has yet to translate into better security, less hostility or fewer killings in places like Honduras, a nation of 8 million people in Central America.

Since the beginning of 2010, Honduras has tallied at least 62 homicides within the LGBT community, and some experts say the count may be far higher. Some victims have been mutilated and even burned.

The killing of homosexuals is part of broader lawlessness. Honduras registered more than 6,700 homicides last year and has the highest per capita murder rate in the hemisphere.

One recent victim was Carlos Porfirio Juarez, a 25-year-old deaf mute who was taking hormones as part of a switch in gender to become "Karlita."

On Dec. 4, Juarez vanished while seeking sex clients at the Obelisco Park near the army general staff headquarters in Comayaguela, a city adjacent to the capital, Tegucigalpa.

"She didn't have a purse, a cellular phone or anything of value," said Jose Zambrano of the Association for a Better Quality of Life for those Infected with HIV/AIDS in Honduras.

"Only her life," added Zambrano's sister, Sandra, a leader of the group.

Read more »

Report: Who are the refugees 'lost' at Europe's borders?

Source: W2eu.info

LOST AT BORDER reports on the reality of loss and death at the Greek borders. As a close friend of ours said once:

“If you are a refugee and you die nobody asks any questions. But for living somewhere, everybody is questioning you!” We want to break the silence and ask: What happened with all these people whose traces got lost?

Accidents and death at border belong unfortunately to the daily experiences of refugees trying to reach a safe haven. The European Border Control Agency FRONTEX in co-operation with national authorities are heightening and thickening the fences and walls around us, controlling and patrolling the borders and externalizing them to European neighbour states such as Turkey, Morocco, Tunisia a.o.

They have created treaties of co-operation in deportations and huge refugee detention camps at the gates of Europe. Trying to cross a number of borders, among them the ones of Fortress Europe is a huge risk of death! The numbers are shocking: more than 2,000 people died in the Mediterranean Sea only in 2011. Each single person left behind a big gap in the life of relatives and friends.

LOST AT BORDER gives the voice mainly to refugees searching and mourning for their beloved. The report was made by a group of antiracist activists from different countries who have been already involved in the search of migrants who got lost at the border between Greece and Turkey.

It can be quite difficult to find information on what has happened when somebody is missing at the border. Apart from the report we want to help and fill this information gap by a new Blog. We want to connect the relatives and friends of border victims to each other and we want to let you know and feel that you are not alone on this journey! We will never forget. We promise to overcome the murderous border regime and to continue our struggle for a welcoming Europe.

Lost at Border

Read more »

Asylum seekers tunnel to freedom in Indonesia

Video by NewsOnABC

Image via Wikipedia

By Matt Brown

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.

The escape comes after some of the detention centre's detainees told the ABC of beatings from guards.

One of the men who was beaten, Ali Mohammed, said he had earlier escaped the detention centre but was recaptured.

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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

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Finnish court stops removal of gay Iranian

Image via Wikipedia

Source: YLE

The Supreme Administrative Court sent back a Finnish Immigration Service decision to deport an Iranian asylum seeker who would face persecution in Iran for being gay.

The court sent the case back to the Immigration Service for further reconsideration, stating that case must be examined more closely.

The court said the Immigration Service must carefully examine whether Iranians have a legitimate reason to fear persecution in their homeland because of their sexual orientation.

Last week, YLE reported that Finland has deported asylum seekers to countries where they can be sentenced to severe penalties for their homosexuality.

Homosexuality is a crime punished with imprisonment and even execution in Iran.

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Video: Persecution of gay people in Sri Lanka

Video by LGBTsrilanka



"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.

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