Category — Around the World

Photo: In this Feb. 22 picture, a protester carries a banner that reads in Arabic, “My body is not public property” during a sit-in for gays and lesbians in Beirut. Issues of gender and sexuality remain highly sensitive in the Arab world, especially in Saudi Arabia where Filipino men were recently arrested on suspicion of dressing up like women at a party.

Saudi Arabian authorities have charged 67 men detained at a party for reportedly wearing women’s clothing.

Most of the men were Filipino and were arrested while standing outside a private party held in a villa near  the Saudi capital, Riyadh, on the occasion of Philippine Independence Day.

According to the Saudi daily Al Riyadh, the police questioned the men after spotting “suspicious behavior” and then proceeded to raid the party. More women’s clothing, cosmetics, and alcohol were reportedly found in further investigations. [Read more →]

The International Queer Solidarity Network calls for a European mobilization, with support from the United States, that will stand in solidarity with Queer Bulgaria. On June 28th 2008, neo-Nazi groups aggressively attacked the first LGBTQ Pride march in Sofia, Bulgaria. A week before the march, the Bulgarian National Alliance, the most visible nationalist organization in the country, called for a “week of intolerance.” The BNA strongly encouraged nationalistic groups to organize themselves against the right of the queer community in Bulgaria to peacefully march, which resulted in loosely organized violence during the festivities.

BNA members and other neo-Nazis threw molotov cocktails and small explosives at the participants of the Pride march. Fortunately, no injuries were reported. However, more than eighty skinheads, including Boyan Rasate (head of the BNA) were arrested for their attempted harm and direct violence toward pride participants. This year neo-Nazi groups are once again organizing themselves against the march and Bulgarian queers’ ability to defend their human rights. The Bulgarian government not only tolerates but also encourages such attitudes. Two of the parties in the Parliament of Bulgaria are nationalistic and one of them, Ataka, called for “the men to beat up the gays.”

In addition, the Prime Minister of Bulgaria and head of the “socialist” party, Sergei Stanishev, subtly, through hidden sparks of hatred, said that he did not like the “manifestation and demonstration of such orientations.” Even though the rights of LGBTQ people in Bulgaria are protected by the constitution, this is yet more empty rhetoric in the hands of the powerful. The queer community refuses to give up its rights to a free assembly. There will be another Pride march on the 27th of June 2009. Let’s unite and stand together against the homophobic and transphobic state of Bulgaria and growing neo-Nazism in Europe.

The International Queer Solidarity Network calls for a European mobilization, with support from the United States, that will stand in solidarity with Queer Bulgaria. For more information on how you can help you can contact: iqsn@riseup.net or sofiagaypride2009@gmail.com If you cannot attend the Pride, visit www.iqsn.org for more information on how you can help.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6oz3yeW5yo

e-mail: iqsn@riseup.net

Please check out http://www.irqr.net/English/199.htm, from the IRanian Queer Railroad, a group supporting queer Iranians.

Dear Iranian queer supporters,

 We request your assistance with an urgent case involving Mehdi N., a 29-year-old gay Iranian who seeks asylum in Germany.

Mehdi N. escaped from Iran at the beginning of 2007 due to his well-known fear of persecution on the basis of his sexual orientation. He stayed in Istanbul, Turkey for six months, but was unaware of his ability to apply for refugee status with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Turkey. At that time, he was also uninformed about the existence of the IRanian Queer Railroad and our ability to support him.

Mehdi N. was lonely in Turkey. His biggest fear was that Turkish police would arrest him and deport him back to Iran. Eventually, someone took him to Germany where he sought to claim asylum.

“When I got to the airport, I introduced myself to police. I told them that I am gay and am seeking asylum. The police officer then shouted, ‘what are you doing here?!’ I feared death, and then started to cry,” Mehdi N. wrote in his letter to the IRQR.

While in Iran, Mehdi N. was forced to live in the closet, hiding his sexual identity from his family and society. He was raped by his boyfriend and sexually abused by his boyfriend’s friends. Mehdi N. was forced to have sex with his boyfriend while the friends filmed the action using a cell phone camera without his knowledge or consent.

“They sent the clip of me having sex with him to others. Many of my friends who received the video had no previous knowledge about my sexual orientation. I was in a very risky situation. They sent the clip to my family as well. I prefer not to talk about the experience and what I suffered,” Mehdi N. said.

He still cannot disclose his sexual orientation in Germany. He fears deportation because his claim for asylum has been refused several times. If deported back to Iran, he will face persecution, punishment, or even death. [Read more →]

Dear Friends
Below is an excellent Radical Women column about women’s rights in Nicaragua that ran in the Freedom Socialist newspaper. We owe many thanks to the Freedom Socialist for their continuous coverage of liberation struggles in the U.S. and around the world. You can read other articles and subscribe to the newspaper online.

In solidarity,
Anne Slater
Radical Women

Freedom Socialist • Vol. 30, No. 1 • February-March 2009

RADICAL WOMEN

The government war on women’s rights in Nicaragua
Feminists stand up against anti-abortion crusade and Daniel Ortega’s rightward turn

By Laura Mannen

On Nov. 25, 2008, police blocked 400 women’s rights activists from marching in Managua’s annual commemoration of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. This shocking action came at the behest of Daniel Ortega, former revolutionary leader and current Nicaraguan president, in a bid to silence opponents of his harsh anti-abortion policies. [Read more →]

Please Sign the Letter

First, let us begin by saying thank you. Thank you for demonstrating to and for African people and the world the courage and conviction that must be had to be self-determining in the face of insurmountable odds. Odds that would have crushed others with any less will to be free.

The road you chose for national liberation, which was carved through your first and second Chimurengas (armed liberation wars), cut an enduring path for us all to follow.

At this moment in time, when all the enemies of Africa have attempted to circle their wagons around you and crush your right to land and sovereignty, your leadership and the veterans of your struggle have rallied you to unite.

[Continued at Two Good Hands or at Open Letter]

Authorities Should Act Against Increasing Violence

January 12, 2009, Human Rights Watch
(New York, January 12, 2009) - the Honduran authorities should fully investigate the murder of Cynthia Nicole, a leading Honduras transgender rights defender, and other attacks on the transgender community, Human Rights Watch said today. Nicole’s killing is the latest in a series of violent attacks against transgender people in Honduras.

Unknown assailants murdered Nicole, 32, in the early hours of January 9, 2009. According to testimonies by other rights activists, three unknown men in a blue car shot Nicole in a drive-by shooting in Barrio Guaserique in Comayaguela, a town just outside the Honduran capital, Tegucigalpa. The transgender rights activist received three shots in the chest and one in the head. [Read more →]

FUNERAL PROCESSION AND SOLIDARITY RALLY for Athens, Gaza, and against all state violence.
Wear funeral garb. Bring coffins, flowers, or just your beautiful selves. (Or possibly stuffed animals that you may be willing to part from.)

We will meet FRIDAY, JANUARY 9TH (note, changed from original date posted) at NOON at BURNSIDE PARK. We will march to various different sites of state violence and the military-industrial complex in a show of solidarity and in memory of those whose lives have been lost. From the streets of Athens to the war in Gaza, we stand in solidarity with all victims of state violence— at home and abroad.

Called for by What Queer?! Providence’s radical queer collective.

Solidarity,
~ What Queer?!

On Tuesday, December 16th, there was a rally held in Boston in solidarity with the uprisings all over Greece. We protested outside the Greek consulate in a show of solidarity with all vicitims of state violence. This is the speech that I gave. (If you’ve been reading my posts you might notice that some of it was lifted from my speech at the Transgender Day of Remembrance.)

Dear comrades, it’s incredible to be here today! My name is Saffo, and I am a radical queer tranny from Providence, Rhode Island. I am part of the upcoming What Queer? radical queer collective in Providence. As I’m sure you all know, on Saturday, December 6th, 2008, the cops in Athens shot and killed a 15-year-old boy named Alexandros Grigoropoulos. I want to start by offering a moment of silence for the memory of Alexandros. (Thank you). To many of us, the violence of the Greek police is something that rings true to our own lives and experiences with the police in the United States and elsewhere. It is, in part, this commonality that brings us here today. This solidarity that we feel for those who are brutalized by the state, by any state, anywhere. We know that this kind of violence happens every day. But this time, the people struck back! These are incredible times we are living in. For instance, if you had asked me 2 years ago if I thought that today we’d see a union successfully occupying a factory in the United States, I would have said no way. I would have said, things like that happened in Argentina, but they would never happen here. But they did it! If you had asked me a year ago, would a group of queers ever dare to take direct action against a right-wing churhch, I would have said no. But they did! So here’s to the workers in Chicago. Here’s to Queers Bash Back! And here’s to the masses of anarchists, university students, high school students, and youth who have taken to the streets in Athens, Thessaloniki, Patras, Crete, and all over Greece. It’s looking more and more every day that a revolution may really be just around the corner. [Read more →]

From QWB’s comrade in the struggle Steve Thornton over at Homefront.

Dear friends:

Just lucky, I guess.

I was in Chicago this past weekend for a US Labor Against the War (USLAW) steering committee meeting when we got the news about the factory occupation at Republic Windows and Doors.  The owner gave them three days notice that he would be permanently closing the plant.  The workers responded by taking over the workplace, in part to get the back wages and benefits they were owed.

I was fortunate to be there on Saturday and talk to workers at Republic.  Here’s my report, with photos. What do Studs Terkel and Hartford have to do with the sitdown by UE workers?  Find out by going to

Homefront: http://homefront.homestead.com/index.html

Here’s hoping the new year brings more courageous actions like Republic.

Steve

 Last night, a 16-year old student was shot and injured in the area of Peristeri, Athens, close to his school. The 16-year old was sitting with about ten more students, discussing future mobilizations. The shot came from an unknown person, altho it is near certain that this would be either an undercover cop or a facist. The police only issued a statement hours later. When the 16-year old’s co-students returned to the point of the assault to collect the bullet’s shell, another bullet was shot at them.

A demonstration in Athens is set to start.

http://www.occupiedlondon.org/blog/2008/12/18/26-1150-student-shot-in-peristeri-athens-student-demo-set-to-start/

For Immediate Release

(New York, December 11, 2008) - As the world celebrates the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), the UN General Assembly will hear a statement in mid-December endorsed by more than 50 countries across the globe calling for an end to rights abuses based on sexual orientation and gender identity. A coalition of international human rights organizations today urged all the world’s nations to support the statement in affirmation of the UDHR’s basic promise: that human rights apply to everyone. [Read more →]

WASHINGTON, Dec. 10 - Faith program directors from the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, Human Rights Campaign, Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation and National Black Justice Coalition today issued a joint protest over the Vatican’s recent decision to oppose an initiative to decriminalize homosexuality. Advocates are pushing the U.S. State Department to support the initiative and urging media to cover this life and death concern.

“For far too long people around the world have been ostracized, imprisoned, tortured and denied basic rights to housing, health care and employment simply because they are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender (LGBT). In more than 70 countries people can be imprisoned for homosexuality and in several countries it is a crime punishable by death. [Read more →]

NY Times, December 7, 2008

By MARC LACEY Mexico City - Mexico can be intolerant of homosexuality; it can also be quite liberal. Gay-bashing incidents are not uncommon in the countryside, where many Mexicans consider homosexuality a sin. In Mexico City, meanwhile, same-sex domestic partnerships are legally recognized - and often celebrated lavishly in government offices as if they were marriages.

But nowhere are attitudes toward sex and gender quite as elastic as in the far reaches of the southern state of Oaxaca. There, in the indigenous communities around the town of Juchitán, the world is not divided simply into gay and straight. The local Zapotec people have made room for a third category, which they call “muxes” (pronounced MOO-shays) - men who consider themselves women and live in a socially sanctioned netherworld between the two genders.

“Muxe” is a Zapotec word derived from the Spanish “mujer,” or woman; it is reserved for males who, from boyhood, have felt themselves drawn to living as a woman, anticipating roles set out for them by the community. [Read more →]

Progressives in the United States know - or should know, by this late date - that the stories that the corporate media chooses to cover the most are not necessarily the most important. This weekend, as many people are still reeling from the consistently bad to worse to worst news about the economy, there is a rather stark omission from the “top stories” being followed in the U.S. media: the news that the head of the International Monetary Fund said yesterday that the world is on the brink of global economic collapse, while his chief economist predicted that the stock markets would lose another 20% of their value before the situation “stabilized.”

[continued at Two Good Hands]

While Wall Street teeters on the brink and threatens to drag down with it the major financial institutions of Western Europe, revolutionary struggles around the world show that there are alternatives.  Add to the list of inspirations and examples the peoples’ struggle in Nepal, where the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) is now the majority party in the national assembly following its successful strategy of Peoples War against one of the most reactionary and medieval regimes in the world.

Last week, Prachanda, the political and military leader ofthe CPN-M and now the prime minister of Nepal, spoke at several events in NYC.  Here is a report from the blog Absent Cause about Prachanda’s talk at a reception given by the International Action Center:

http://absent-cause.blogspot.com/2008/09/prachanda-welcomed-by-revolutionary.html

click here.