Up to date on Sunday 12 May 2013

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A 23-year-old man has been tortured to death in Russia in an apparent homophobic attack. Rights groups warn that anti-gay sentiments are on the rise in Russia. The victim’s battered and naked body was found in the courtyard of an apartment building in the southern city of Volgograd on Friday morning. The young man had suffered numerous injuries, including to the genitalia, and had been sodomized with several beer bottles.

“He was raped with beer bottles and had his skull smashed with a stone,” Natalia Kunitskaya, a spokeswoman for the Volgograd region branch of the Investigative Committee, told AFP. She confirmed the attack was believed to have been a hate crime, a rare admission in Russia.

Two men aged 22 and 27 have been detained in connection with the attack, the Moscow-based Investigative Committee said in a statement on Saturday. One of the suspects has a criminal history. The victim was said to have been drinking with the two men, apparently while celebrating Victory Day which Russia marks on May 9. Regional investigator Andrei Gapchenko told Echo of Moscow radio on Saturday that two men started beating the victim after he told them he was gay.

Nikolai Alexeyev, the Russian gay activist, called for harsher punishments for homophobic crime. We are planning to press for hatred of sexual minorities to be qualified as an aggravating circumstance if it is a motive for a crime,” Nikolai told Interfax. “At the moment, hatred for sexual minorities is practically disregarded as a motive, and most likely that [Volgograd] crime will be investigated as one caused by a trivial row and the homophobic motives will gradually disappear from all the documents.”

Destination 360

Former minister Tim Loughton (pictured) and fellow Tory MPs are pushing for a public referendum on gay marriage to be held on the same day as the next general election, which under our new five year term law is due in May 2015. Back in February 134 Tories voted against the Coalition’s plan to introduce equal marriage, 35 abstained and only 126 voted for gay marriage. MPs calling for a referendum include the Unionist MP Jim Shannon and David Burrowes, the Conservative who spearheaded Tory oppostion to the policy. An amendment tabled to the draft law in the past few days calls for public to be asked: “At present, the law in England and Wales defines marriage as the union of a man and a woman. Should the law be changed to define marriage as the union of two people – whether a man and a woman, or woman and a woman, or a man and a man?”

The Gay Marriage (England and Wales) Bill is due to have its third and final reading in the House of Commons on 20 May.

Sarah Lee/Guardian

Associated Press reports that Asllan Berisha and Brian Ramirez, both 21, were arrested in connection with the beating of two gay men in Manhattan early Friday and police are investigating whether there is a link to an earlier anti-gay attack in the same area last Sunday. The two victims were approached by a group of about five men who shouted anti-gay slurs and beat them. The gay men tried to flee but the attackers followed them to the entrance to the 33rd Street PATH station, where Port Authority officers saw the assault and broke it up. Several of the attackers fled but officers arrested two suspects on charges of felony assault as a hate crime.

SP

Up to date on Friday 3 May 2013

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Caleb Orozco, (pictured), supported by the former UK attorney general Lord Goldsmith and Godfrey Smith, Belize’s former attorney general, will challenge the legality of the 19th-century colonial law inherited from the British Empire. Defending section 53 of Belize’s criminal code, which outlaws “carnal intercourse” between consenting same-sex adults, will be Belize’s current attorney general, Wilfred Elrington, backed by the country’s Catholic, Anglican and evangelical churches. The courtroom battle over the Caribbean state’s colonial-era “anti-buggery” laws is a significant milestone in a global campaign to decriminalise homosexuality. The case is expected to take four days.

Love Television, Belize

Rhode Island has become the 10th US state to allow same-sex marriages. Governor Lincoln Chafee signed the bill – shortly after the final approval of the measure by the state’s lawmakers. Hundreds of gay rights activists celebrated the move outside the Statehouse in the capital, Providence, by holding a victory party (pictured).

Providence! Your Activist is not surprised.

Associated Press

Leicestershire Police are having an online question and answer session about domestic violence within gay relationships in an attempt to uncover the scale of domestic abuse among the LGBT community. The online session will take place between 6.30pm and 7.30pm on Wednesday, May 8. Detective Sergeant Jo Fyson, of the force’s domestic abuse investigation unit and Meena Kumari, Manager of support service SAFE Leicester, will answer questions and offer advice.

Gay Activist’s page on Domestic Violence in gay relationships has been online for over ten years and has been downloaded hundreds of times.

SP

Up to date on Thursday 18 April 2013

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Four people have been detained on suspicion of carrying out an attack at a Lille, France, gay bar, amid nationwide tensions over the gay marriage bill. Four men smashed the bar’s windows, hurled furniture and yelled insults, and started an altercation that left the assailants, the bar’s owner and two bar tenders with light injuries.

More people were detained in Paris after a protest against gay marriage ended with demonstrators fighting police and damaging cars along the Champs-Elysees.

President Francois Hollande’s government called today for an end to violent protests. It said those behind the rise in homophobic assaults would be punished. “I cannot accept … homophobic acts and violence against property in the midst of protests, or any defiance of law enforcement officials,” Hollande told reporters during a visit to Paris Charles de Gaulle airport. “Procedures must be respected, sensibilities must be respected, and everyone must be heard … but the law and parliament also need to be respected.”

Agence France – Press

California’s law to ban licensed counsellers from practising ex-gay treatments is boiling down to whether the therapy is free speech or a medical treatment that can be regulated by government, Judge Morgan Christen of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said yesterday. Morgan and two other judges considered 90 minutes of legal arguments over the ban on “sexual-orientation change” counselling of minors. The court will issue a written ruling later.

Undated Photo: Uncredited/Pink News

Greg Bourke, of Louisville Kentucky, pictured with his son, who signed up to help at the Boy Scouts of America when his son joined, but who was made to step down because he is gay, has delivered a petition with over 64,000 signatures to one of their major donors.

The Boy Scouts of America is currently embroiled in a debate over whether to lift its ban on gay volunteers, members and staff. Earlier in February, it delayed a vote on whether or not to lift the ban until May “due to the complexity of the issue”. Bourke’s petition urges United Way, a large nonprofit organisation in the US, which allocates funding to BSA troops across the country.

Uncredited photo: Pink News

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Up to date on Monday 15 April 2013

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Footballer Robbie Rogers, who came out a few weeks ago, has been explaining things to the US media. Rogers said he hid his sexuality all his life so he could fit in with the “macho, macho man” world of soccer. “Because it’s sports. It’s the stereotype that you’re supposed to be this manly guy that is making tackles. It’s beating up on other guys.” Rogers said part of his fear came from hearing gay slurs in locker rooms ever since high school. The 25-year-old former member of the United States national team and professional soccer player in England walked away from the sport in February, after coming out in a letter he posted online. “You grow up learning that who you are isn’t natural, or is a sin,” Rogers said. “It does have an impact– it scares you, it really scares you.”

Jake Whitman/ABC

Mitchell Dean, 22, from Essex, who set fire to two men after dousing them in lighter fluid in a pub garden, has been detained under the Mental Health Act. Dean had admitted two counts of grievous bodily harm with intent at Basildon Crown Court last September. His attack left the men with serious burns, the same Court heard. Dean, of Laindon, Basildon, threw a lit match at Russell Banks and Robert Laszewsk at the Rainbow and Dove, Charles Street, Leicester, in October 2011. He was detained indefinitely after being convicted of two counts of grievous bodily harm with intent.

BBC

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Up to date on Monday 8 April 2013

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Manchester’s Gay Village must be made safer to stop it being closed down, say Manchester Police. Though crime across Manchester City Centre has fallen, binge-drinking, drunken disorder and violence have persisted in the Gay Village. The problems have got steadily worse for the last five years, made worse by congestion from taxis, bars and clubs opening late and increasing numbers of takeaways.

Mancunian Matters

Tshepo Cameron Modisane and Thoba Calvin Sithole, both 27, have married in a wedding ceremony uniting Zulu and Tswana traditions, which they hope will send a message to others that “Being gay is as African as being black.” After three years as boyfriends Mr Modisane proposed in June 2012.

Sebaspace

Baroness Thatcher, the former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, died of a stroke this morning. Although she supported the legalisation of homosexuality in the 1960s and afterwards, Peter Tatchell reminds us: “In 1988, the Thatcher government legislated Britain’s first new anti-gay law in 100 years: Section 28. At the 1987 Conservative party conference she mocked people who defended the right to be gay, insinuating that there was no such right. During her rule, arrests and convictions for consenting same-sex behaviour rocketed, as did queer bashing violence and murder. Gay men were widely demonised and scapegoated for the AIDS pandemic and Thatcher did nothing to challenge this vilification.”

SP

Up to date on Saturday 6 April 2013

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Boris Dittrich, head of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender advocacy at Human Rights Watch, discusses the current debates on same-sex marriage in Europe and the United States and virulent homophobia in Russia and Uganda in an interview with Spiegel Online. It is a sobering evaluation.

On the situation in Russia:

“On April 7, Russian President Vladimir Putin will open the Hanover Trade Fair and hold talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Human Rights Watch, together with a number of other NGOs, are protesting against the propaganda legislation and other human rights violations in Russia. Putin has orchestrated a crackdown on civil society. More than 200 NGOs were recently inspected without any announcement in an attempt to intimidate these groups. In February, the Dutch foreign minister visited Moscow and conveyed the message that the Netherlands rejects the legislation. A vicious back and forth ensued in the joint press conference, with Russia’s foreign minister stating his country was “independent” and others shouldn’t tell it what to do. But all European leaders should consistently raise the issue when they meet with with Putin and other Russian dignitaries. Russia has ignored decisions from the European Court of Human Rights. European leaders like Merkel should make it clear to Moscow that this behavior is intolerable.”

On the situation in Uganda:

“Our assessment is that it is some kind of political game between parliament and the president. Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni is under tremendous international pressure not to countersign the law once it has been passed by parliament. Apparently Museveni is also fearful of what will happen if it passes and how society will react to it. There have been vicious campaigns in the media recently, with newspapers sometimes outing gay men and lesbians with pictures and stories about where they live, work and even providing the license plate numbers of their cars.”

What an excellent article. Well done Spiegel.

A boat carrying a rainbow flag sails along the Neva River in St. Petersburg, Russia. Photo: Associated Press

Meanwhile a warning to all gays in Zambia. Zambia Police Service warns homosexuality is a very serious offence, reports UK Zambians.

“The Zambia Police Service has warned that homosexuality is a very serious offence in Zambia. … In a statement made available to ZANIS in Lusaka yesterday, Police Spokesperson, Elizabeth Kanjela, noted that the offence attracts a sentence of not less than five years imprisonment once one is convicted under Unnatural Offences of Section 155, 156 and 158 CAP 87 of the Laws of Zambia. Ms Kanjela, therefore, indicated that anyone who will be found wanting will face the wrath of the law as the police will be vigilant on perpetrators of such a crime. Ms Kanjela has since appealed to members of the public to report anyone found committing such a crime to any nearest police station in order to maintain sanity in communities.”

Zambia is a member of the British Commonwealth.

SP