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Australian politics gay lesbian politics world politics - Rainbow Reporter

Africa's Deadly Prejudice

January 24th 2010 03:52
Lion

In Africa, gays and lesbians are running for their lives
.

SOUTH AFRICA

In South Africa’s Western Cape, one gay rights organisation deals with up to 10 new cases of "corrective rape" – pack-raping and beating a woman to ‘cure’ her homosexuality – every week. Some die.


MALAWI 1

In Malawi, two men face up to 14 years jail for having a relationship. They have suffered abuse, humiliation and violence while on remand, but were refused bail ‘for their own safety’.

After local minority rights group The Centre For The Development of People (CEDEP) Malawi came to their assistance, a staff member was arrested on charges labelling CEDEP's HIV education materials pornographic.

MALAWI 2

Again in Malawi, a woman accused of being a lesbian was driven out of her home by her member of Parliament.

Nellie Somanje was cleared of sexually assaulting and abusing her maids, aged 14 and 18, due to lack of evidence. Nevertheless local MP and Minister for Women Patricia Kaliati declared Somaje "persona non grata" in her constituency, and will appeal the acquittal.

UGANDA

In Uganda, a bill currently before the Parliament redefines homosexual activity – punishable by life imprisonment - as ”touch(ing) another person with the intention of committing the act of homosexuality.” Touching “(a) with any part of the body; (b) with anything else; (c) through anything.”


It creates the crime of “aggravated homosexuality” - punishable by death - for having sex with someone under 18, for HIV-positive people who have sex, for anyone having sex with a disabled person (consensual or not), and “repeat offenders” (anyone who has had a relationship with more than one person, or who has had sex with the same person more than once).

Offering medical treatment to gay people brings 7 years jail. Renting homes to LGBT people nets 5-7 years for running a brothel. Friends or family face up to 3 years jail for not reporting LGBT persons to police within 24-hours.

THE WORLD

The Bill has been publicly condemned by British PM Gordon Brown, Canadian PM Stephen Harper, Barack Obama, Hilary Clinton, 12 US Senators, and 90 US Representatives.

In response Uganda has said it might drop the death penalty in favour of life imprisonment.

AUSTRALIA

Our Senate, however, refused Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young’s motion calling on the Government to actively encourage the Ugandan Government to withdraw the Bill.

Australia’s High Commissioner in Kenya made personal representations to the Ugandan Government over the bill and wrote to the Speaker of Uganda’s Parliament. And that’s it.

Meanwhile 33 British MPs have signed a motion in support of the two men on trial in Malawi.

Hope you had a Happy Australia Day.

This is by no means a complete list of the deadly regimes currently persecuting GLBTI people in Africa: Tanzania, Burundi, Senegal, Gambia, Egypt, Cameroon and Nigeria are all actively persecuting gays and lesbians Really Long Link .

ACTION - CONTACT IMMIGRATION & FOREIGN MINISTERS

Contact Immigration Minister Chris Evans to ask what Australia is doing to provide a safe haven for GLBTI African refugees fleeing to Australia.

Minister for Immigration and Citizenship
Parliament House
Canberra ACT 2600

Telephone: 02 6277 7860
Fax: 02 6273 4144
Email: minister@immi.gov.au

Senator Chris Evans
PO Box 1322
West Perth WA 6872

Telephone: 08 9481 4844/ 1300 655 388 (WA Country Only)
Fax: 08 9481 4244
Email: senator.evans@aph.gov.au

Contact Foreign Minister Stephen Smith to protest the feeble Australian response to these murderous governments.

PO Box 6022
House of Representatives
Parliament House
Canberra ACT 2600
Tel: (02) 6277 7500
Fax: (02) 6273 4112

Email: Stephen.Smith.MP@aph.gov.au

953A Beaufort Street
Inglewood WA 6932

Postal Address:
PO Box 901
Inglewood WA 6932

Tel: (08) 9272 3411
Fax: (08) 9272 3477
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The word is Refugee!

April 19th 2009 00:37
Burning boat
The word you’re looking for is ‘refugee’. Let’s stop using this awful weasel term ‘asylum-seeker’ as if it was some kind of insult. In fact, let’s stop using it altogether. The word we want is refugee – people seeking refuge.

Refuge from living in poverty, starving, ailing with little hope of doctoring let alone cure, dying more or less at random in the course of war, ‘insurgency’, ‘civil unrest’ (more weasel-words we should get rid of pronto) or other forms of violence.

Refuge from being deliberately kept in poverty, denied healthcare, forced into servitude and prostitution, from being imprisoned, maimed or killed for being the ‘wrong’ sex, sexuality, age, religion, or colour.

As todays Age newspaper points out, most can’t ‘join a queue’ to leave, because there is no queue. There isn’t an Australian embassy in Kabul, for example, even assuming they could get through the gates, or Gaza, or anywhere people might need to flee from, because it’s ‘too dangerous’. If it’s too dangerous for Aussies then obviously it’s too dangerous for Palestinians or Afghanis or whoever.

Take one example. Right now gay men are being systematically hunted down and murdered in Iraq, arrested and executed in Iran, imprisoned in Egypt, Saudi Arabia . . . . the list is long. Yet the only way many can escape is by means currently deemed ‘illegal’.

The death squads hunting them in Sadr City are not going to obligingly hold off till the right paperwork turns up from Canberra or London or wherever. But that doesn’t mean we should demonise them when they flee to us for refuge.

And in more general terms, why are we so fearful of people arriving in Oz by boat? Evidently they have a desperate need of refuge, or why else would they take the most dangerous, riskiest route that places them under maximum suspicion and in maximum danger at all stages?

Secondly, by making it through this Darwinian selection process, thave they not shown themselves to be tough, independent and resourceful people? Despite every obstacle placed in their way, they have raised the funds, crossed the borders, sat out the waiting in camps, endured the greedy and cynical depredations of the people-smugglers, and got here by the hardest route possible. They have passed one of the stiffest tests and have thereby earned the right to be here.

Aren’t they the sort of people we should be welcoming with open arms? Willing to risk everything for a better life, are they not far more likely to turn out to be tough resourceful Australians, inured to hardship and willing to work, than any pampered Pom jetting in on a 747 and overstaying their visa?

Instead of erecting bigger and nastier barriers, should we not rather recognise that what we have here is a clear case of what Kuddly Kevvy would call ‘market failure’? The legal market has failed to serve the need, and so an illegal market has sprung up to do so.

If we want to stop people coming here on leaky boats, then we have to provide better cheaper, easier and better alternatives. Well staffed (and guarded) migration centres should be set up in danger areas as soon as we send the troops in, to assess people on the spot. Fair, transparent and culturally appropriate assessment procedures.

And decent services for those who do make it here – support to help them learn the language and negotiate their way into Australian society, instead of leaving them to sink or swim, as we do now. But that's another story.
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In love with a flaming woman

March 22nd 2009 00:13
red head


Yes, I have to confess my guilty secret. Despite my lifelong passions for the male of the species, I’m falling in love with a red-headed woman. So far she shows little interest in the things I care about, but nevertheless, I’m captivated.

Worse, I’m also being wooed by a man who at first sight has everything going for him. He’s charismatic, rich, handsome, and has the sexiest husky baritone voice – usually an absolute clincher for me.

He purrs like a rutting lion, while she sounds like a cat trying to climb a blackboard. His face is handsome and open, hers is as sharp as a rats. But nowadays he leaves me cold.

It just goes to show that first impressions are unreliable. I was prepared to swoon over Malcolm Turnbull. He appeared smart, engaged, modern - he stood up for gay rights in the Howard cabinet - a liberal in the true sense of the word. But now that he has emerged from the murk of the Howard era , his essential hollowness stands revealed.

Like the clever lawyer he is, he can take a slew of facts and spin from them an entrancing tale, which for an hour or two – which in a courtroom is all you need – seems utterly convincing. But when he takes those same facts, and a few days later, weaves from them an entirely different compelling story, the scales fall from our eyes. He’s nothing but a clever, charismatic storyteller.

First he supports the government stimulus package – then he renames it to sound like the money shot in a porn movie – a ‘cash splash’. One minute he’s working for the defence. Next he’s at the prosecution table. Ditto alcopops. Ditto WorkChoices. He’s the empty vessel making beautiful, loud, pointless booming noises.

Meanwhile our de facto Prime Minister powers on, doing all the heavy lifting of government while our titular PM jets around the world looking busy.

Julia Gillard has the biggest portfolio known to humankind, and handles every bit of it with skill and aplomb. She’s a great performer in the wrestling ring known as Parliament, with a fine talent for invective (though not yet up to Keating’s magnificent standards).

She’s not just de facto PM while Kevvie’s away (which is most of the time), she’s also Minister for Education, Minister for Social Inclusion, and Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations. In the latter role, with masterly political skills, she neatly disposed of WorkChoices and deftly managed Senators Fielding and Xenophon into irrelevance.

Meanwhile she’s undergone a Thatcher-like personal transformation from snarling fishwife to something smarter, cooler and more poised. Someone has taught her how to use makeup. Her hair is now styled rather than just cut. Her voice has lost some of its harsh timbre and dropped a tone or two.

And unlike her boss (or that handsome political gigolo opposite) she appears to enjoy what she’s doing, and believe what she’s saying. She is a woman in her element – and what could be more attractive? I’m in love.
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Rainbow Report Jan 15

January 15th 2009 00:46
Gay in the Country @ ChillOut Festival


As we have reported before, some people will lose out badly when Centrelink starts treating same sex couples the same as de facto couples Really Long Link – that comes in on July 1, but pressure is mounting on the government to think again. Corey Irlam has the story


[ Click here to read more ]
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