Petrelis Files

Wockner Wire, Metro Weekly: Antigay Abuses & U.S. State Dept

I want to publicly express deep thanks to independent gay journalist Rex Wockner and the editor of Washington's Metro Weekly, Sean Bugg, for giving much-needed attention in recent days about the need for human rights advocates to submit reports of antigay abuses to the State Department in the next few weeks.

Have you sent news clippings, police reports and other such documents to the analysts at the State Department who compile and write the annual report? If you have, thanks very much. But if you haven't done so yet, send those reports to Mr. LeRoy Potts at the department: pottslg@state.gov.

Please do your part to make sure next year's human rights report is the most comprehensive report from the U.S. government on antigay rights abuses around the world.

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The Wockner Wire

Activists in London and San Francisco are urging people around the world
to report antigay abuses to the U.S. State Department. [...]
Submissions must be received at the State Department before the end of
2005. [...]

"The massive scale of homophobic persecution worldwide is grossly
underdocumented in all official human rights reports," added London
activist Peter Tatchell of the gay-rights group OutRage!. "[We] will be
submitting evidence to the U.S. State Department based on our firsthand
evidence from LGBT refugees."

Reports should be e-mailed to pottslg@state.gov.

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Metro Weekly
Mincing Words
By Sean Bugg

With continuing reports from Iran about the executions of gay men, as well as reports from all over the world of human rights violations against gay and lesbian people, it's important to keep pressure on our own government to make those human rights violations a priority. [...]

Personally, I'm of the mind that whatever your feelings on the death penalty on home ground, it's vital to take a stand for those gays and lesbians who face abuse, torture and death for their sexuality in ways that those of us in the U.S. often can't even imagine.