The Washington Blade today runs an excellent article by Lou Chibbaro on the amazing and ever-growing number of cities around the world where vigils and other events for gay Iranians are happening on July 19.
Excerpts from the Blade:
Gay rights advocates are expected to hold protest rallies and vigils in at least 20 cities in North America and Europe, including Washington, D.C., on July 19 to condemn what they say is the harsh and cruel treatment of gays in Iran.
The events, which are being billed as an “International Day of Action Against Homophobic Persecution in Iran,” are set to take place on the first anniversary of the hanging executions of two teenage males in the Iranian city of Mashad. [...]
The D.C. protest is scheduled to take place 5 p.m. inside Dupont Circle, according to organizer Rob Anderson, a gay journalist who writes for the New Republic Magazine.
In New York City, IGLHRC is expected to lead a 5 p.m. protest gathering in front of the Iranian Mission to the United Nations.
Other cities scheduled to hold protests include Fort Lauderdale; Provincetown, Mass.; San Diego; San Francisco; Sacramento; Vancouver; Toronto; Amsterdam; London; Stockholm; Marseilles; Moscow; Brussels; Mexico City; Warsaw; Frankfort; Berlin; and Vienna.
Tatchel and U.S. organizer Michael Petrelis of San Francisco have said they expect activists to announce protests in additional cities during the next week.
A list of the goals and demands of the protests released by Tatchell’s group calls for ending all executions in Iran, “especially the execution of minors; “an end to the arrest, torture and imprisonment of Iranian lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people and [the] repeal of the Iranian penal code’s criminalization of same-sex relationships;” an end to the deportation to Iran of “LGBT asylum seekers;” support for Iranians in their struggle for “democracy, social justice and human rights;” and the opposition to foreign military intervention in Iran. [...]
Parsi told organizers of the July 19 protests that the PGLO has asked its members in Iran to display lighted candles in their windows on that day to honor the memory of the two gay youths hanged a year earlier.
“That’s about all we can ask our members in Iran to do safely without bringing down persecution on their heads,” he said.
A spokesperson for the Iranian Mission to the United Nations in New York did not return a call seeking comment. [...]
If your city does not yet have a July 19 event in solidarity with gay Iranians scheduled, organize one!
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