Petrelis Files

HRC, IGLHRC Release on State Department's Gay/HIV Citations in Human Rights Report

"_____________________________," said Joe Solmonese and Paula Ettelbrick, leaders of the Human Rights (sic) Campaign and the International Gay Lesbian Human Rights (sic) Commission, on the new annual human rights survey from the U.S. State Department and the inclusion of many gay and HIV citations.

What do we get from the HRC and IGLHRC and their million dollar budgets and nicely compensated staffs on the incredibly valuable State Department report for 2006? Silence.

Last year, under pressure from bloggers and activists, HRC and IGLHRC, on the day the 2005 report came out, were certainly aware of it, examined the survey, then geared up their respective p.r. machines to show the community how on-top of things they are. But this year, neither gay "human rights" organization can be bothered to call our attention to the new State Dept report.

I grieve for my community and how it doesn't demand consistent quality gay advocacy on crucial global gay rights abuses from our paid advocates.

HRC is supposed to be looking out for our concerns and moving gay laws forward in Congress, which they're failing at, and it should also be working with State and other federal agencies.

And of course IGLHRC is allegedly the USA-based group doing nothing but global gay rights works, which never seems to include developing contacts at State and promoting the Dept's resources on our brothers and sisters globally.

Two days ago I contacted both groups and asked what they'd be saying or doing about the State report.

HRC has sent me releases on how they found a video of Bob Hattoy's 1992 DNC speech and how they just got around to saying "thanks" to brave straight GOP pols in Wyoming.

And IGLHRC's spokesman for some reason think I wanted his group to comment on a State report on Iran. Hello IGLHRC? The report in question is about ALL nation's, not just Iran, but clearly IGLRHC is clueless about it and has no intention to read it.

These are the emails from HRC and IGLHRC in response to my request for their comments on the new State Dept report:

In a message dated 3/7/2007 2:57:37 P.M. Pacific Standard Time, Christopher.Johnson@hrc.org writes:

Good news: we were finally able to locate video for Bob Hattoy’s groundbreaking speech at the 1992 Democratic National Convention. There’s a link to the video and a special tribute to Bob at www.hrc.org. We also uploaded it to YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUashmbh1zQ

Chris

________________________________________
Christopher Johnson | Director of Public Affairs
Human Rights Campaign
1640 Rhode Island Ave. NW |Washington, DC 20036
202.216.1580 ( | 202.716.1628 mobile

christopher.johnson@hrc.org | www.hrc.org

And this is the message from IGLHRC:

In a message dated 3/8/2007 8:33:58 A.M. Pacific Standard Time, halizadeh@iglhrc.org writes:

Dear Michael,

Thanks for your messages and sorry for not getting back to you earlier, since due to weather condition in New York, I was working from home yesterday and was not able to access my phone messages.

IGLHRC currently doesn't have any plan to issue a response to the State Department's report on Iran. If in the future we feel there is a need for a public statement on Iran, I will definitely email you our communications.

Warmest Regards

-----------------------------

Hossein Alizadeh

Communications Coordinator

International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission

80 Maiden Lane- Suite 1505

New York, NY 10038

USA

Phone: + 1 212-430-6016

Fax: + 1 212-430-6060

Email: halizadeh@iglhrc.org

Web: www.iglhrc.org