Iran Spares Two Teens From Execution in Same-Sex Abuse Case

(Photo credit: SaveDeLara.com. Photo is that of 15 year old Nosrat, whose case set the precedent for this latest one. Nosrat is mentioned in the article, but he has not been involved in any same-sex activity.)

In the past year or so I've made the acquaintance of Lily Mazahery, an Iranian-American attorney, through our mutual interest of stopping executions in the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Mazahery devotes much of her time helping women on Iran's death row, and she is equally concerned about that country's capital punishment meted out against homosexuals and teenagers.

Today Mazahery sends word that a Tehran court has commuted the death sentences of two Iranian teenagers, which she sees as a giant positive step forward in bringing civilized standards of human rights to Iran.

She doesn't say the words gay or homosexual, but the allegations of same-gender sexual abuse are integral to the case, and even without clear reported evidence of gay-specific charges, this story of interest to me as a queer rights activist because the death penalty is a gay matter and any reduction in the number of people sentenced to die in Iran is well-worth noting.

Here's the full report from Mazahery:

As legal experts continue the debate about the recent orders of two Tehran province judges, holding that the death sentence of a 15 year old boy, Nosrat, should be commuted because he had not reached the requisite mental maturity, in a separate ruling, the judges of Branch 74 of Tehran province’s general criminal court, used the same reasoning to commute the death sentences of 2 other teenagers today. Instead, the teenagers were sentenced to 10 years imprisonment each.

Last year, a 12 year old, along with his father, reported to the police station in the city of Ray to file a complaint against two teenage boys, named Ahad and Milad, whom the 12 year old accused of sexual abuse.

In describing the alleged incident, the 12 year old stated: “It was morning and I had just finished an exam and I was returning home from school when I saw Ahad and Milad in the street. They told me that they had a squirrel on the rooftop of their house. Because I love animals, I asked them to let me see the squirrel. We started walking together and entered a garden. They led me into a room and then we all went to the rooftop. When we got to the rooftop, there was no squirrel. Instead, Ahad and Milad abused me and then let me go.”

Based on the young teenager’s complaint, the police arrested Ahad and Milad on charges of rape and sexual abuse. Five judges of Branch 74 of Tehran province’s appellate court became directly responsible for investigating these allegations. In the first investigative meeting, Ahad and Milad admitted that they had sexually abused the 12 year old.

When the medical examiner confirmed the 12 year old’s allegations of sexual abuse, Ahad and Milad were once again questioned by the authorities, but this time, they stated that when they engaged in the alleged abusive acts, they were not in a normal state of mind.

Eventually, Ahad and Milad denied having sexually abused the 12 year old, stating that they had no intention of abusing or harming the 12 year old in any way. Their only intent, according to the accused teenagers, was to show their friend the squirrel on the rooftop.

The accused teenagers, who are 16 and 17 years old, maintained their innocence during the following proceedings. Accordingly, 5 judges of Branch 74 of Tehran province’s general criminal court, convened after the trial, after which two different opinions emerged.

Noting the confessions of Ahad and Milad, as well as other evidence presented in the case, such as the medical examiner’s report, two of the five judges sentenced the defendants to death by hanging. However, the majority of the judges refused to sentence the defendants to death, noting their young ages at the time of the incident, as well as the fact that they had denied the charges against them on 4 different occasions, and had stated that they never had the legally requisite intent to sexually abuse the 12 year old. The judges then proceeded to sentence the defendants to 10 years in prison.

This is the second time in the past month that the judges of Tehran province’s general criminal court have rejected executing defendants, whose crimes were committed when they were under the age of 18. The judges based their ruling on the argument that, at the time of the alleged crimes, the defendants lacked the requisite mental maturity to understand the nature of their actions.

Iran’s children’s rights activists consider these latest rulings to be substantial positive steps towards establishing legal standards that protect minor offenders in accordance with international human, civil, and children rights standards.

The cases of 15 year old Nosrat, 16 year old Ahad, and 17 year old Milad have been transferred to Iran’s supreme court for further review. Legal experts remain confident that the supreme court will uphold the ruling of the lower courts in these cases, and will issue a permanent commutation of the teenagers’ execution sentences.

Human Rights Watch Omits Israeli, Iraqi, Russian, UK Groups from Resource List

The gay division at the Human Rights Watch in New York recently web-published a global round-up of LGBT groups, and for unknown reasons, Israel, and that country's numerous gay organizations, are totally absent.

HRW shares links to groups addressing our issues and helping LGBT people in only three Middle East countries: Iran, Lebanon and Palestine.

From HRW's introduction to their list:

"These are links to groups worldwide which advocate for an end to discrimination and abuse based on sexual orientation or gender identity. This list is far from exhaustive."

Yep, not anywhere near exhaustive, and the question of why HRW would publish such a list without making sure it is exhaustive, must be raised. Plus, how hard could it have been for the multimillion-dollar HRW to Google gay groups in Israel, or in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Haifa?

I applaud HRW for including the Middle East LGBT organizations that made the cut for the list, and hope many American gays visit the web sites for those groups.

It's beyond my comprehension how the gay staff at HRW could omit Israel and her LGBT advocacy organizations from their list. In a very concrete way, HRW has erased Israel, and her gay citizens, from the map, which is something Iran president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has proposed as he's rattled his nuclear saber.

If the past is any indication, HRW's leading gay staffer will now engage in a full-frontal assault on me and my political activism, work to make raising these concerns as jeopardizing advancement of global gay rights, avoid squarely addressing the matter of why Israeli organizations are not on his group's list, and in every response the HRW gay staff will always employ unbridled condescension to show their alleged superiority.

Also missing from HRW's list are three very important advocacy groups: the Iraqi LGBT group based in London and headed by Ali Hili, who is helping gay people in Iraq and those living in exile; GayRussia, the organization led by Nikolas Aleyexev which has tried to stage gay pride marches in Moscow; and OutRage!UK, cofounded by Peter Tatchell, an activist group that really has set the standard for global gay activism.

If the HRW gay staffers are interested in providing their colleagues, activists and reporters with a truly inclusive and comprehensive resource list like this, they will quickly update and improve their LGBT guide.

Click here to visit HRW's incomplete list of global LGBT groups.

Nigeria: 18 Homosexuals Face Execution Under Islamic Law

The plight of gay people around the planet simply does not receive the proper attention it ought to from USA gay advocacy organizations. While LGBT political organizations in America remain woefully unconcerned and quiet about the human rights abuses our brothers and sisters face daily in far too many countries, I still want to throw a barrel-full of praise on the gay press here because a good number of American gay newspapers carve out editorial space to international LGBT people and issues.

That being said, here is some very depressing news, excerpted from the Agence France-Presse news service:

Eighteen men have been arrested in northern Nigeria for alleged sodomy, which carries the death sentence under Bauchi state's Islamic sharia law, the official NAN news agency reported Thursday.

Judge Malam Tanimu ordered the 18 remanded in prison until a further hearing on August 21 following their arrest on Sunday in a hotel in Bauchi city.

The court on Wednesday heard that the men, who were wearing female clothing, had come to the city from five neighbouring states to celebrate a gay "marriage".

Prosecuting police officer Tadius Boboi said the men's actions had contravened the sharia penal code adopted in Bauchi and other states in Muslim northern Nigeria eight years ago following the end of military rule . . .

In a Nigerian sharia state the governor must give his approval before punishments like death and amputation passed by sharia courts are actually carried out.

Click here to read the full AFP article.

Straight GOP South Dakota Politician Comes Out for Gay Equality

(Don Frankenfeld, an avowed Republican heterosexual, in costume, on the right. Photo credit: Rapid City Journal.)

Please allow me the supreme pleasure of introducing you to former state officeholder Don Frankenfeld, a straight GOP politician from South Dakota. He's just come out for gay rights in a big way by joining the board of that state's leading LGBT advocacy organization.

Frankenfeld has written an insightful and honest, not to mention humorous, coming out column for the Hog House Blog, which is based in South Dakota and covers politics from diverse perspectives.

I'd like to welcome this Super Hero costume-wearing man to the ever-expanding community of allies for the LGBT community and look forward to him using his political expertise and personal connections to benefit all citizens of the Mount Rushmore state, regardless of sexual orientation.

Reading over Frankenfeld's words, I hear echoes of what was said back in February by straight GOP Wyoming legislator Dan Zwonitzer, in his speech to colleagues debating a bill about gay marriage.

We LGBT people need to reach out to the Frankenfelds and Zwonitzers, when they publicly declare their support for our equality, and heap praise upon them, if only because we need them to help make America and her dream of freedom for all a reality. And putting them on web-based pedestals wouldn't hurt either.

Here's Frankenfeld's column, with comments from yours truly:

In July I became a founding board member for Equality South Dakota, an organization dedicated to securing and protecting the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender South Dakotans. When I explained this to my wife, she wondered if there was something else I wanted to tell her. As it happens, she was already on to me, but for the sake of full disclosure to my new friends in the LGBT community, it is time to come out of the closet: I am a Republican. Also, I am straight – not that there is anything wrong with that.

This is a very disarming opening, one that shows Frankenfeld knows how to use humor to score points, and get his readers to think. I like that he mentions his wife, thereby establishing his heterosexual credentials, with reference to his GOP tendencies, not that I have a problem with that. He should be capturing the attention of fellow heterosexual readers with such admissions.

The fact is homosexuality baffles me, particularly when looking at the most fundamental physical aspect: an attraction to certain body parts and certain sex practices. I can’t understand why some guy would be mesmerized by my equipment, and want to do that with it, when he has the same equipment himself.

Wait a minute. I don’t understand heterosexuality any better. Over the years I have become accustomed to the thought that a guy would naturally be sexually attracted to a woman, particularly certain body parts. (I write from the perspective of a guy, as it is the only perspective I have.) Moreover, a guy might relish the thought of doing that. But why?

Thanks, Don, for being so up front about your bafflement with some aspects of gay sexuality. I have similar feelings, as a gay man, about a few things heterosexuals do in bed. :-)

Whatever your orientation, desire propels you, and is in turn propelled by intrigue, instinct and mystery. Sometimes sexual attraction is irrational, but always, it seems to me, it is trans-rational. So given the mystery of our own sexuality, who are we to judge someone else’s, as long as it is between consenting adults?

Damn, those are important words, words that I hope are read by thousands of South Dakotans.

I don’t expect my participation in Equality South Dakota to change the face of South Dakota, or its politics. I believe I can make a contribution, however. And yes, it is time to make amends, as well. I have had a long journey, with quite a distance yet to go.

I won’t detail my mental cruelty toward gays over the years, except to observe that I was fairly typical of my generation. During junior high and high school, gay-bashing was pretty much the only permissible, respectable manifestation of cruelty toward someone for what they were. I’m not saying that racism didn’t exist, only that anti-black or anti-Indian remarks were at least regarded as politically incorrect, and this somewhat inhibited bad behavior. Homosexuals had no such protection.

I sincerely thought homosexuality was a dangerous perversion, and as a teenager I was mean to those who I thought were “queer.” By college (at an all-male school), I came to know quite a few homosexual faculty members and classmates, and sometimes to put aside (but not eliminate) my squeamishness to form friendships.

When was the last time you read a straight GOP man confess his "cruelty" to gays, and in the larger context of other forms of bigotry, as he's standing up today for fairness and tolerance towards LGBT Americans? I wonder how many straight people will read that passage and totally identify with Frankenfeld. Quite a large number probably.

Early in my career as a state senator, a gay rights activist thanked me for my willingness to meet with him — never mind that our meeting was more or less in secret for our mutual benefit. He was not openly gay, and I wanted to be re-elected.

Later I was a testifying as an economic expert on behalf of a number of claimants to the federal September 11th Victim Compensation Fund, some of whom were gay. I had the extraordinary gift of reading many deeply felt love letters of a flight attendant aboard American Airlines Flight 11 to his registered domestic partner of eleven years. The last of these letters was written on September 9, 2001, around midnight. “The time we are apart seems like years to me. It is a good thing when one’s presence is missed.” Aside from gender, these poetic letters are indistinguishable from those between any passionate and deeply committed lovers. My rare and privileged intimate glimpse into the private lives of this couple was transformational, partly because it was so moving and partly because it was so routine.

Remembering all the victims of 9/11, coupled with my emotions stirred by Frankenfeld's transformation on gays, in part, because of the tragedy of that September day, brought tears to my eyes. It's so uniquely American, no, human actually, when tragic events are turned into something that enlarges our connections to each other, as demonstrated here.

Lately I have been suggesting to my gay friends that they should take a Republican to lunch. That is because Republicans and the gay community need each other. Republicans need to be reminded that they are the party of Lincoln; the party of equality, opportunity and tolerance. And in South Dakota, gays need the understanding and compassion of the Republicans who are likely to control South Dakota government for the foreseeable future, and hence the destiny of gays with respect to many vital issues.

I don’t expect immediate or revolutionary changes. I do expect progress. I think Equality South Dakota can help.

Um, great suggestion about inviting someone from the GOP to lunch, but for a San Francisco resident such as myself, in a city where Republicans are as rare as snowflakes in Sturgis in August, I'll have to wait for a Republican lunch-mate passing through town before I can follow Frankenfeld's advice. Until then, I'll email a word of thanks to him, and share his wonderful column.

Gays Asked to Join Annual Biker Rally in Sturgis, South Dakota

Gay Americans continue to knock down barriers and find acceptance in some pretty unlikely places across the land.

For the first time ever, the gay community center of South Dakota will have a table at the Sturgis biker event in the Mount Rushmore state. Over the weekend I spoke with local gay leader Mike Coats, who told me about this step forward for gay South Dakotans and that the community center was invited to participate by an area bike shop.

From Mike Coats' blog:

The Gay Center West will have a booth at the Independent cycle tent at the top fifty rally venue in Piedmont. It is at Elk Vale Road, exit 46 on I-90 at Piedmont. The venue is open 10 AM until 7 PM from Sunday, August 5th through Saturday, August 11th. We will be passing out literature and soliciting donations. I've been told this is a first for the rally.

As if that bit of news isn't enough, friends of Coats report on their blog that this year's bike rally will see the second gay men's biker event.

From the South Dakota Project blog:

The 2nd annual Gay Men's Biker Run is Wednesday, August 8th, 11 AM. Meet at Chute Roosters Restaurant and Bar in Hill City, SD. Entering Hill City from the north, Chute Rooster is on the left, as you enter town. We will be going to Rochford via Highway 385 and will lead for the run.

A link from Coats' blog leads to the official calendar of all events for the Sturgis biker rally, and it pleases my gay activist heart to see amid the list of Marine Corps, Christian and Alcoholics Anonymous functions, not to mention socials with Miss Sturgis, the gay men's bike rally is included. To me, this is tell-tale sign of advancement for all LGBT Americans and I extend deep thanks to the South Dakota gay community for their involvement with the Sturgis rally and related events.

The only thing troubling me about all this great news from our gay family in South Dakota is that there is word yet on a Dykes With Bikes rally. Let's hope the lesbians with hogs stage their own event and inform us of the details.

Oh, one final note, for those of us who find biker men attractive and sexy, Mike Coats promises lots of photos will be shared after all is said and done in Sturgis by the local gay community. Can't wait to see the pictures!

Mexico City, NYC, Vancouver, Warsaw: Pics, Videos from Global Gay Solidarity Days

What does it take to organize Global Gay Solidarity Days? First, start with putting out a request to fellow organizers and gauge if they're interested in such an international event.

Next step is, engage in a respectful debate about what day (or two) to stage the solidarity vigils. Third, allow local organizers to decide what kind of action to put on, the time to do it, and which global LGBT issues to focus on.

Fourth, mix in a handful of beautiful committed people in any city to pull together an action, invite the larger community and our allies to participate, and before you know it, LGBT in several parts of the world unite for a same-day coordinated action.

And finally, watch the activists in each city committed to the solidarity days stage their vigils and speak outs, and take photos, make videos, and write up short reports.

I may have said it before, but it needs repeating. My thanks go out to all the fine and fabulous people who organized the actions over this weekend, and everyone who attended the events, or anyway support them.

Now, on to some of the reports from around our world!

From Mexico City, longtime gay rights and health advocate Lars Ivar Owesen-Lein Borge, sends fantastic photos from their event on August 4, and says that a full report on the action will appear on his group's site come Monday. Judging from the photos, it looks like the activists gathered in the plaza, made colorful signs, had live music, and chairs to sit on. That is the kind of demonstration I like very much. Click here to view more of their photos, which is also where the report on the action will be tomorrow. Lars also says the newspaper La Jornada in Mexico City has dedicated one entire page in its printed version to the Global Gay Solidarity Day today. Click here and you can read the internet version of the article (in Castilian).

(Credit for the above photos: Enkidu Magazine.)

Veteran gay and social justice advocate Brendan Fey from New York City informed me that a group of activists, clergy men and women and folks from non-governmental organizations gathered at Dag Hammersjold Plaza on Friday. They remembered many fallen LGBT brothers and sisters, recommitted to working for international gay solidarity, and laid a wreath at the plaza, which is opposite the headquarters of the United Nations.

(Credit for the pictures above: Brendan Fey.)

Our report from Vancouver is provided by Nathaniel Christopher, who wrote this for the Xtra! newspaper and also made a video of their solidarity action, which took place on Friday:

Activists in cities around the world took part in the first Global Gay Solidarity Day this weekend. Their goal: send a message to government and UN officials that queers everywhere deserve equality.

In Vancouver, activists held a moment of silence on Fri, Aug 3 to remember those who have fallen victim to human rights abuses because of their sexual orientation.

(Photo and video credit: Nathaniel Christopher of Xtra!)

The last report today comes from Lukasz Palucki in Warsaw:

We made a candle sign saying REMEMBER in front of the Iranian embassy.

But I have better news from the clubs - almost all of the confirm that they will put a candle on the bar with a sign "Globalny Dzień Solidarności Gejowskiej" - that means in Polish "Global Gay Days of Solidarity".

I put also few pics of candles in Warsaw bars on my blog and video on YouTube of us at Iran's embassy.

Bar action was successful. I have messages from other clubs in big Polish cities (Krakow, Lodz, Wroclaw, Gdansk, Poznan) that they have support our action.

(Photo and video credit: Lukasz Palucki.)

And don't forget to check out the photos and report on the San Francisco action. Click here for those pictures.

S.F. Protest for Global Gay Solidarity Day, August 4 Photos

(Please feel free to use any of the photos, but give credit to this blog. Thanks.)

Over the course of one hour, more than twenty LGBT activists staged a solidarity vigil and speak out today at the Flood Building on Market Street, where the consulates of Bolivia, Chile, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Panama are located. Hundreds of shoppers walking by and people entering the Flood Building took our supply of 500 leaflets explaining the problems gay citizens face in those countries. We held a beautiful fabric banner, made by George Duvoisin, using a diverse array of materials and colors, symbolic of the global LGBT community. Each letter was a separate design with its own block, spelling out S-O-L-I-D-A-R-I-T-Y.


Just one of the many clusters of tourists who passed by our event, which was spread out across the entire front of the building, with the permission of the building's security force because we didn't block anyone from entering or leaving. During the action, activists spoke with people from around the world who wanted more information about the human rights abuses of LGBT people everywhere on our planet. There was also much approval for our public display of activism.


This gay black man stopped and gave an impromptu speech about respecting all people from every background. He also thanked us for being in the streets for queer political reasons on such a beautiful sunny San Francisco day.



We spent the final half of our demonstration displaying our Global Gay Solidarity signs and waving the good old rainbow flag, even though we ran out of flyers and couldn't give tourists and shoppers some information to learn about our LGBT issues.

An enormous shout of thanks from me to all the folks who turned out for our fabulous action today, and all the folks who couldn't make it but nevertheless supported and/or contributed to the San Francisco action on August 4 for Global Gay Solidarity Day.

Cologne's August 4 Action for Global Gay Solidarity Day

My friend Viktor sent along this release today from Germany, all about how his group is participating in the international LGBT actions today. Much gratitude to him for all his work to make an action happen in solidarity with gays across all borders:

For further event information, please contact Viktor Zimmermann:
viktor.zimmermann@gayhomeland.org
tel. +49-221-1691810

On August 4, 2007, the representatives of the Gay Homeland Foundation (GHF) will call on several consulates located in Cologne and hand over letters petitioning for decriminalization of homosexuality in Gambia, Malaysia, Nepal, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunesia.

The Foundation welcomes the decision of Gay activists in Caracas, Cologne, Mexico City, San Diego, San Francisco, Stockholm, Warsaw, Washington and Vancouver to initiate actions on this Global Gay Solidarity Day, which hopefully will become a good tradition and will give fresh dynamics to the Gay movement in the next years. With some 300 millions Gay individuals worldwide there is much potential for interconnection and joint action.

GHF is pleased to see various Gay organizations and activists now standing united to express Gay solidarity. Despite all disagreements over singular issues, Gays still are one people, and in decisive moments they must stick together and confront the adversary in a close formation.

The Global Gay Solidarity Day shall serve as a reminder that while homophobia is imposed upon Gay people by others, there are also many things which Gays can make for other Gays by own efforts. The Global Gay Solidarity Day symbolically expresses the powerfull potential Gays have as a people, the solidarity itself shall be lived throughout the entire year as well.

Their oppressors of Gay people speculate that Gays will abstain from assisting their brothers and sisters from other countries, declaring such persecution to be within the sole competency of the responsible government.

GHF rejects such argumentation as frivolous. Persecution of Gay people in any given country is not an internal affair of the persecuting state, it is an assault on the Gay people in its entirety. Appeals to the national souvereignty are not a legitimate argumentation when it comes to violation of human rights. Gay citizens of these states are belonging to the Gay people, thus the worldwide Gay community shall no longer accept such infringements of safety and cultural freedoms of Gay people, wherever they occur.

When a country is interested in good relations to all peoples and nations, it shall respect all these peoples and nations. Criminalization of family life and disruption of cultural events of members of a particular minority is certainly not a suitable way to establish good international relations.

Persecuting countries shall be put before the option to abandon their laws criminalizing homosexuality, or be subjected to an embargo by countries belonging to "the free world." The governments of western democracies must otherwise explain to Gay people why expropriation of private property is a sufficient reason for an embargo, but severe persecution of Gay people is not. Governments of the countries posing as human rights defenders must explain to Gay people how it is possible for them to be friends with governments determied to exterminate Gays from their populations.

The United Nations must address the Gay issue immediately. No other people is persecuted as fiercefully in so many states as the Gay people, and no other violation of human rights is as readily overlooked by the majourity of UN member states. The state sanctioned persecution of Gays often amounts to cultural and physical genocide as specified by the corresponding UN convention, and it must not be tolerated by the UN anymore. Unlike the poverty issue, this one does not cost billions of dollars and does not require complicated infrastructure programs. All it
takes for the concerned governments is to rewrite few passages of their legislations.

To the knowledge of GHF, Gay people are persecuted by criminal legislation in the following countries: Afghanistan, Algeria, Antigua and Barbuda, the Bahamas, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Barbados, Bhutan, Botswana, Brunei Darussalam, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, Dominica, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Fiji, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Grenada, Guinea, Guyana, India, Iran, Iraq, Jamaica, Kenya, Kiribati, Kuwait, Lebanon, Lesotho, Libya, Malawi, Malaysia, Maldives, Mauritania, Mauritius, Morocco, Myanmar, Namibia, Nauru, Nepal, Nicaragua, Niger, Nigeria, Oman, Pakistan, Palestine, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Qatar, Samoa, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Seychelles, Singapore, the Solomon Islands, Somalia, Sri Lanka, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Sudan, Swaziland, Syria, Tanzania, Togo, Tonga, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, Tuvalu, Uganda, United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan, Yemen, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Gays can be subjected to the death penalty in Afghanistan, Iran, Mauritania, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen.

The Gay Homeland Foundation renews its appeal to the international community to cease deporting Gay and Lesbian asylum-seekers to persecuting countries, and to consider instead the establishment of a self-administered territory for the Gay and Lesbian people.

-- 30 --

CONTACT INFORMATION:
The Gay Homeland Foundation is an organization dedicated to furtherance of
a Gay national movement and cultural progress of the Gay and Lesbian
community; the administrative center is located in Cologne, Germany. The
Foundation is actively investigating the possibilities for establishment
of self-administered LGBT settlements and organizing the LGBT community in
a sovereign political entity.

Divas in Caracas, Venezuela, Announce August 4 Protest

This colorful image was shared with me this afternoon and is from my friend Rummie, who is organizing a demonstration on August 4 as part of Global Gay Solidarity Day.

Canada, Poland: Our Actions for Aug 3/4 Global Gay Solidarity Days

The Global Gay Days of Solidarity, August 3 and 4, soon will dawn and I'm so pleased to report on two emails I received today.

The first is from my friend Lukasz in Warsaw, who has organized a demonstration on Saturday along with a countrywide call to action for all gay bars and cafe to light candles for the day. It gives me chill to stand with my gay brothers and sisters in the country that birthed the Solidarity labor movement under a communistic regime. Lukasz is a brave activist, doing what he can on local and international LGBT matters, and he deeply inspires me. We need more Lukaszs.

And the second email is from my brothers and sisters to my north, Canada, sharing their press release about their action on Friday for global gay solidarity. Hey, Vancouver LGBT citizens - thanks for standing with us and organizing an action that many can participate in. Keep up the great work.

The message from Poland:

Please dont forget about Warsaw. We will meet at Candle Meeting near Iran Embassy (Krolowej Aldony 22 str) in Warsaw at 4 August on 8:00 PM.

I have send message to all gay clubs in Poland to put a candle on the bars on saturday as a sign of GLOBAL GAY SOLIDARITY.

You know... it is Poland. Word: "SOLIDARITY" is very important in our history :)

I will send photos later to my blog. I will put some video also from our action.

Hugs

Lukasz Palucki

luke.santi@eranet.pl

And this the scoop from Canada:

The Vancouver Pride Society (VPS) will take a stand and recognize the first ever Global Day of Gay Solidarity taking place on Friday August 3^rd.

The VPS will honour the day by hosting a moment of silence during the Official Vancouver Pride Weekend Launch at noon outside Vancouver Art Gallery to remember those who have fallen victim to human rights abuses because of their sexual orientation.

The Global Day of Gay Solidarity is a day commemorating the atrocities faced by the international GLBT community. Activists will unite worldwide and send a message to government officials, in particular the UN, to investigate human rights abuses of GLBT people around the planet.
Vancouver will mark the 10^th international city to recognize the Day; other cities include New York, Caracas, Cologne, Warsaw, Mexico City, Washington D.C, and Stockholm.

WHAT: Moment of Silence for the Global Gay Solidarity Day (during the Official Vancouver Pride Weekend Launch).

WHEN: Friday August 3rd, 2007.

TIME: 12:30 pm.

WHERE: Georgia St. Side to the Vancouver Art Gallery.

WHY: Demand GLBT Equality Everywhere.

WHO: John Boychuk, Vancouver Pride Society President.

Ken Coolen, Vancouver Pride Parade Organizer.

Heather Hendelson, Co-chair of New York Pride.

Tomasz Baczkowski, Organizer of Warsaw Pride.

Mark Tewksbury, Human Rights Defender.

For more information or to confirm attendance, please contact:
Rachel Ricketts
rachel@pamelagroberman.com
604-677-7474