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Monday, June 16
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Source: Jewish Telegraphic Agency , YnetNews , Ha'aretz Organizers of Jerusalem's annual gay pride march said they hope for less friction with the city's religious residents this year. The Open House in Jerusalem announced on Monday that the city's Pride Parade would take place on Thursday of next week, with the theme of "free love". This year marks the parade's seventh anniversary in Jerusalem, and it has become well-known for sparking annual controversy among the ultra-Orthodox communities in the city, YnetNews reports. "This year we expect the parade to be...
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Friday, June 06
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Source: YnetNews , Haaretz , Jerusalem Post Tel Aviv Gay Pride photo: by Yaron Brener for YnetNews More than a thousand people arrived at the Gan Meir Park in Tel Aviv on Friday afternoon to participate in the 10th Gay Pride Parade and to celebrate the gay community's struggle for equality. Organizers and local officials also christened a center for the gay community situated in the city's Meir park. "The center symbolizes an amazing turning point in the history of the gay community, and our activities will now have fertile ground from which to grow and flourish," Army Radio quoted...
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Friday, May 30
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Source: AFP , Reuters , Associated Press via IHT , The News (Pakistan) ISTANBUL -- A leading Turkish gay rights lobby group vowed Friday to fight a court ruling that ordered its closure after prosecutors accused it of breaching morality and family norms. A Turkish court closed Istanbul's only gay rights association on Thursday after the prosecutor said it broke public morality laws. The prosecutor said that LambdaIstanbul violated a constitutional provision on the protection of the family and an article banning bodies "with objectives that violate law and morality." The court's...
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Tuesday, May 27
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Source: Reuters , Arab News , Khaleej Times , The National Lt Gen Dahi Khalfan Tamim, the Dubai police chief, suggested yesterday that co-ed schooling could be the cause of cross-dressing. photo: Stephen Lock, The National DUBAI -- Calling it part of an "awareness campaign", police in Dubai have arrested several men and women for cross-dressing. Police claim the arrests are part of a campaign aimed mostly at young people to preserve the social values of the cosmopolitan Gulf Arab trade and tourism hub, newspapers reported on Monday. Police said most of those recently arrested were male...
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Monday, May 12
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Source: Scotland on Sunday Glasgow, Scotland -- A gay asylum seeker who fears torture and death if he is deported to Syria, where homosexuality is illegal, is waiting to hear if this week's appeal for leave to stay in Scotland will be granted. At a tribunal that met to consider his case Tuesday, Yakob gave testimony that one supporter called deeply emotional. "Jojo gave evidence and he was very upset," said Rob McDowall of the advocacy group Equal Rights Now. "It was really emotional hearing him tell his story. The Home Office really pushed him and tried to con him into changing...
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Monday, April 28
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Source: Ynet News Local police proudly declared they they had raided and closed down what they called a "brothel" in the Kratyot area in northern Israel, but an gay rights group says what they shut down was a gay sauna that it describes as "a meeting place for men looking to meet men." Israel's Ynetnews.com reports that the Association of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexuals and Trans-genders in Israel ("The Aguda") reacted with anger to the raid, in which 11 men were arrested on suspicion that they had worked in prostitution. The association's chairman, Mike Hammel, said...
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Friday, April 25
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Source: Haaretz , Scopical The State of Israel has agreed for the first time to register an overseas adoption by a gay couple and to grant the child Israeli citizenship, Haaretz reports. The landmark case involves a Cambodia-born boy, now eight years old, who was adopted in 2000 in the United States by two men who hold American and Israeli citizenship. Following his adoption, the boy received American citizenship and was also converted to Judaism. The parents returned to Israel shortly after the adoption, but their applications to the Interior Ministry to recognize the adoption and grant their...
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Thursday, April 24
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Source: Gulf Daily News BAHRAIN'S gay community, human rights activists, and foreign embassies were furious yesterday over a parliamentary campaign to stamp out homosexuality, reports Gulf Daily News , an English-language newspaper in Bahrain. MPs this week demanded that the Interior Ministry stop granting residence permits to foreign homosexuals and that it deport any that are already in the country, as soon as they are detected. Under the proposals, according to a report in Gulf Daily News , students could soon be spied on as part of what some MPs envision as a campaign to "stamp out"...
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Thursday, April 10
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Source: Reuters , Same Same CAIRO -- An Egyptian court on Wednesday convicted and jailed five men arrested on morals charges in what rights groups have described as an escalating crackdown on Egyptians living with HIV. Court sources said the men, four of whom are HIV-positive, were sentenced to three years in jail for the "habitual practice of debauchery", a charge rights groups say is used in Egypt to criminalize consensual homosexual sex acts. "These convictions are clearly based on ignorance and fear of AIDS rather than on any crime committed," said Hossam Bahgat, head of...
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Tuesday, April 08
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Source: Bloomberg Cairo, Egypt -- A series of arrests of gay men are part of an effort by governments throughout the Middle East and North Africa to out-moralize Islamic parties that have denounced the perceived depravity of Arab societies under autocratic rule, Bloomberg reports in an in-depth story on the dangerous phenomenon. For three months, Egyptian police have embarked on periodic sweeps of downtown streets to clear them of presumed homosexuals, Bloomberg's Daniel Williams reports. Homosexuality isn't illegal in Egypt, though it is a convenient target, says Hani Shukrallah, executive...
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Wednesday, March 26
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Source: Guardian's 'Comment is free' by Peter Tatchell [Peter Tatchell is a human rights campaigner, and a member of the queer rights group OutRage! and the left wing of the Green party. He is the Green Party's parliamentary candidate for Oxford East.] George Galloway, the Leftwing member of Parliament from the Respect party, has been accused of making allegations that border on paedophile smears and play to homophobic prejudice. He claims that the boyfriend of gay Iranian asylum seeker Mehdi Kazemi was executed for "committing sex crimes against young men". The insinuation...
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Tuesday, March 25
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Source: YNet News , Israel Today , Independent Online A 33 year-old gay Palestinian man from Jenin in the West Bank has recently been granted a temporary residency permit in Israel by the army -- the IDF, in order to allow him to reunite with his Israeli partner who lives in Tel Aviv. The permit was issued by Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories Maj.-Gen. Yosef Mishlav. Several years ago, the Palestinian applied years ago for an Israeli visa in order to live with his Israeli lover of eight years in Tel Aviv. "We have been asking to be reunited for five years," said...
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Friday, March 21
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Source: New Republic , Stanford Daily Porn star and producer Michael Lucas spoke at Stanford last month about safe sex, but his neocon political views generated controversy both before and during the talk Stanford Daily photo by Mehmet Inonu About 50 students gathered last month at Stanford for a lively, candid discussion with gay pornographic actor, activist and entrepreneur Michael Lucas. During a lengthy question and answer session, students inquired about his personal views and challenged him on his controversial beliefs. Michael Lucas discussed sexual health and AIDS prevention in the adult...
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Thursday, March 06
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Source: YNet News The Tel Aviv District Court sentenced four residents of east Jerusalem to two to eight years in prison Thursday, after they were convicted of the assault and robbery of several young homosexuals in Tel Aviv's old central bus station. According to the indictment, in January 2007, the four scoured the station's area for men seeking to rendezvous with other men, going as far as to place one of them as a decoy. Around 4:30 am, one of the plaintiffs fell for the scam, picked up the man posing as a decoy in his car, and the two made their way to a nearby car park. Once inside...
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Wednesday, February 27
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Source: Haaretz A full dance floor in a South Tel Aviv nightclub, replete with its share of drag queens. Ostensibly another Friday night of gay men having a good time. But this is not an ordinary party of this sort. Palestinians and Jews are dancing together, the music is Arabic, several of the drag performances have a political content, and even the time of night - from the early evening until before midnight - is designed so the celebrants can get home at a reasonable hour without being asked too many questions. The party is taking place as part of the activities of a new association, Al-Qaws...
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Monday, February 25
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Source: AKI - Adnkronos Rome, 25 Feb.(AKI) - Human rights groups scheduled a protest in front of the British Embassy in Rome on Monday, aimed at drawing attention to the plight of a 19-year old Iranian gay man. Seyed Mehdi Kazemi is scheduled to be deported back to his native Iran where he faces the death penalty on account of his sexual orientation. Kazemi reportedly left Tehran in 2005 to study in London and was pressured to apply for asylum in Britain after the alleged discovery by Iranian authorities of his homosexual relationship with another man, known as 'Parvat' who was sentenced...
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Wednesday, February 20
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Source: AP via International Herald Tribune , YNet News , Arutz Sheva , Jerusalem Post JERUSALEM -- An Israeli lawmaker caused a tremor Wednesday when he linked homosexuality and earthquakes. Shlomo Benizri of the ultra-Orthodox Jewish Shas Party, addressed the subject in the course of a debate in the Knesset plenum on earthquake readiness. "I suggest that the Knesset inquire into how it can prevent sodomy and thus save us a lot of earthquakes," Benizri said. He said the way to stop the tremors was for parliament to reverse its trend of liberalizing laws concerning homosexuals. Two quakes...
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Monday, February 18
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Source: Reuters KHARTOUM (Reuters) - When Ali started blogging that he was Sudanese and gay, he did not realize he was joining a band of African and Middle Eastern gays and lesbians who, in the face of hostility and repression, have come out online. Ali, who lists his home town as Khartoum but lives in Qatar, had plugged into a small, self-supporting network of people who have launched Web sites about their sexuality, while keeping their full identity secret. Caution is crucial - homosexual acts are illegal in most countries in Africa and the Middle East, with penalties ranging from long-term imprisonment...
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Friday, February 15
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Source: BBC News , Human Rights Watch press release , and Medical News Today Egyptian police have arrested four more men suspected of being HIV positive, bringing the total detained in a recent crackdown to 12, rights groups say. Human Rights Watch (HRW) said last week that HIV-positive Egyptian men had been chained to hospital beds and forced to undergo tests for the virus. The latest arrests took place after police followed up information coerced from men already detained, HRW said. The Egyptian interior ministry has not responded to the allegations. In a joint press release , Amnesty International...
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Monday, February 11
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Source: Ha'aretz and Reuters JERUSALEM -- Israel's attorney general said on Sunday that same sex-couples will be allowed to adopt children that are not biologically linked to either partner. Meni Mazuz decided that gay adults will be allowed to adopt the biological or adopted child of their partner and, in some cases, even adopt children not connected to them. Courts in the Jewish state in the past have only allowed gay adults to adopt the child of their partner, the justice ministry said. "It was decided there is no legal hindrance from approving same-sex couples, or one of the partners...
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Thursday, January 10
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Source: Middle East Times "We're fighting for equality," said Hagai El-Ad. "But if we do it at the price of collaborating with an oppressive and discriminatory establishment, then we're no better than the millions of other Israelis who've already chosen to become hardened and indifferent to the suffering of the other, of the enemy." One would automatically assume that statement refers to the Palestinians living under Israeli occupation; it is not. Hagai El-Ad is a Jewish gay rights activist. In a region where homosexuality is regarded as something abhorrent and punishable...
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Sunday, December 30
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Source: Daily Star (Beirut) by Christopher Davidson Dubai, United Arab Emirates -- By the close of 2007, contributions from non-oil related sectors of the Dubai economy will account for an estimated 95 percent of the emirate's gross domestic product. As a result, Dubai's is now very much a "post-oil economy" and, on paper at least, would seem to be succeeding with its diversification strategies. Dubai's recent reforms upset the cultural and religious resources of the ruling bargain. With accelerating foreign ownership, and with foreigners beginning to make profits out of activities...
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Sunday, December 30
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Source: Jerusalem Post The battle over homosexuality that has threatened to split the Anglican Communion could be decided at a June meeting in Jerusalem. On December 26, a conservative coalition led by the archbishop of Nigeria, Peter Akinola, announced a June 15-22 conference in the Holy Land to chart the church's future course. Divided into liberal and conservative factions, the 80-million member Anglican Communion is on the verge of breaking up over the consecration in 2003 of a gay priest as bishop of New Hampshire. However, Anglicans are as divided over Israel as they over homosexuality...
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