Cracks in the System: Iran There and Gay Rights Here

Originally published on June 18, 2009 by Yo Mama For Obama

This post will be a continuation of my last one, dealing with the people’s insurgency in Iran and the fight for equal rights here in America.

yomamaforobama’s diary :: ::

No surprise: it is being reported that Ayatollah Khamenei’s rival Mullah, Rafsanjani, will be supporting the massive protest in Iran today. Quite frankly, this election dispute is a contest, a personal power struggle, between the two Ayatollahs. Whether we have Ahmadinejad or Mousavi as figurehead Presidents is almost immaterial. Their ideology and politics are essentially the same, although Ahmadinejad’s incendiary fervor is definitely off the deep end. Their underlying beliefs, both national and international, are identical. It is the Mullahs who rule Iran. The people’s protests must move from election fraud to throwing out the corrupt clerics who rule Iran.

Dan Rather was on MSNBC yesterday, and he was not very optimistic about the outcome of this Iran uprising. He said that similar to this uprising, the Czech revolt of 1956, the Chinese attempt at protest in Tiananmen Square in 1989 and the attempted battle for freedom in Burma in 2007 were all crushed by their respective governments. Included in these assaults on the protesters were serious, and successful, attempts to quash any media reports of the protests plus the government’s retaliatory responses. True: in 1956, we did not have the internet, cell phones or Twitter. Basically the same holds true for 1989. Nonetheless, the media were thrown out of those countries and thus any reports of the events were not forthcoming. So is Iran trying to play that same game today. Not only have reporters been warned off covering the disputed elections, but Iran has cut off most access to the internet and cell phones. But long live Twitter: they can not shut off that service. Not yet. Our very own State Department has requested, and been granted, that Twitter defer their shutdown for maintenance scheduled for this week so that the world can have some access to the events in Iran. As Hillary Clinton said recently, and I paraphrase, “I don’t know a Twitter from a Tweeter, but Twitter has been a window to the world as to what is going on in Iran.” In the New York Times today, Op-Ed contributor, Nicholas Kristof equates “tweets” as the bullets of modern warfare.

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Global video mashup for International Day Against Homophobia & Transphobia 2009 hits the Internet

359 people from 48 countries take part in massive global web video project to mark the IDAHO 2009

A global project to create a public awareness video for the International Day Against Homophobia & Transphobia (IDAHO) on May 17 has attracted the participation of 359 people from 48 countries across six continents around the world. The groundbreaking project is a joint undertaking of the Paris-based IDAHO Committee and the social network Gays.com, attracting 50,000 people to its website within a month.

Said Louis-Georges Tin, founder of the IDAHO committee, “We are overwhelmed and, at the same time, humbled by this torrent of enthusiastic support that has poured in from all four corners of the world since we kickstarted the video project in April. People have made the effort to go to such places as the Statue of Liberty, the Great Wall of China, the Sydney Opera House, the Golden Gate Bridge, the Merlion, the Petronas Twin Towers and the Eiffel Tower to shoot their video, contributing to the spectacular visual feast you see in the mashup.”

In April, members of the global LGBT community were invited to step out in front of the camera and in their own language introduce themselves, state where they are from and how proud they are to be gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender. The result is a video that sends the powerful message that LGBT individuals are present in every country, every society and every corner of the world. Participants submitted videos in all of the world’s key languages, including Afrikaans, Arabic, Cantonese, English, French, German, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Malay, Mandarin, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Tamil and even American Sign Language.

In addition to the groundswell of support from local communities from around the globe, renowned celebrities, activists, politicians and web personalities have also participated in the project. These include (in alphabetical order):

Ali Hili: Gay Iraqi activist now living in exile in London and founder of the Iraqi-LGBT group
ANT: Host of VH1 reality series Celebrity Fit Club and U.S. of ANT on MTV’s LOGO channel
Lizzy the Lezzy: Animated lesbian standup comedy character with a cult following on Youtube
Michael Buckley: Celebrity host of the entertainment show What the Buck, the 5th most subscribed comedy channel of all time on Youtube
Michael Kauch: German member of parliament and coordinator of the gay and lesbian policy for the Free Democratic Party
Stephen Williams: British Liberal Democrat member of parliament for Bristol West

Said Kenneth Tan, spokesperson for Gays.com, “Much has been said about Stonewall 2.0 and netroots activism since the Proposition 8 vote against gay marriage in California. This project was made possible only by the Internet, and we believe there are a limitless number of opportunities for the LGBT community to harness the power of the Internet to educate, raise awareness, promote equality, and to debunk myths. We have been honoured to partner with the IDAHO Committee in the execution of such an amazing project.”

Prior to the launch of the video, Gays.com announced that it experienced a massive distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack which began at approximately 3.50am Hong Kong time on May 15, 2009, causing the entire website to be inaccessible.

A distributed denial of service attack occurs when a multitude of systems attempt to flood the bandwidth or resources of a targeted system with illegitimate website requests. The flood of traffic by these requests cause the Internet bandwidth of the attacked site to be consumed to such an extent that the website is inaccessible to other legitimate users.

Said Kenneth Tan, Gays.com spokesperson, “The timing of this DDoS attack on Gays.com is by no means a coincidence. We have been working for weeks on this high profile video campaign together with the Committee for the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia. The final product of this campaign, a public awareness video, was going to be launched on the campaign site at http://gays.com/idaho on Sunday. This is a well-timed, well-orchestrated assault by a large botnet with tens of thousands of PCs sending requests to our site. Engineers with our Internet Service Provider remarked they have never seen an attack of this intensity before. We deplore these unscrupulous actions by an organised group to harrass, intimidate and silence us for what we are doing.”

Added Tan, “Our technical staff are now working round the clock to restore services to legitimate users. In the meanwhile, we are going through our access logs, gathering information through various mechanisms and connecting the dots to identify the origin of the attacks. We will be working with law enforcement officials to bring the cyberterrorists to justice.”

The video “IDAHO 2009: One Voice, One Message, Heard Around the World” is now accessible at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2Rp8ep_ezE

The Committee for the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia (IDAHO) is a network of activists, present in over 50 countries, who seek to promote the idea of an international day against homophobia and transphobia. This day has been recognized officially by a number of governments around the world and provides an opportunity for the LGBT movement across the world to unite in a powerful demonstration of collective visibility.

Gays.com was designed for members of the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community as the world’s first LGBT social networking website that designed for real people with real names an real world connections. The site aims to build an authentic social environment that helps people maintain their relationships with people they actually know. Launched in May 2008, Gays.com is headquartered in Hong Kong with a development team spread between Shanghai, China and Bielefeld, Germany.

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New UN plan to boost HIV services targets gay men and transgender people

Two United Nations agencies are launching a plan to provide increased HIV-related information and health services to men who have sex with men and transgender populations, while stressing the need to make universal access to treatment, care and support a reality for all.
The initiative, spearheaded by the Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and the UN Development Programme (UNDP), comes ahead of the International Day Against Homophobia, observed on 17 May.
“The case is clear and urgent,” said Jeffery O’Malley, Director of UNDP’s HIV group. “If we are going to make universal access for sexual minorities a meaningful reality, we must work towards ending homophobia and transphobia. We must address the legal and policy barriers.”
In a news release issued today, the agencies noted that in many parts of the world, HIV prevalence among men who have sex with men is more than 20 times higher than in the general population.
In addition, studies show that HIV prevention services reach only one tenth to one third of people who engage in male homosexual activity. At the same time, there is growing evidence that the majority of new infections in many urban areas are among men who have sex with men.
“Yet, these same groups have limited access to HIV-related information and health services due to discrimination, violence, marginalization and other human rights violations,” the agencies stated. “In many countries, they still face criminal sanctions and lack access to justice.”
Paul De Lay, acting Deputy Executive Director at UNAIDS, stressed the need for rigorous monitoring by countries of the evolution of their epidemics, and for tailoring national responses to the needs of those most at risk.
“In many settings this will be men who have sex with men,” he said, adding that responses must be based on local epidemiological and social realities to be effective.
The plan being launched – the UNAIDS Action Framework: Universal Access for Men who have Sex with Men and Transgender People – outlines several factors that impede access to HIV services, such as unwillingness on the part of governments and donors to invest in the sexual health of sexual minorities.
It also sets out how UNAIDS will work towards achieving universal access through three main objectives – improving human rights, strengthening the evidence base through better data, and reinforcing capacity and promoting partnerships to ensure broader and better responses.
In a message to mark the International Day, UNAIDS Executive Director Michel Sidibé called for greater efforts to end homophobia and ensure the barriers that stop access to HIV services are removed.
“I urge all governments to take steps to eliminate stigma and discrimination faced by men who have sex with men, lesbians and transgender populations. They must also create social and legal environments that ensure respect for human rights and enable universal access to HIV prevention, treatment, care and support,” he stated.
Mr. Sidibé added that while governments committed in the 2006 UN Political Declaration on HIV/AIDS to removing legal barriers and passing laws to protect vulnerable populations, more than 80 countries still have legislation that prohibits same sex behaviour.
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Gays under threat in Senegal

DAKAR, Senegal — A mob gathered near a mosque outside Dakar. They were there to hunt down and kill nine men accused of homosexual acts.

Earlier this week the nine Senegalese AIDS activists were freed from eight-year-prison terms for alleged homosexual acts, but they went into hiding because of death threats from Muslim religious leaders and the general population.

“The homosexuals will not escape lynching. They will be fish food,” Dakar newspaper L’Observeur quoted a local youth leader as saying.

“Gay men will never be free in Senegal. They expose us all to danger,” said Imam Mbaye Niang, a prominent religious leader and member of parliament. “The judges should understand that Senegalese people need to protect their children, their families from homosexuality.”

In Senegal — where 95 percent of the population is Muslim — homosexual acts are punishable by fines and up to five years in prison. In January, the nine men received the harshest sentence yet for such an offense in Senegal, getting the maximum of five years and an additional three for criminal conspiracy.

Though widely supported in Senegal, the conviction was condemned by international human rights groups and foreign governments, most notably France.

“They were judged and condemned very severely, surely on the basis of public outcry, therefore the justice was neither objective nor founded in law,” said lead defense attorney Barim Sassoum Sy, who called the initial ruling hasty and emotional.

A Dakar appeals court overturned that decision Monday, citing violations of legal protocol.

Acting on an anonymous tip, police had arrested the men — most of whom do HIV prevention work in the “men having sex with men” community — in December at the home of a prominent gay activist. But the police did not have a search warrant, nor did they catch the men in the act, which is required by the Senegalese law prohibiting “indecent acts against nature.” The judge hearing the appeal therefore declared their convictions null and void, Sy said.

Yet even as smiling attorneys and supporters celebrated in the packed courtroom Monday and exchanged congratulations, plans were already in place to get the freed men into hiding outside Dakar.

“The first judge sentenced them to eight years,” said Imam Niang. “He had the courage to say it. The judge that let them go was much less courageous. He yielded to international pressure.”

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Gays under threat in Senegal

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Africa Senegal: Court Frees 9 Gay Men

An appeals court on Monday freed nine gay men who had been convicted of “unnatural acts” earlier this year, in a case that drew international condemnation from human rights groups and foreign governments. Senegal, predominantly Muslim, criminalizes homosexuality like dozens of other African nations. The men were arrested in December at the home of a prominent gay activist and sentenced to eight years in prison. See Africa Senegal: Court Frees 9 Gay Men

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