Activist’s ‘railroad’ helps gay Iranians
Not quite three years ago, Arsham Parsi was an Iranian refugee in Turkey. Today, he is executive director of the Iranian Queer Railroad, trying to help 200 people down the same road he took to Toronto.
“Every day, people escape, people come here,” he said yesterday in his downtown apartment. “It’s constant, like a railroad, always moving.”
On a recent trip to Turkey, he secured refugee status from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees for 45 Iranian gays, but they are awaiting interviews at the Canadian and U.S. embassies. Parsi, 28, is lobbying on to get them out of Turkey where temporary residents must pay a $200 fee every six months.
“People in Turkey say they’re not homophobic and I say, `You’ve living in Istanbul. When you leave Istanbul, it’s different.’ Gays have been beaten on the streets in Turkey and the police do nothing.”
Canada, the U.S. and Australia are the likely destinations for gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgendered people on his “railroad,” because those countries recognize the kind of persecution they face in Iran, where President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said there are no gays.
Iran is one of 86 countries around the world that still declare homosexuality a crime and punish it with prison or death.
Parsi was still in Iran when he became an activist in 2001, first starting a clandestine online chat group for fellow gays, then an organization. He left when he heard government officials were hunting him.
Since arriving in Toronto in 2006, Parsi has been a guest speaker at the UN Human Rights Council and his activism earned him awards last year from the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission and Pride Toronto.
See Activist’s ‘railroad’ helps gay Iranians
Toronto Star, Canada
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Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/01/activists-rai…
SENEGAL: Jailing of gay activists sets back AIDS fight
The men, who were involved in providing HIV prevention, care and treatment services to Senegal’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community, have been sentenced to eight years in prison.
Homosexuality is punishable by up to five years in prison, according to the Senegalese penal code. In this case, the judge added three years for criminal conspiracy.
In a statement released last week, the International AIDS Society, which promotes new HIV research and best practice and is the custodian of the International AIDS Conference, and the Society for AIDS in Africa (SAA), which works to slow the spread of HIV, said criminalising and discriminating against any group of individuals only served to fuel the HIV epidemic by denying services and relevant prevention messages.
“The arrest of these men, based purely on their sexual orientation represents a major setback for the Senegalese response to HIV, which is widely viewed as a model in Africa,” said Joanna Mangueira, President of the SAA.
Cheikh Niang, professor of anthropology at Cheikh Anta Diop University in Dakar, the Senegalese capital, and author of studies on AIDS and sexuality in the country, agreed that jailing the activists was “counterproductive”.
“The severity of the sentence has created an atmosphere of panic amongst the associations that are working on HIV prevention and treatment with men who have sex with men (MSM),” he told IRIN/PlusNews.
Michel Bourelly of AIDES, an international organisation working with men who have sex with men in Senegal, said gay activists had gone into hiding or fled the country since the judgement. “Everything has stopped. The associations that provide HIV/AIDS services for homosexuals and MSM are too scared to work.”
Contradictions
According to Bourelly, the men were arrested while attending a meeting on HIV prevention. Brochures, condoms and model penises were confiscated as pornographic material.
“The condoms that were considered pornographic material during the trial were provided by the Senegalese government,” he pointed out.
A young gay member of an HIV/AIDS organisation serving MSM in Senegal, who did not want to be named, confirmed that intolerance of homosexuality had risen.
“Physical violence is more common now. Before we had groups which helped us – they gave us the courage to meet. We would do work on prevention, but now it’s too dangerous,” he said.
The jailed men were detained just two weeks after Senegal hosted the International Conference on AIDS and STIs in Africa (ICASA), where speakers emphasised the importance of addressing the needs of sexual minorities in African AIDS programming. Over 50 gay activists attended.
In an interview with IRIN/PlusNews in November 2008, Souleymane Mboup, President of ICASA, said MSM were a reality in Africa that could not be ignored.
“This is a question that we cannot run away from if we want to advance [the fight against HIV],” he said. “Many countries, including Senegal, must open their eyes and learn. We must think about which strategies to adopt.”
In 2007 the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria granted Senegal US$32 million to strengthen its HIV/AIDS response. Part of the grant was earmarked for targeting “vulnerable groups”, including MSM, with prevention campaigns, condoms and MSM-friendly clinics over the next five years.
“Senegal has been given considerable sums of money to address the needs of MSM in its national AIDS programme,” said Bourelly. “But now they are jailing the people they are supposed to be targeting.”
No one from the National AIDS Committee, one of the two principal recipients of the Global Fund grant, was available for comment. Abdoulaye Wade, director of the AIDS division at the Ministry of Health, told IRIN/PlusNews that the government continued to provide HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment services for MSM, but did not elaborate on what those services were.
Regressive
Joel Nana, advocacy director at the South African office of the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC), said Senegal had been praised for its progressive and inclusive HIV/AIDS programmes in the past.
“Senegal was the first country in Africa to address MSM in HIV programming, so this [judgment] is really a step backwards,” he told IRIN/PlusNews.
While Senegal has maintained a low HIV prevalence of about one percent in the general population, official data and studies conducted at Cheikh Anta Diop University suggest that about 21.5 percent of MSM were HIV positive in 2005. The studies also found that over 80 percent of MSM had female as well as male partners.
“It is a considerable error to think that this is just a homosexual problem,” said Bourelly. “Most MSM have had, or continue to have, sex with women, so the impact of effectively shutting down MSM programmes will be considerable on the general population.”
Human rights groups and AIDS organisations are calling for the immediate release of the nine imprisoned men, and for a change in Senegal’s penal code. Niang agreed that it was time to debate the merits of the law.
“There is no point in saying that men who have sex with men do not exist in our societies,” he said. “It exists and it is an ancient phenomenon. By ignoring its existence we will not respond appropriately [to the HIV epidemic].”
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Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/01/senegal-jaili…
Activists Express Concern Over Sentencing of Gay Men in Senegal
Just one month after gay activists from around the world gathered at the International African AIDS conference in Dakar, a Senegalese judge has sentenced nine men to long prison terms for homosexual activity.
The men were arrested last month at the home of Diadji Diouf, a prominent gay activist and head of the non-profit organization, AIDES Senegal, which provides HIV education and counseling.
The nine men were each sentenced to eight years in prison last week. Joel Nana of the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission in Cape Town says the ruling was a big step backwards in the fight for gay rights in Africa.
“It was a surprise to me because Senegal is a country that is very progressive among African countries and actually the first country in Africa to address HIV in communities of men who have sex with men,” said Nana. “This is a country where we thought there were some achievements, but having such a judgment brings us backward.” See Activists Express Concern Over Sentencing of Gay Men in Senegal
Voice of America
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African taboos surrounding gays hamper access to HIV/AIDS programs AFP
n a continent where 38 out of 53 countries have criminalised consensual gay sex, African gays and lesbians have trouble getting access to HIV/AIDS programs, activists warned.
Gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender activists took centre stage Thursday at the 15th International Conference on AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Infections in Africa (ICASA), the first ICASA to give such attention to the specific problems of sexual minorities.
“Homophobia fuels the spread of AIDS. In Africa main stream HIV/AIDS and human rights organisations do not want to address the issue mainly because homosexuality is still illegal in most countries,” Joel Nana, program associate Southern and West Africa for the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC), said.
In fact just identifying people as gay or lesbian is very sensitive in Africa and NGO’s at ICASA prefer to speak of men who have sex with men (MSM) or women who have sex with women (WSW) to avoid stigmatisation.
“In Africa there are many men here who have sex with men but are married and do not identify as gay,” Boris Dittrich, the Human Rights Watch advocacy director of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender program told AFP.
“There is research that shows that vulnerable groups like men who have sex with men, sex workers and intravenous drug users are not being reached because their behaviour is criminalized,” he said.
Nana cited research that showed that in Africa men who have sex with men are nine times more vulnerable to contracting HIV that the general population.
Still the associations all stress that just their being here at the conference is a sign that there is progress, albeit slow.
See African taboos surrounding gays hamper access to HIV/AIDS programs AFP
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Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2008/12/african-taboo…
