WATCH: Report Says Alleged Craigslist Killer Was Soliciting Sex From Men, Transsexuals
The bizarre case of alleged Craigslist killer Philip Markoff may have taken a strange turn with new reports that Markoff was trolling Craigslist for sex with men and transsexuals. The “Today Show” filed this report on the new developments, citing documents and an interview with an anonymous man who said that he exchanged explicit photos and messages with Markoff and that Markoff contacted him after the man posted an ad on Craigslist under “M4T,” which stands for male looking for transsexual.
Watch the video report from the “Today Show” below. See WATCH: Report Says Alleged Craigslist Killer Was Soliciting Sex From Men, Transsexuals
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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.”
See
Gays under threat in Senegal
GlobalPost * Tags = gay men gay news lesbian news transgender bisexual
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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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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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“Homosexuality needs to be curbed as it spreads HIV/AIDS” Indian Gvt Says to High Court
NEW DELHI: Justifying criminalisation of homosexuality in the country, the Centre has pleaded before the Delhi High that it is one of the main reasons for spread of HIV/AIDS and needs to be curbed.
In a written submission filed by Additional Solicitor General P P Malhotra, the Centre said that legalising Men having sex with Men (MSM), as pleaded by gay rights activists, would lead to spread of the dreaded disease and placed reports of various countries to substantiate its stand.
“In Zambia, one in three (33%) surveyed men who have sex with men tested HIV-positive. In the Kenyan port city of Mombasa, 43% of men who said they had sex only with other men were found to be living with HIV,” the government said, quoting the United Nations report on Global AIDS Epidemic, 2008.
“In Bangkok, HIV prevalence among men who have sex with men rose from 17% in 2003 to 28% in 2005 and it is estimated that as many as 21% new HIV infections in Thailand in 2005 were attributable to unprotected sex between men,” the Centre said.
The 100-page written submission was filed by the Centre as the court, while reserving the order, had allowed the government to file any additional submission in a written form.
Centre’s response came on a PIL filed by gay rights activists seeking the court’s direction to decriminalise gay sex among consenting adults in private.
At present, homosexuality is an offence in the country and Section 377 of Indian Penal Code provides punishment for up to life imprisonment for engaging in such acts.
See Homosexuality needs to be curbed as it spreads HIV/AIDS: Centre to HC
Times of India, India
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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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IV cases among gay men up
THE number of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infections in the gay community has hit a record high this year.
The surge is driven by MSM (men who have sex with men) who engage in high-risk behaviour such as unprotected sex with multiple partners. It is attributed to several reasons, including a reduced fear of the virus, drug use and rebellion.
Based on numbers released by the Ministry of Health last week, homosexual transmissions accounted for 32 per cent, and bisexual transmissions 5 per cent, of the 153 new HIV cases detected in the first six months of this year. Last year, MSM cases made up 34 per cent of total HIV infections, and in 2001, just 16 per cent.
See IV cases among gay men up
Straits Times, Singapore -
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