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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Shanghai Journal Gay Festival in China Pushes Official Boundaries New York Times
SHANGHAI — It was shortly after the “hot body” contest and just before a painted procession of Chinese opera singers took the stage that the police threatened to shut down China’s first gay pride festival. The authorities had already forced the cancellation of a play, a film screening and a social mixer, so when an irritated plainclothes officer arrived at the Saturday afternoon gala and flashed his badge, organizers feared the worst.
After some fraught negotiations, Hannah Miller, an American teacher who helped put together the weeklong festival, agreed to limit the crowds, keep the noise down and, most important, “not let anything happen that might embarrass the government,” she explained after returning from the impromptu sidewalk meeting. “That was a close call,” she said.
Crisis averted, the party continued.
And so it went for Shanghai Pride week, a delicately orchestrated series of private events that revealed how far China’s gay community had come, and how much further it had to go. In the 12 years since homosexuality was decriminalized in China, there has been an unmistakable blossoming of gay life, even if largely underground. Most big cities have gay bars, and social networking sites ease the isolation of those living in China’s rural hinterland. Antigay violence is virtually unheard of.
But official tolerance has its limits. Gay publications and plays are banned, gay Web sites are occasionally blocked and those who try to advocate for greater legal protections for lesbians and gay men sometimes face harassment from the police. For years, movie buffs in Beijing have tried, and failed, to get permission for a gay film festival.
This month, public security officials forced Wan Yanhai, a prominent advocate on gay issues, including AIDS, to leave Beijing for a week because they feared he might cause trouble during the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown.
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Chinese director Lou Ye braves ban risk at Cannes
Chinese director Lou Ye brushed off fears he may face problems with the authorities when he returns home after showing his new film “Spring Fever” at the Cannes film festival.
The film, a graphic drama that deals with the taboo subject of homosexuality, was shot in secret after officials slapped a five-year banning order on Lou preventing him from making films following his last feature “Summer Palace.”
That film, shown in Cannes in 2006, examined the protest movement that led to the brutal repression in Tiananmen Square in 1989 and earned Lou international acclaim as well as ostracism from the official world of Chinese cinema.
But speaking on Thursday after the press screening of “Spring Fever,” he played down the furor that has surrounded both the film’s subject matter and his problems with the powerful Chinese Film Office.
See Chinese director Lou Ye braves ban risk at Cannes
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