Moscow threatens Pride crackdown
Great Britain’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office recently released new guidelines for gay travelers in Russia, advising that visitors to Moscow should be aware of possible violence at a planned gay-pride march.
Moscow is preparing to break up any gay-pride marches planned for May 16.
Mayor Yury Luzhkov’s press secretary said on May 7 that the city has once again turned down an application to hold a pride march.
“Representatives of the gay movement are threatening to hold their action on May 16 regardless of whether they have permission for it or not, without any consideration for the opinions of the public majority,” Sergei Tsoi said. “The Moscow government is declaring that there has never been and never will be a gay parade in Moscow.”
He added that gay events were “not only destroying the moral foundations of our society, but deliberately provoking disorder, threatening the lives and security of Muscovites and guests to the capital.”
Russian gay-rights movement leader Nikolai Alexeyev is planning to hold a pride march before the city hosts the Eurovision final. He has said he expects up to 500 people to join the parade, named Slavic Pride, despite official threats to close down any march.
He said he asked city authorities for permission to hold the march but added that 100 activists were prepared to disobey officials and risk prosecution by marching anyway.
In May 2006, more than 120 people were arrested after campaigners attempted to hold the capital’s first gay-rights rally.
Luzhkov has branded gay parades “satanic” in the past.
Hungary domestic partnerships OK’d
Hungary’s official government publication has announced that gay couples will be able to register domestic partnerships beginning July 1.
The official bulletin said a new law will allow the partnership if both partners are at least 18 years old. The law will prohibit same-sex couples from adopting children together, but will require partners to provide care for each other’s children from earlier relationships if the children are recognized as belonging to the partnership.
The bill was approved by parliament in April and signed by President Laszlo Solyom in early May.
In December, Hungary’s Constitutional Court annulled a similar law on domestic partnerships because it applied to heterosexual couples as well, thereby “downgrading” the institution of marriage.
Russian lesbian couple denied marriage license
A lesbian couple who applied for a marriage license in Russia have had their application rejected.
Gay-rights activists Irina Fedotova and Irina Shipitko received a handwritten rejection letter from an official at the central Moscow registry office on May 11.
Gay marriage is illegal in Russia and the couple had expected their application to be refused.
Standing outside the registry office in suits and holding flowers, the couple vowed to continue to fight to have their relationship recognized and plan to marry in Canada.
Activists said Russian law recognizes marriages from other countries, but a loophole means it does not specify gender.
“Canada and Norway are the only countries which opened same-sex marriage to non-residents,” said Nikolai Alexeyev, the couple’s legal advisor. “We initially considered flying the couple to Norway but the procedure is long and fastidious. Instead, we decided to register them in Toronto under Canadian laws.”
Man charged for unprotected sex
A Toronto man has been charged with attempted murder and aggravated assault for allegedly having unprotected sex with another man and not disclosing his HIV-positive status.
Sahand Mahmoodi, 28, appeared briefly in court May 8 to hear the charges. He was remanded to custody as he awaits trial.
He was arrested on May 6 after the man with whom he had sex filed a complaint, police said. Detective Brad Stapleton declined to say if the complainant had become HIV-positive. The men met online on a gay chat site.
Mahmoodi has been HIV-positive since 2000, said Stapleton, adding that police believe he has been sexually active without telling partners he has the virus.
Stapleton said Mahmoodi is a regular in Toronto’s gay village and urged others who may have come in contact with him to contact police and get tested for HIV/AIDS.
Under Canadian law, it is a criminal offense for anyone with HIV not to disclose his or her status before engaging in unprotected sex. About 80 arrests have been made over the past decade.
But many people working with HIV/AIDS patients are critical of police pressing charges, fearing it will dissuade the population from getting tested. They also raise concerns that the law is not well-defined.
“Where is this law going? When are uncertainties in the law going to be addressed?” posed Alison Symington, a senior policy analyst with the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network. “This area of law has been escalating and developing over the past few years with no public policy debate, no research backing it up, nothing to show how it’s been effective.”
But other AIDS specialists disagree.
Dr. Philip Berger, an associate professor of medicine at the University of Toronto, said people must be held accountable if they deliberately infect someone else.
Activists fight Lebanese laws
The Arab region’s only overt gay-rights organization, based in Lebanon, is slowly making progress in preventing discrimination and violence despite the killings of gay men in recent months.
The group, Helem, is preparing for a campaign to overturn the law that makes homosexuality illegal.
Helem organized what may have been the only gay-rights protest in the Arab world when, in February, nearly two-dozen gays and lesbians waved rainbow flags in a downtown Beirut square, carrying banners demanding equal rights. They protested what they said was the beating of two gay men by police.
It has been several years since a man was thrown in prison for being gay, said Helem activist Charbel Maydaa. But Lebanon’s Article 534, which prohibits having sexual relations that “contradict the laws of nature,” remains a threat.
“One of the major problems we face is that some parents threaten their gay children with Article 534,” he said.
Helem is treading carefully. The group, founded in 2004, is talking with legal experts on how to approach lawmakers and lobby to have Article 534 abolished. Helem members would not comment on how they intend to carry out the campaign.
The region has seen a recent spike in killings of gay men, which some blame on the influence of Islamic extremists.
Governments have also conducted occasional crackdowns on gays and almost all countries in the region have laws banning sexual relations “against nature,” which are used to prosecute gays.
Boy George released
Singer Boy George was released from prison on May 11 after serving only four months of his 15-month sentence for falsely imprisoning a male prostitute.
The judge at Snaresbrook Crown Court in London said the star, whose real name is George O’Dowd, had used “gratuitous violence” in his attack on Audun Carlsen, a 29-year-old sex worker.
He was convicted of false imprisonment by a jury on Dec. 5.
The singer had said he met Carlsen previously but had asked him back to his Shoreditch apartment because he believed Carlsen had tampered with his computer.
Carlsen said he was attacked, dragged across the floor by O’Dowd, handcuffed to a wall by the bed and beaten with a chain until he managed to flee.
O’Dowd denied the charges but chose not to give evidence in his own defense.
Larry Nichols can be reached at [email protected].