GT Blog - Peter Tatchell / Human Rights Activist News Wire

London's Mayoral Election

Peter Tatchell / Human Rights Activist News Wire — 2008-4-30

Peter Tatchell says vote Green

Saudi Arabia: stop persecuting queers

Peter Tatchell / Human Rights Activist News Wire — 2007-10-17

Gay men sentenced to 7,000 lashes...

Protest against potential death sentences...

Ugandan gays demand freedom

Peter Tatchell / Human Rights Activist News Wire — 2007-9-21

The quest for gay rights is a challenge to Uganda's increasingly authoritarian church and state

Britain’s Asylum Shame

Peter Tatchell / Human Rights Activist News Wire — 2007-9-7

The UK's asylum system is rigged to fail as many applicants as possible. It is unjust, chaotic and inhumane.

Among the frequent victims are lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) refugees who have fled extreme, Violent persecution in countries like Pakistan, Uganda, Iran, Somalia, Iraq, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Jamaica, Cameroon and Palestine.

The recent attempted deportation of the Iranian lesbian refugee, Pegah Emambakhsh, is typical of the inhumanities of Britain's asylum system.

Innocent asylum applicants who have committed no crime, including children, are held in asylum detention centres. They are detained like common criminals in prison-like conditions, pending a ruling on their claims. Some spend several months, or even a year or more, in detention. Those detained have fewer legal rights than a person charged with murder or rape.

Refugee agencies report persistent allegations of mistreatment in the detention centres; including allegations of racist and homophobic abuse, sexual harassment, physical assaults, deficient medical care and restricted access to legal representatives. Detained victims of torture often get little or no treatment and counselling, which prolongs their suffering and trauma.

Many asylum judges show little understanding of LGBT issues. They assume that if a person has been married they cannot be gay. This ignores the fact that in many traditional African, Asian and Middle Eastern societies LGBT people Get married because of family pressures and community expectations. Judges sometimes acknowledge that a person
has suffered homophobic or transphobic persecution, but still reject their application for asylum. They tell them it is safe for them to return to their home country because they can change their name, move to a remote region where no one knows them, and they can abstain from sex. This way, the judges argue, no one will ever know they are gay
and they will therefore not suffer further persecution!

The 'fast-track' asylum processing system does not give applicants adequate time to prepare their claims and gather corroborating medical and human rights evidence. Moreover, cuts in legal aid mean that solicitors no longer receive sufficient funding to prepare fully documented asylum applications. Not surprisingly, many asylum claims fail. This results in genuine refugees being labelled as bogus and deported back to their home countries to face further persecution.

There are reports of asylum deportees being violently restrained and incapacitated to force them onto planes. When they get back to their countries of origin, some are arrested, jailed and tortured, despite Home Office assurances that it was safe for them to return.

This is the harsh, cruel reality of the asylum system. The Labour government's priority is to cut asylum numbers, with little concern for the merits of individual cases. It is a policy devoid of justice or compassion.

To view the programme to go with this article, click on this link:

http://doughty.gdbtv.com/player.php?h=f443ae4648be7d8b1e85c66d6816fff3

Note:

Talking With Tatchell is broadcast every Friday night at 8.30pm on the internet TV channel, www.18doughtystreet.com

Figures of disgrace

Peter Tatchell / Human Rights Activist News Wire — 2007-8-24

The government's 'success' in cutting asylum numbers is down to its
shameless rigging of the system to ensure many applicants fail

Originally in the Guardian, at http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/peter_tatchell/2007/08/figures_of_disgrace.html

In order to appease the anti-asylum vote and attempt to meet its
asylum reduction targets, the UK government has deliberately erected
so many obstacles to claiming asylum that even genuine refugees are
nowadays labelled as bogus and deported.

Home Office Minister Tony McNulty
(http://www.theyworkforyou.com/mp/tony_mcnulty/harrow_east)
has announced, with a fanfare of pride and publicity, that in 2006 the
government cut the number of asylum applications and increased the
number of deportations.

Asylum applications have dropped to the lowest level for 14 years,
with the number of people applying for refugee status in the UK
falling to 23,610 in 2006. Statistics show deportations in the second
quarter of 2007 fell by 6% compared with the same period last year.
But the overall trend of the last year is that the number of asylum
seekers deported from the UK rose by 17% in 2006; with deportations
totalling 18,280.

Labour and the Daily Mail are jumping for joy. For the many genuine
refugees who are wrongly branded by the Home Office as "failed" asylum
seekers, this get tough policy is a humanitarian disaster. Some are
being sent back to countries where they are at risk of arrest, jail,
torture, vigilante attacks, death squads and worse.

The truth is that much of the government's "success" in cutting asylum
numbers and hiking deportations is because it has shamelessly rigged
the asylum system to ensure the failure of as many applicants as
possible.

This is a cynical, ruthless, immoral policy – devoid of compassion and
humanity. Labour's pride in its rigged asylum system is one reason why
so many people, like me, have left Labour in droves. We can no longer
stomach this heartless, dishonest government, which brags that it
deports one asylum seeker "every eight minutes."

I have no objection to the removal of people who make false,
fraudulent claims. There are some bogus claimants who abuse the
system. Their applications should be rejected. But I know from
firsthand experience that many genuine refugees get labelled by the
Home Office as crooks and charlatans.

I have assisted asylum applicants for over 20 years – not only gays
and lesbians, but also people who have suffered political and
religious persecution. In the last couple of years alone, I have
helped over 100 refugees who were declared by the government to be
"not genuine." With my help, and the assistance of others, all but two
of these applicants were eventually able to corroborate their
harrowing accounts of brutalities such as imprisonment, torture, rape
and the murder of their loved ones.

The fact is that many, if not most, asylum applications "fail" because
of poor or non-existent legal representation, not because the claims
are unfounded.

A majority of the asylum seekers who contacted me had no solicitors.
They had been abandoned. A few never had solicitors in the first
place. With no legal representation, and often speaking little or no
English, no wonder they failed at their first attempt to get asylum.

Apart from two claimants, all the asylum applicants I have supported
had no income and were dependent on legal aid. A dwindling number of
legal aid solicitors do a good job. Many let down their clients. Some
are third rate and incompetent or, more usually, they are under-funded
and over-burdened with asylum claims.

The Home Office has a list of legal aid solicitors it recommends to
asylum claimants. It just so happens that most of these firms have a
high failure rate, which is very convenient for a government hell-bent
on slashing asylum numbers.

The talk on the asylum street is that shoddy solicitors gravitate to
asylum work because it is easy pickings, with little competition from
first-rate lawyers. It certainly looks that way from my experience.

In one case with which I was involved, a Home Office-approved legal
aid practitioner acting for ex-Soviet bloc asylum applicants was so
incompetent that I had to advise him on basic points of law.

Cuts in legal aid funding mean that many reputable solicitors no
longer take on asylum cases. They say it is impossible to do a decent
job representing asylum applicants with such miserable levels of
funding.

All the solicitors I have spoken to agree that the number of hours
paid by legal aid for the preparation of each asylum application is
insufficient. It does not cover all the work required to produce a
professional application or appeal.

The preparation of a proper asylum case involves a solicitor taking a
detailed statement from the applicant, which can be especially slow
and laborious because many applicants do not speak English and are
deeply traumatised due to torture or to the murder of their friends
and family.

Case preparation also involves securing corroborating affidavits from
witnesses and family members in far-flung countries, obtaining expert
reports from academics and human rights groups, organising medical
examinations and documentation to confirm assault and torture, and
researching the legal basis of the claim and the relevant case law.

The government expects legal aid solicitors to be able to do all this
with a mere few hours work. In most cases, this is impossible. The
wholly inadequate legal aid fees mean that most asylum applicants
never have their case adequately presented to the Home Office – which
is the way the government likes it, because it increases the "fail"
rate and boosts deportations.

The under-funding of legal aid asylum cases means that many reputable
law firms have pulled out of asylum work. A few firms struggle on
heroically, doing good quality legal aid asylum work at a financial
loss.

This leaves the field open to less scrupulous solicitors. Some see
asylum applicants as cash cows. They know the legal aid money is
inadequate. They realise they won't be able to prepare a proper claim.
But they just take the money and a present half-baked submission on
behalf of their client.

The legal aid solicitor for one of my Palestinian claimants
represented her at an asylum hearing based on a 20 minute interview
conducted one hour before the case began. This was not long enough to
document her full story, let alone get any supportive evidence. At the
hearing, key aspects of her persecution as a Muslim woman were never
heard and no corroborating documentation was presented. No wonder she
"failed."

One Iranian I am assisting is represented by a firm of legal aid
solicitors recommended by the Home Office. They told him they did not
"have time" to record his story of persecution and, anyway, it was
"too complicated". Without the applicant's approval, they presented an
asylum tribunal with a plausible - but entirely fictitious - story,
which had nothing to do with his actual experience of human rights
abuses in Iran. I can only assume that this firm also presents bogus
evidence in other "complicated" cases. The Home Office under-funding
of legal aid encourages such abuses. It is an open invitation to
unscrupulous laws firms to take short-cuts and manipulate the system.

The whole asylum process is rigged to fail as many applicants as
possible. The government's Fast-Track system is designed to speed up
the processing of claims and expedite the removal of "failed" asylum
seekers. A solicitor assigned to a new claimant often gets less than
24 hours notice of their client's Home Office hearing. Unsurprisingly,
the refusal rate is high. If the claim is refused, the appeal can be
scheduled for as little as a week or so later – which is rarely enough
time to get additional supportive evidence.

My experience is not untypical. Similar complaints about the asylum
system are reported by other organisations working with asylum
applicants, such as the National Coalition of Anti-Deportation
Campaigns, Bail Circle, and the London Detainees Support Group.

Home Office ministers like Tony McNulty cannot claim they are unaware
that the asylum system is rigged to fail as many applicants as
possible. They cannot plead ignorance about the woeful inadequacy of
legal aid funding. If they don't know, they should know. It is their
responsibility. If they do know, why are they allowing it to continue?

Fundraiser for the Peter Tatchell Human Rights Fund

Peter Tatchell / Human Rights Activist News Wire — 2007-7-10

Moroccan Mirage
The Official Launch Party of
Bouga Cocktail Lounge

Supporting the Peter Tatchell Human Rights Fund

8pm till 3am, Wednesday 25th July 2007
Bouga Cocktail Lounge, 1 Park Road, London, N8 8TE

DJ Steve Andrews

Dress Code: Summer Casual

Attendees include Peter Tatchell, Right Said Fred, Scooch, Keith Levene, The
Cheeky Girls, Danny Rhodes, Naomi Millbank Smith, Emma B, Cassie Sumner,
Baroness Young Of Hornsey, Carol Thatcher, Leee John, Alicia Douvall, Janina
Washington and other celebs TBA

Join them at Bouga to celebrate culture, equality and humanity, supporting
the Peter Tatchell Human Rights Fund, as Moroccan Cocktail Lounge, Bouga, is
officially launched on 25 July, from 8pm to 3am.

Ticket prices: £150 for two tickets, includes all food and drinks.

To purchase tickets contact the event promoter:

Richard Curson at Tangible Media Limited
Tel 00 44 (0) 20 8 373 0503
Mob 00 44 (0) 07833 677 240
Fax 00 44 (0) 20 8 364 9409
Email richard@tangible-media.com

The Peter Tatchell Human Rights Fund

Peter Tatchell continues to campaign for human rights in the UK and around
the world. Several times he has risked his own life to support other human
rights campaigners and to get their message to the outside world, from
communist East Germany in the 1970s to Zimbabwe in the 1990s and Russia in
May this year. He has been working for 40 years - unpaid and without an
office or staff support - to secure a more equal, just and peaceful world.

This will raise funds to help Peter secure office and staff support to
continue and expand his vital human rights work.

Peter Tatchell was named "A national hero", Sunday Times, 11 March 2001.
Bouga is proud to have the opportunity to support the Peter Tatchell Human
Rights Fund and welcomes you all to Bouga Cocktail Lounge.

Bouga Cocktail Lounge

Bouga, it’s just like walking into Morocco with a traditional mosaic floor,
cave style walls and fixtures and fittings imported from regions of Morocco.
It is an enchanting oasis in London.

Serving at the bar is 3rd prize winner of the World Cocktail Championships
2005. Moroccan canapés and sweets will be served throughout the evening.
Bouga is the Best Restaurant winner of the Archant London Food and Drink
Awards 2007. Bouga owner, Gamal Ahmed Hussein, received his award at the
ceremony held at London Marriot Hotel on Sunday 1st July 2007. The award was
presented by celebrity chef Aldo Zilli. Gamal is delighted his restaurant
was chosen as Best Restaurant in London saying “I couldn’t believe when they
announced the winner for this award, it is truly wonderful.
My main objective is to give the people who use the restaurant and cocktail
lounge a fabulous place to go and enjoy with the best food and the best
cocktails and all at good value for money! And now I want to try and give
something back by hosting this charity event Moroccan Mirage!”

Royal Accounts are all spin

Peter Tatchell / Human Rights Activist News Wire — 2007-6-29

The Queen's lack of financial transparency fuels speculation that she
is avoiding tax on a massive scale

By Peter Tatchell

The Guardian – Comment Is Free – 29 June 2007

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/peter_tatchell/2007/06/royal_accounts_are_all_spin.html

The Queen's spin doctors were working overtime this week to put a
"value for money" gloss on the royal finances. When Elizabeth II's
accounts for 2005-2006 were revealed yesterday, her courtiers proudly
boasted that the Royal Family costs the public a mere £37.4 million a
year or 62p per person – a bargain they claimed. What nonsense. This
is PR manipulation worthy of the dark manoeuvrings of Tony Blair's
sidekick Alistair Campbell.

The Palace is guilty of misleading the public. Even if it was true
that the Monarchy costs only £37 million a year, this is 20 times the
cost of the elected Irish President and nearly four times the cost of
the President of Germany. It is not good value for money at all.

The real cost of the Monarchy is more like £150 million a year, when
you factor in security costs, grants, unpaid tax and the cost to local
councils of royal visits. The expenditure on royal security alone was
reported by The Times in 2004 to amount to nearly £100 million
annually.

If we had a low-cost, purely ceremonial President like the Irish, the
surplus money could be spent on more worthwhile causes, like funding
treatments for NHS patients who are currently being denied vital drugs
for arthritis and breast cancer because of budget deficits and
cost-cutting. Alternatively, it could fund thousands more nurses,
doctors, teachers and police officers.

The Queen's PR people want us to believe that we have a frugal
monarchy – that the Queen is making great economies. Pull the other
one. Take the example of the Royal Train. The Queen used it for 11
official journeys, at a cost of £700,000. This included one trip to
Brighton, which left the taxpayer with a bill of £19,271 for a 100
mile round trip. Pure extravagance.

They can spin all they like, but yesterday's royal accounts are a
sham. Sadly, much of the media and most politicians are too
deferential and awed by the "majesty of monarchy" to challenge the way
this super-rich family milk the public and then con us into believing
that they are transparent and good value.

Despite our supposed democracy, proper public scrutiny of the royal
finances is almost impossible. Even MPs are routinely frustrated in
their attempts to get answers. Parliamentary Questions are often
disallowed. Persistent questioning over many months is often
necessary, and even then lots of perfectly reasonable questions are
deemed unacceptable and off-limits. This is an outrageous abuse of
royal privilege by palace courtiers and their flunkeys in government
and the civil service. If you don't believe me, watch my Talking With
Tatchell http://doughty.gdbtv.com/player.php?h=c7df2ba254804cf535ae2e35baabe25e
TV interview with the Labour MP Andrew MacKinlay, where, among other
things, he cites the obstruction he has faced in attempting to get
answers about the true extent of royal income, property and tax.

These are the facts: we, the British people, are denied the right to
know the Queen's income and the amount of tax she pays. In this
modern, democratic era it is, frankly, quite intolerable for the
Monarch to exempt herself from the disclosures expected of other
public officials.

Her Majesty is one of the richest people in the world, yet there is no
evidence that she pays tax on all her income, or that she pays tax at
the same rate as the rest of us. She says she pays tax. I believe her.
But how much tax on what income is a complete mystery. Like an
absolute feudal monarch, she refuses to be honest and open with the
people. Her lack of transparency fuels speculation that she is
avoiding tax on a massive scale.

There are serious allegations that Prince Charles avoids paying around
£500,000 a year in corporation tax and capital gains tax on his Duchy
estate. The House of Commons Public Accounts Committee, chaired by
Conservative ex-Minister Edward Leigh, last year called on the Prince
of Wales to make a full and honest disclosure of all his finances,
amid accusations that he has, over the years, avoided paying millions
of pounds in tax. When he was Chancellor, Gordon Brown defended
exempting the Prince and the Queen from capital gains and corporation
tax.

Republic www.republic.org.uk , The campaign for an elected Head of
State, is calling for greater openness and accountability with regard
to the royal finances.

Graham Smith, Republic's campaign manager, is highly critical of the
way the Royal Household mischievously portrays itself as being net
contributor to the exchequer. He cites Professor Phillip Hall:

"It is claimed by the Queen that the monarchy costs this country
nothing because she gives the revenue from the Crown Estate to the
nation, and therefore is subsidising the Royal Family…Because it is
described as the Queen 'surrendering' the revenue from the Crown
Estate in return for the Civil List allocation, it is mistakenly
assumed that this 'surrendering' is a personal financial sacrifice on
her part for the good of the nation. And this fantasy is
enthusiastically perpetuated by monarchists. The truth is rather
different.

"The Crown Estate and its revenue have never been the private property
of the Queen, or any of her predecessors. The Crown Estate is
officially described as 'hereditary possessions of the Sovereign', not
the personal possessions of the individual acting as Sovereign.

"She cannot give us what she has never owned. Her role is simply one
of an individual - Elizabeth Windsor - acting in her constitutional
role - the Sovereign - performing her constitutional duty and
overseeing the transfer to the government of the income from a totally
separate legal entity - the Crown. The Queen incurs absolutely no
financial loss in this transfer process.

"The Crown's legal status is that of a corporation sole, an
independent legal entity with the right to hold assets. To suggest
that Elizabeth Windsor personally 'owns' and 'gives' the assets and
revenues of this incorporated body is as ludicrous as suggesting that
the Chairman of British Airways personally 'owns' and 'gives' the
assets and tax revenues of the incorporated body he represents.

"If the monarchy were to disappear tomorrow, the Crown Estate would
continue to do what it has always done for nearly one thousand years -
provide income for the administration of this country," he concluded.

I rest my case. The limited disclosure and large-scale massaging of
the royal finances is a national disgrace. It brings the Royal Family
into disrepute and reinforces the case for a democratically elected
and fully accountable head of state.

More info:

Talking With Tatchell
http://doughty.gdbtv.com/player.php?h=c7df2ba254804cf535ae2e35baabe25e

Republic
www.republic.org.uk

--
Peter Tatchell is the Green Party parliamentary candidate for Oxford East
http://www.greenoxford.com/peter and http://www.petertatchell.net

Gordon Brown - Friend Or Foe?

Peter Tatchell / Human Rights Activist News Wire — 2007-6-27

Absent from 13 of 14 gay equality votes

Doubts over Brown's commitment to gay rights

London – 27 June 2007
Gordon Brown has missed more gay equality votes in parliament than any other MP. In 13 out of 14 votes in the House of Commons Mr Brown has not bothered to turn up and vote.

While I doubt he is homophobic, he has failed to make any serious effort to vote in favour of gay law reform.

The out-going Prime Minister, Tony Blair, and other Labour Ministers have a much better track record when it comes to voting for gay equality.

Gordon's frequent absences send the wrong signal. They suggest he doesn't believe gay human rights are important.

As the new Prime Minister, Gordon Brown inherits the leadership of a
Labour government that is currently backing homophobic discrimination in six key policy areas:

One
The Equality Act 2006 places on all public bodies a legal duty to promote equality and combat discrimination on the grounds of race, gender and disability – but not on the grounds of sexual orientation. As a result, local councils, the health service, police and other public bodies remain free to ignore homophobic harassment and discrimination. It is called the Equality Act, not the Heterosexual Equality Act. Why is there no legal obligation on public bodies to tackle homophobia? How come we have been excluded?

Two
The new Commission for Equality and Human Rights (CEHR) is welcome but flawed. Its effectiveness and fairness will be inhibited by the uneven patch-work of equality laws, which Labour has, so far, failed to remedy. Some communities currently have more protection than others. Race legislation is, for example, much stronger than legislation on sexual orientation. To redress this legalised inequality, we need an upward harmonisation of all equality laws, to bring them into line with race equality legislation. In other words: a level legislative playing field. This requires a single uniform and comprehensive legal framework, to guarantee everyone the same high standard of equal treatment and protection against discrimination. After many protests and much lobbying, this is broadly what is set out in the government's proposed Single Equality Act; although the timetable for its introduction is still unclear. In addition, the CEHR needs to have separate, semi-autonomous committees, covering each of the six equality strands – race, gender, disability, sexual orientation, age and religion or belief. Different forms of discrimination have different causes and solutions. It therefore makes sense to have a race committee, a sexual orientation committee and so on. This would help ensure that gay issues don't get overshadowed by black and women's issues, as has happened in the past. Sadly, Labour
has rejected these proposed reforms.

Three
Labour backs the ban on same-sex marriage. It supports a system of sexual apartheid, where gays are banned from marriage (homophobia) andstraights are banned from civil partnerships (heterophobia). This two-tiered system of partnership law is not equality. It perpetuates and extends discrimination. Marriage is the gold standard. Civil partnerships are second best. No one would accept the government telling Jewish people that they were prohibited from getting married, and offering them instead a separate Jews-only partnership system. We'd say it was anti-Semitic – a law we would expect to find in Nazi
Germany, not democratic Britain. Well, that's what I feel about civil partnerships. They are institutional homophobia. The Green Party is, so far, the only party officially committed to giving same-sex partners the right to civil marriage.

Four
The government is refusing asylum to many lesbians and gays who have been jailed, tortured and raped in countries like Nigeria, Iraq, Jamaica, Iran, Algeria, Zimbabwe and Uganda. The Home Office says they won't be at risk of arrest and murder if they go back home, hide their sexuality, move to a different part of the country and behave 'with discretion.' It expects them to, if necessary, stop having sex and not have relationships. This way, according to the government, no one will know they are gay and they won't be persecuted. Based on this perverse logic, the Home Office often orders the deportation of lesbian and gay refugees, despite the danger they could be imprisoned or killed on their return to their home countries.

Five
Labour, together with the police and the Crown Prosecution Service, permits record stores and radio stations to promote CDs by violently homophobic reggae singers who openly advocate the murder of queers. No one has ever been prosecuted. Government ministers would never tolerate similar 'murder music' against Jewish or black people.
Indeed, when a Muslim cleric called for the killing of Jews he was promptly arrested, tried and jailed. Why aren't gays and lesbians entitled to the same legal protection?

Six
The government wants to outlaw incitement to religious hatred, but it has, to date, rebuffed all requests to prohibit incitement to homophobic hatred. More double standards from Labour? Race hatred has been outlawed for decades. Why not homophobic hatred? If there are going to be laws against incitement to hatred, they should prohibit all incitements to hatred, not just some incitements.

These are six instances where Labour could have overturned homophobia, but has instead chosen to maintain discrimination. The government says it is committed to gay equality, but on these six key issues it has failed to deliver.

Why should we put up with Labour walking all over us? Don't let
Gordon Brown take the lesbian and gay community for granted.
Write or email Prime Minister. Tell him loud and clear: Equality is for
everyone, not just for some.

Murder Music Campaign bears fruit

Peter Tatchell / Human Rights Activist News Wire — 2007-6-13

Beenie Man, Sizzla & Capleton sign deal

Historic agreement to stop "murder music"

London – 13 June 2007

Three of the world's top reggae / dancehall singers have renounced
homophobia and condemned violence against lesbians and gay men.

Beenie Man, Sizzla and Capleton had previously released anti-gay hate
songs, including incitements to murder lesbian, gay, bisexual and
transgender people.

They have now signed up to the Reggae Compassionate Act (copy below),
in a deal brokered with top reggae promoters and Stop Murder Music
activists.

The agreement follows the three-year-long Stop Murder Music campaign,
which resulted in the cancellation of hundreds of the singers'
concerts and sponsorship deals, causing them income losses estimated in excess of five million dollars.

"The Reggae Compassionate Act is a big breakthrough," said Peter
Tatchell, of the British gay human rights group OutRage!. Mr Tatchell
is coordinator of the worldwide Stop Murder Music campaign. He helped negotiate the deal with the three singers.

"The singers' rejection of homophobia and sexism is an important
milestone. We rejoice at their new commitment to music without
prejudice," said Mr Tatchell.

"This deal will have a huge, positive impact in Jamaica and the
Caribbean. The media coverage will generate public awareness and
debate, breaking down ignorance and undermining homophobia.

"Having these major reggae stars renounce homophobia will influence
their fans and the wider public to rethink bigoted attitudes. The
beneficial effect on young black straight men will be immense," he said.

This view is mirrored by fellow Stop Murder Music campaigner, Dennis L
Carney, Vice-Chair of the Black Gay Mens Advisory Group (BGMAG) in
London. Mr Carney is of Jamaican descent, and played a leading role in negotiating the Reggae
Compassionate Act. He added: "I am thrilled that Beenie Man, Sizzla and Capleton have signed up to
this historic agreement with the Stop Murder Music campaign. We
welcome their commitment to not produce music or make public statements that incite hatred and
violence against gay people".

"This is a giant leap towards restoring peace, love and harmony to
reggae music. These performers are sending a clear message that
lesbians and gay men have a right to live free from fear and persecution - both here in the UK and in Jamaica,"
concluded Mr Carney.

In the Reggae Compassionate Act the three singers pledge to:

"respect and uphold the rights of all individuals to live without fear
of hatred and violence due to their religion, sexual orientation,
race, ethnicity or gender."

"there's no space in the music community for hatred and prejudice,
including no place for racism, violence, sexism or homophobia."

"we agree to not make statements or perform songs that incite hatred
or violence against anyone from any community"

In this declaration the artists promise to not sing lyrics or make
public statements, in Jamaica or anywhere else in the world, that
incite prejudice, hatred or violence against lesbian and gay people.

"By signing the Reggae Compassionate Act they are stating that, in
future, they will not release new homophobic songs or authorise the
re-release of previous homophobic songs," added Mr Tatchell.

"They also agree that they will not make homophobic public statements.

"They recognise that prejudice, hate and violence have no place in
music – that singers should unite people, not divide them. They are
now committed to opposing homophobic prejudice, discrimination and violence.

"This commitment is a major blow against homophobia in the Caribbean
and in popular music.

"The Reggae Compassionate Act applies worldwide. If any of the three
singers break this agreement anywhere in the world, we will resume the
campaign against them.

"As a result of them signing this statement, for a trial period we are
suspending the campaign against these three performers. If they abide
by the agreement we will make this suspension permanent.

"The other five murder music artists - Elephant Man, TOK, Bounty
Killa, Vybz Kartel and Buju Banton - have not signed the Reggae
Compassionate Act. The campaign against them continues. These singers have incited the murder of lesbians and
gays. They should not be rewarded with concerts or sponsorship deals.

"The Stop Murder Music campaign urges organisations worldwide to
intensify the campaign to cancel these five singers' concerts and
their record, sponsorship and advertising deals. These artists have openly encouraged the murder of lesbians and
gay men, which is a criminal offence in every country. We call on all
people of good conscience to boycott these promoters of hatred and violence; and to campaign
against them with the same determination that they would campaign
against racists and anti-Semites.

"These unrepentant homophobic performers are the moral equivalent of
neo-Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan," said Mr Tatchell.

His views are echoed by Gareth Wiliams, co-chair of the Jamaican gay
human rights group, J-Flag: "This statement against homophobia and violence is a move in the right
direction," he said.

"We hope it is not commercially motivated by the singers' desire to
maintain their concert revenues, but a sincere commitment that will
encourage an end to homophobic violence and to all violence against everyone. The five artists who
have not signed the statement should now follow this lead and declare
their support for universal human rights, including the human rights of lesbian and gay people," said Mr
Williams.

Brett Lock, an OutRage! member and key organiser in the Stop Murder
Music campaign, reiterated:

"We have never accepted any agreement whereby an artist agrees to not
perform homophobic lyrics at concerts in Europe and the US, but
continues performing them in the Caribbean.

"The idea that these singers can incite the murder of gay people in
Jamaica and then come to Europe and be accepted as legitimate artists
is morally sick and indefensible.

"The only agreement we will accept is an agreement that they will not
incite homophobic hatred and violence - in lyrics or in public
statements - anywhere in the world, including Jamaica. This is what the Reggae Compassionate Act says, and
this is the pledge made by the three singers who have signed it," said
Mr Lock.

The Reggae Compassionate Act was negotiated by Eddie Brown of Pride
Music UK, with the support of the promoters Michel Jovanovic (Mediacom
France), Klaus Maack (Contour Germany), Peter Senders (Panic Productions Holland), Fabrizio
Pompeo (Tour de Force Italy), Julian Garcia (Roots and Vibes Spain)
and Tim Badejo (Dubble Bubble Scandinavia).

"We would not have secured this agreement without their helpful
contacts, input, patience and commitment. We thank them for their hard
work," added Mr Tatchell.

Russia's new police state

Peter Tatchell / Human Rights Activist News Wire — 2007-6-10

Moscow police collude with fascists and right-wing nationalists

Behind the violent scenes

The physical injuries I sustained in Moscow are nothing in comparison
to the beatings inflicted on others in Russia. They sometimes end up
dead.

By Peter Tatchell

reprinted from The Guardian – Comment Is Free – 1 June 2007

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/peter_tatchell/2007/06/russias_new_police_state.html

The recent suppression of Moscow Gay Pride is further evidence that
Russia is fast reverting to autocracy and authoritarianism. The
post-communist democratic opening of the early 1990s is no more.

Despite constitutional guarantees of freedom of expression and the
right to protest, these liberties are now largely dependent on the
whim and fancy of the Kremlin leaders. Under strongman President
Vladimir Putin, the Russian regime has more than a whiff of old-style
Stalinism. This is evident in the repeated suppression of democracy
activists like Garry Kasparov and the banning of the anti-war,
pro-human rights Russian-Chechen Friendship Society.

Two weekend's ago, at Moscow Gay Pride, I witnessed firsthand Russia's
retreat from democracy. I suffered the violent effects of government
and police collusion with right-wing extremists.

The Moscow police and Russia's elite anti-riot squad, the OMOH, not
only failed to protect the Gay Pride marchers against violent attack,
they also failed to arrest the attackers. Although we were battered
left, right and centre, the police arrested only a handful of the
assailants – and most them were quickly released, often without
charge.

Indeed, there is now plentiful evidence of complicity between the
police and the far right. The fascists were, in effect, given a free
hand to do what the police wanted to do, but dared not do in front of
the world's media: give the queers a good thrashing.

The whole sorry saga began when the Mayor of Moscow, Yuri Luzhkov,
issued an order in mid-May prohibiting the Gay Pride march. He warned
that the full power of the state would be deployed to ensure it did
not happen. What was he afraid of? How could a few dozen Gay Pride
marchers be a threat to anyone, let alone the mighty Russian state?

Luzhkov pressed ahead with his ban, even though the right to peaceful
protest is guaranteed by Russian law and even though the European
Court of Human Rights had only two weeks earlier declared illegal a
similar ban on a Gay Pride march in Warsaw.

I went to Moscow, at the request of the Moscow Gay Pride organizers,
to show solidarity with the campaign for lesbian, gay, bisexual and
transgender human rights in Russia. It was hoped that the presence of
international supporters like myself would encourage the Moscow
authorities to be less repressive. We were wrong.

Given the march ban and the Mayor's threats, unsurprisingly only 40
people dared join the Gay Pride rally outside City Hall, on Moscow's
main street, Tverskaya.

Our attempt to hand in a letter of protest to Mayor Luzhkov was too
much for the authorities. Delivering a protest letter is apparently
illegal in Putin's Russia. The organiser of Moscow Gay Pride, Nikolai
Alekseev, was immediately arrested and roughly shoved into a police
van. The police tried to grab the rest of us. I managed to escape the
snatch squads.

What happened next was illuminating. As if on some pre-arranged
signal, the police seemed to pull back. From behind the police lines,
hordes of neo-Nazis, ultra-nationalists and religious fanatics stormed
through and laid into us, punching and kicking. They gave Nazi salutes
and snarled their chilling chants: "Moscow is not Sodom" and "Death to
homosexuals." The police and OMOH stood by and watched.

When I held up a placard reading "Gay Rights," written in both Russian
and English,
I was punched in the right eye and almost knocked unconscious. The
fascists then dragged me to ground. I was kicked head to toe. Dozens
of police saw this happen. They did not intervene. Well, not
initially. When they eventually decided to act, it was to arrest me –
not my assailants. The right-wing thugs were allowed to walk away.

There were hundreds of police on duty. They could have easily stopped
the neo-Nazis from coming within 100 yards of us. But they didn't. I
can only presume this denial of police protection was a deliberate,
official decision.

Several times I saw OMOH and police officers openly fraternising with
far right militants. They were chatting, as if they knew each other.
In one instance, I observed a police officer pointing out to
homophobic extremists the direction in which some of our Gay Pride
participants had fled. The extremists then stormed off up the street
and attacked our people. It looked like the police were encouraging
and helping the right-wingers to bash us.

A similar collusion was also witnessed by Scott Long, an international
monitor from Human Rights Watch in New York. He told a press
conference at the offices of the Helsinki Monitoring Group in Moscow
that he witnessed police and right-wingers cooperating in identifying
and pointing out Gay Pride campaigners, who were then either bashed or
arrested.

Russian activists have since suggested to me that some of the
attackers may have been plain clothes police officers, acting as agent
provocateurs. They say it is a favourite Kremlin tactic against
democracy and human rights activists. I am not sure. But I did see men
in civilian gear, who had been part of the rightist mob, go behind the
police buses and converse with police and OMOH. Perhaps my Russians
friends are right. Some of the right-wing thugs may have been
undercover police who were doing in civilian clothes what they could
not be seen to do in police uniforms - batter the queers.

When I was arrested, riot squad officers frog-marched me to a police
bus. In what felt like a deliberate act of intimidation, I was forced
to sit next to three neo-Nazis who had been arrested during earlier
incidents.

The riot police abused me as a "faggot". They also demanded to know
whether I was gay. I hesitated for a moment, fearing the consequences
if I admitted my homosexuality. When I answered that I am gay, one of
the OMOH officers whacked his truncheon into his hand and boasted:
"Wait until we get you to the police station. Then we will have some
fun with you." He was obviously not planning to offer me tea and
biscuits.

Soon after my beating and arrest, the Moscow police began a damage
limitation exercise. They put out a statement claiming that I had
been detained for my own protection and that my assailant had been
arrested. According to the International Herald Tribune: "The police
arrested the assailant and took Tatchell to a police van for his
protection, said Evgeni Gildeyev, a spokesman with the Moscow police."

This claim is not true, according to the officer investigating my
assault, Evgeni Guskov, who is based at Moscow's Tverskaya police
station. He told me that my assailant is unknown and has not been
arrested.

While the Moscow police have now opened a criminal investigation into
the assault on me, I suspect it is largely a PR exercise to give the
impression that they are doing something. I don't expect the
perpetrator will be arrested. Too many Moscow police are homophobes
and fascist sympathisers. They failed to protect us against neo-Nazi
violence and they failed to arrest the thugs who attacked us.

At last year's attempted Moscow Gay Pride march, the German Green
Party MP, Volker Beck, was struck in the face by a rock thrown by a
right-wing extremist. The assailant was filmed attacking Mr. Beck. In
the Russian edition of Newsweek, he was named and was quoted as
boasting that he threw the rock. He has never been arrested, let alone
bought to court. The Moscow authorities protect the far right, even
when they commit violent hate crimes and make a public confession.

I got off lightly. A bit of concussion, which is slightly affecting my
balance, coordination, memory and concentration. The vision in my
right eye is still blurred, and I've got bruises and abrasions all
over my body. But no serious injuries. I am alive. Doctors say I
should make a full recovery in a few weeks time.

My physical inconveniences are nothing by comparison to the far worse
beatings inflicted on Russian human rights defenders, investigative
journalists, environmental activists and campaigners against the war
in Chechnya. They sometimes end up dead.

Do I have any regrets? Well, getting a thrashing was not what I had
expected or wanted. But I was aware of the risks. Taking risks is
sometimes necessary, in order to challenge injustice. Perversely, my
beating had the positive effect of helping expose the violent,
repressive nature of Putin's and Luzhkov's rule.

Moreover, what began as a protest about lesbian and gay human rights
turned into something much bigger. We ended up defending the right to
freedom of expression and peaceful protest. These are freedoms worth
defending - for all Russians, gay and straight.

--
Peter Tatchell is the Green Party parliamentary candidate for Oxford East
http://www.greenoxford.com and http://www.petertatchell.net

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