“NewsWrap"
for the week ending November 17, 2007
(As broadcast on "This Way Out" program #1,025, distributed 11-19-07)
[Written by Greg Gordon, with thanks to Rex Wockner with Bill Kelley]

Reported this week by Tanya Kane-Parry and Sheri Lunn

  Queer eyes were once again focused on Iran this week, two months after President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad infamously told the world that there were no homosexuals in his country.
A story in this week's “Times of London” reported that Mohsen Yahyavi, a member of Iran's Parliament, admitted during a meeting in May with British MPs that his country had, in fact, executed gay men.
Some international LGBT rights groups believe that more than 4,000 lesbians and gay men have been put to death in Iran since the Ayatollahs seized power in 1979.  Of the few that have been documented, the Internet-posted public hanging of two teenaged boys in 2005 is the most notorious.
When British MPs asked him about those executions, Yahyavi "explained that according to Islam gays and lesbianism were not permitted," according to minutes of the meeting published in “The Times”.  "He said that if homosexual activity is in private there is no problem, but those in overt activity should be executed (he initially said tortured but changed it to executed).  He argued that homosexuality is against human nature and that humans are here to reproduce."

  But Iran's top judge this week reportedly halted the execution of a 21-year-old man who allegedly had sex with another male when the accused was only 13 years old.  It's generally believed that when a male is accused of having sex with another male in Iran the charge is listed as rape, as it was in the case against Makvan Mouloodzadeh.
IGLHRC - the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission - had written to Iranian authorities appealing for a reversal of the capital punishment decree.  The group reported this week that Iran's Chief Justice Ayatollah Seyed Mahmoud Hashemi Shahrudi determined that the death sentence was “in violation of Islamic teachings” - a possible “first” such ruling in that country - as well as “the religious decrees of high-ranking Shiite clerics, and the law of the land.”
Other human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the Iranian Queer Organization had also pleaded for Mouloodzadeh's life.
IGLHRC says that no one ever accused him of rape during his trial, and that all the prosecution witnesses against him told the court that their statements were untrue, and that some had been coerced.
IGLHRC Executive Director Paula Ettelbrick called the ruling “a stunning victory for human rights, and a reminder of the power of global protest."
But Mouloodzadeh remains in prison.  The Chief Justice's ruling sends the case back to a lower court for retrial.
Under Islamic law in Iran, sodomy remains a capital crime punishable by public lashings or hanging.
According to IGLHRC, homosexual acts also carry the death penalty in Mauritania, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, the United Arab Emirates, Yemen and largely Muslim northern Nigeria.

  But consensual adult gay sex will no longer be a criminal offense in Nicaragua under a new civil code to take effect in March, according to a report this week in “La Prensa” newspaper.
Existing law, passed in 1992, says that "anyone who induces, promotes, propagandizes or practices sexual intercourse between persons of the same sex commits the crime of sodomy and shall incur one to three years' imprisonment."
Critics said the law not only criminalized gay and lesbian sexual activity, but was also vague enough to allow the prosecution of individuals for promoting LGBT rights, or anyone providing sexual health information or services.
Nicaragua's new code reflects changing social attitudes in the heavily Roman Catholic country, according to José Pallais, president of the Nicaraguan Parliament's Commission of Justice and Legal Issues.  He told “La Prensa” that "We are not creating a code of the Catholic Church here, we are creating a democratic code under modern principles and principles of legality."
Abortion will remain illegal, however, because there was insufficient legislative support to change that law.

  Opposition to abortion was the top issue for U.S. Roman Catholic Bishops in a directive they issued this week urging parishioners to follow Church teachings when deciding which candidates and policies to support in next year's general elections.  The Church, of course, has also generally opposed LGBT civil rights legislation and the legal recognition of same-gender couples.
The document emphasizes that "principled debate" is needed to decide which policies best promote the common good.  But "that does not make (moral issues) optional concerns or permit Catholics to dismiss or ignore Church teaching," the bishops said, adding that U.S. Catholics must only use voter resources approved by the Church.

  But the “Associated Press” reported this week that Norway's state Lutheran Church has lifted an outright ban on lesbigay-partnered clergy.  The decision will, however, still allow each bishop to make individual employment decisions.
The Church already allows celibate gays and lesbians to serve in the clergy.
After an emotional week of debate at its annual meeting, held this year in the town of Lillehammer, the church's 86-member governing synod voted 50-to-34 to make the change.  Two members abstained.
In a preliminary vote earlier this year, six of Norway's 11 Lutheran bishops voted to ease the ban, and are probably most likely to open the pulpit to same-gender-partnered clergy.
With nearly 85 percent of Norway's 4.7 million people as members, the Church has - like several other denominations around the world - been embroiled in heated debate over the issue.  Conservative Lutheran Bishop Ole D. Hagesaeter told a national radio program that “This is a sad day for the church.  It will be a splitting factor and lead to many feeling homeless in the church.”
Norwegian law gives people in same-gender unions the same rights as those in heterosexual marriages, apart from church weddings and adoption.

  In other news, a Jamaican gay man, Ven Messam, has won asylum in the United States because he had been threatened by anti-queer mobs that are increasingly running rampant on the island.
With the assistance of students and faculty advisors at Columbia University Law School's new Sexuality and Gender Law Clinic, Messam convinced the U.S. Department of Homeland Security that he would face persecution or death if forced to return to Jamaica.
In announcing the decision, the Clinic noted that homosexual acts are a crime in Jamaica, that "Rampant rumors that hostile groups are plotting the social cleansing of hundreds of gay people by year's end have forced countless GLBT people into hiding,” and that “Far from a tropical paradise, this Caribbean nation continues to imprison and kill its gay citizens with relative impunity."
In his own case, said Messam, “When I tried to contact the police for help, [they] instead threatened to arrest me and told me to leave the country if I wanted to stay safe."

  And Spain has granted asylum to an Algerian transsexual.  "B.B." was able to prove that she had faced persecution and social and workplace discrimination in Algeria based on her gender identity.
The government applied Spain's new Law on Equality to its Law on Asylum, and determined that B.B.'s case met Geneva Convention criteria for political refuge.
B.B. was given a five-year residence card and assurance that she will not be sent back to Algeria.

  Elsewhere, Belgian gays and lesbians continue to marry at an increasing rate.  It's one of six countries where queer couples have access to full marriage.
In 2006, 1,124 same-gender couples tied the knot, compared to about a hundred less in 2005.  Belgium legalized marriage equality in 2003, and 854 lesbigay couples married that year.
Brussels has the highest rate of gay-male marriages, while Antwerp has seen the most lesbian marriages.

  But finally, LGBT people in Jerusalem are mourning the closure this week of the city's only gay bar.
Shushan, which defied religious disapproval and survived an arson attack, had been in business for four years.  The club greeted patrons from all religious and secular persuasions, and often featured the unlikely sight of drag queens mixing with Palestinians and ultra-Orthodox Jews.
Gays and lesbians face condemnation from all religious sectors in the city -- Christian, Muslim, and Jewish.  Pride parades and related events over the years have suffered restrictions, outright bans, and violent attacks by religious fundamentalists.
While the local press hinted at problems between leftist Jerusalem City Council member and Shushan owner Saar Netanel and his business partner as a reason for the closing, he cited exhaustion and being "interested in other things."
Unless another Jerusalem nightspot opens, Sushan regulars will have to travel about 60 miles to the more liberal Tel Aviv, which has several popular LGBT bars and clubs.
Happily, however, the city's queer community center, Jerusalem Open House, welcomes secular and religious Israelis and Palestinians alike, and remains “open for business.”


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