“NewsWrap" for the week ending February 16, 2008 (As broadcast on "This Way Out" program #1,038, distributed 2-18-08) [Written by Greg Gordon, with thanks to Rex Wockner with Bill Kelley] Reported this week by Jon Beaupré and Rick Watts Government attacks on gay men seem to be on the rise in African and Middle East regions of the world. Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International are jointly condemning the detention of at least twelve men in Cairo, Egypt, following homosexuality-related arrests or convictions in the past few months. Two men having a strident argument on the street were arrested last October when one of them told police officers he was HIV-positive. They were handcuffed to a desk for four days in the office of the Morality Police and subjected to anal probes and forced HIV testing. They each tested positive and reportedly remain in custody in a hospital handcuffed to beds 23 hours a day. Because the first two men carried their phone numbers or photographs, two more men were later arrested. They were also force-tested for HIV and are reportedly still in custody pending the possible filing of charges. According to a subsequent Human Rights Watch report, four more men were arrested in November after they moved into an apartment together. They were deprived of food, drink and blankets, also force-tested for HIV, and convicted of the "habitual practice of debauchery" in January. Each was sentenced to a year in prison. The convictions were upheld on appeal on February 2nd. "People like you should be burnt alive,” a prosecutor reportedly told one of the men. “You do not deserve to live." The most recent arrests occurred after police used information coerced from men already in detention, according to the Health and Human Rights Program of the Cairo-based Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights. Two of those four men also reportedly tested positive for HIV. Rebecca Schleifer of Human Rights Watch's HIV/AIDS and Human Rights Program charged that "In their misguided attempt to apply Egypt's unjust law on homosexual conduct, authorities are carrying on a crackdown against people living with HIV/AIDS... making it dangerous for anyone to seek information about HIV prevention or treatment." This week's joint statement by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch called for the immediate release of all the detainees, urged Egyptian authorities to respect their human rights, and to assure that each receives good medical care for any serious health conditions. Police in Senegal fired tear gas to disperse anti-gay demonstrators outside Dakar's main mosque on February 15th, according to a “Reuters” report, following the release of several men who'd been arrested after their photos at a so-called “gay wedding” were published in a popular gossip magazine. Piles of trash were burned in several blocks around the mosque, while groups of stone-throwing young people barricaded roads shouting "We don't want homosexuals." Local newspapers have given front-page coverage to the photos and arrests. Radio phone-ins have been flooded by calls, most of them strongly anti-gay. Homosexuality is illegal in the West African country. Most people in the former French colony consider homosexuality to be "un-African" and a psychological disorder imported by Europeans. While he's a minority in the predominantly Muslim nation, Christian evangelical pastor Michel Andrade, who was at the Dakar demonstration, told “Reuters” that “... the sacred texts are against it. Men of God don't tolerate it." Lawmakers in the Gulf state of Bahrain are calling for a nationwide purge of gay men, and the deportation of foreigners suspected of being gay. The country held its first-ever elections in 2002, and politicians in the bi-cameral parliament - dominated by Shia and Sunni Islamist parties - have mainly addressed "moral" issues, such as banning female mannequins from shop windows, and fighting what they call the widespread problem of "sorcery." The Foreign Affairs, Defense and National Security Committee is now supporting proposals to tighten immigration checks to prevent foreign gay men from entering the country. Committee secretary Jalal Fairooz told the “Gulf Daily News” that "They look manly as they come to the airport, but when they get in they return back to their unaccepted homosexual attitude.” He said that gays are “dangerous” and a "threat to our society and Islamic values." The committee is also recommending a study to determine how widespread homosexuality is in the country. The proposals will next be considered by the Bahrain parliament's general-secretariat. Meanwhile, LGBT groups from Spain, the Netherlands and Brazil have been denied observer status that allows Non-Governmental Organizations - or NGOs - to participate in proceedings at the United Nations. The late January vote of the NGO Committee of ECOSOC, the U.N.'s Economic and Social Council, which assists the General Assembly, was a tie, and therefore a loss for the applicants. Colombia, Dominica, Israel, Peru, Romania, the U.K. and the U.S. voted yes. Burundi, China, Egypt, Pakistan, Qatar, Russia and Sudan voted no. Angola, Guinea, India and Turkey abstained, while Cuba was not present. The committee's recommendations are generally rubber-stamped by the full 54-member nation ECOSOC. Despite protracted and often contentious debate, consultative status has been granted during the past two years to five LGBT organizations: the European branch of the International Lesbian and Gay Association, or ILGA; national groups from Denmark, Sweden, and Germany; and the Gay and Lesbian Coalition of Quebec. ILGA, which has been encouraging and facilitating U.N. NGO consultative status applications by LGBT groups around the world, said of the latest rejections in a statement that "The nature of the questions LGBT human rights defenders were asked [by some committee members], repeatedly trying to link homosexuality and pedophilia, simply shows how far our stubborn opposition is ready to go to put obstacles before LGBT groups on their way to recognition as members of civil society.” But the Israeli government this week extended to same-gender couples the same adoption rights as their heterosexual counterparts. Prior to Attorney General Menachem Mazuz's announcement, the government had not allowed gays and lesbians to adopt children through the Welfare and Social Services Ministry's Child Welfare Service, and one partner in a same-gender relationship could only adopt the other's biological offspring. Welfare Minister Isaac Herzog first raised the issue of opening adoption to gay and lesbian couples when he noticed that an increasing number of them had been filing applications. Mazuz emphasized that, as with heterosexuals, they'll be handled on a case-by-case basis. Also in Israel, a Palestinian group that had been meeting at the Jerusalem Open House LGBT center has decided to become an independent organization. Al-Qaws, or Rainbow - a first-ever Palestinian LGBT group - gained official status as a nonprofit organization in November and renamed itself "Al-Qaws - for Sexual & Gender Diversity in the Palestinian Society." The group said in a press release that "With this decision, our community begins a new journey with a committed leadership group and widespread local activists, friends and supporters." In other news, the Registry of Births, Deaths, and Marriages in the Australian state of Queensland this week agreed to accept a marriage application from a Brisbane lesbian couple. Sharon Dane and Elaine Crump went to the registry office on Valentine's Day and refused to leave unless their application was accepted, according to a press release by the LGBT advocacy group Australian Marriage Equality. The country's Marriage Act specifically restricts those unions to heterosexual couples, and Crump said in a statement that “We were prepared for a stony reception but were quite pleasantly surprised... The staff appeared extremely empathetic that they couldn't treat us like other couples who had turned up to the Registry on Valentine's Day.” A Notice of Intended Marriage must be filed with the Registry at least one month and one day prior to the date a couple plans to marry. The document is then valid for 18 months from the date of registry. Registry development officer Colin Wood said that if the Marriage Act is overturned within that time - not likely - the form would be valid, and the couple would not be required to file a new one. A lesbian couple in the U.S. state of Colorado wasn't so lucky when they tried to obtain a marriage license in the Denver Clerk and Recorder Office last September. Kate Burns and Sheila Schroeder of Englewood were arrested for refusing to leave when they were denied the certificate, and they're scheduled to appear in court in April on trespassing charges. They filed suit this week to overturn a voter-approved ballot measure that amended the state constitution to outlaw same-gender marriage. 55 percent of Colorado voters approved Amendment 43 in 2006, which the couple's suit argues is a violation of their equal protection rights. They also charge that its placement on the ballot was religiously motivated and had the effect of "establishing religion." Mari Newman, the couple's attorney, told the “Rocky Mountain News” that "The right to marriage is fundamental," and that "The government can't be telling us who we can and cannot marry." And finally, in a Swedish reminder of the landmark coming out installment of Ellen DeGeneres' TV show, code-named by secretive writers as the “Puppy Episode,” an appeals court in Stockholm this week found a kennel owner guilty of discrimination because she refused to sell a puppy to a lesbian. The kennel owner, 51-year-old Anette Sjoeholm, was guilty of "discrimination in the form of harassment," the court said in its ruling, which upheld a lower-court finding in 2006. It ordered her to pay a fine of 20,000 kronor, or about 3100 U.S. dollars. Smila Bergstroem had contacted Sjoeholm to purchase one of the puppies she had advertised for sale, but when she mentioned that she lived with another woman, Sjoeholm refused to sell her the puppy. The kennel owner reportedly made it clear to Bergstroem that she didn't trust homosexuals, and said she'd read that transvestites sexually abuse animals. ************** Ideas to please picky eaters. Watch video on AOL Living. (http://living.aol.com/video/how-to-please-your-picky-eater/rachel-campos-duffy/2050827?NCID=aolcmp00300000002598)