“NewsWrap" for the week ending April 12, 2008 (As broadcast on "This Way Out" program #1,046, distributed 4-14-08) [Written by Greg Gordon, with thanks to Rex Wockner with Bill Kelley] Reported this week by Tanya Kane-Parry and Jon Beaupré An Egyptian court this week jailed five men for three years on charges of "debauchery," the latest example of what more than a hundred human rights and medical groups around the world are calling a "witch hunt." Four of the five men are HIV-positive. They were arrested in March in a central Cairo restaurant following an argument that drew police attention, and another customer accusing them of being gay. A police doctor conducted anal inspections on the men "which confirmed their homosexuality," according to a court official. Some 117 health and human rights organizations this week signed onto a letter to the Egyptian Health Ministry saying that doctors who interrogate men suspected of being HIV-positive are violating medical ethics. Human Rights Watch said those forced examinations constitute torture, violate international human rights conventions, and are medically questionable. While homosexual acts are not specifically illegal in Egypt, laws against “the habitual practice of debauchery” are increasingly being used to charge gay men with criminal violations. Gay Egyptians have been jailed in the past on charges ranging from "scorning religion" to "sexual practices contrary to Islam." According to Human Rights Watch, at least 17 Egyptian men have been jailed since October 2007 under the guise of HIV prevention. Many say they were beaten and abused to extract “confessions,” and that police arrested others whose contact details were found in their possession. A poll released this week revealed that more than two in three people in Serbia consider homosexuality to be an illness, and half believe the government should work to prevent it - this according to a report by the “Deutsch Press Agentur” news agency. A spokesperson for the think tank that conducted the survey called the results "worse than we thought. Our society is closed, traditionalistic and conservative in the worst sense of the word." Boris Milicevic of the Eastern European country's Gay Straight Alliance lamented that "Serbs do not want them for colleagues or bosses, they don't want them in families, nor to teach their children." The poll, conducted in February with 967 respondents, suggested that public affirmations of homosexuality in Serbia are unacceptable. Only 8 per cent of those questioned believed that LGBT Pride parades are a legitimate way to fight for civil rights. 77 per cent opposed them. The first and only Pride parade organized in Belgrade in 2001 ended in riots that seriously injured several participants. And rightwing groups in Serbia are threatening violence against people attending the annual Eurovision Song Contest, a popular continent-wide musical competition to be held in Belgrade this year. Gay men are specifically being targeted, according to the president of the notoriously anti-queer organization Obraz, who in the daily newspaper “ALO!” this week called the event "gay youth day." Several Serbian media outlets have reported that "thousands" of gay and lesbian people are coming to Belgrade for the competition. Queer activists in the country are alarmed by the reaction to the threats by Serbian authorities. Aleksandar Rados, a local Eurovision organizer, said of such lesbian and gay visitors, "We are not organizing their arrival, therefore we can not take care of their security." Serbia won the right to host the 53rd Eurovision Song Contest next month because their entry won last year's competition in Finland. An estimated global audience of at least 100 million people watched the televised contest in 2007. Elsewhere, a Singapore cable television operator has been fined for airing a commercial that showed two young women kissing. The Media Development Authority posted a statement on its Web site this week reporting that it had fined StarHub Cable Vision 10,000 Singapore dollars - about 7,200 U.S. - for carrying the commercial. It aired on MTV's Mandarin-language channel last November, promoting “Silly Child,” a new album by pop singer Olivia Yan. The statement says that romanticized scenes in the video showing Yan kissing Taiwanese actress Pei Lin constituted “a breach of the TV advertising guidelines, which disallows advertisements that condone homosexuality.” The Taiwan-produced video was reportedly the first in that country to depict a lesbian relationship. Singapore outlaws gay sex but not lesbian acts, and government officials shut down several scheduled LGBT Pride events last August. Authorities in the Asian city-state have consistently banned any public events that they believe “promote a homosexual lifestyle". Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, the titular head of the global Anglican Communion, has sharply criticized death threats directed at the leader of a group representing LGBT Anglicans in England as the “latest round of un-Christian bullying.” Reverend Colin Coward of Changing Attitude said this week that the threats against his life were encouraged by homophobic language used by some Church leaders. He said in a press release that “Such inflammatory statements lead some members of Anglican Communion churches to believe that threats and violence against those who are LGBT (or those who support a more open stance towards LGBT people) are not only justified but are authentic expressions of Christianity.” The worldwide Anglican Communion has become increasingly fractured since 2003, when issues of inclusion of LGBT people in Church life erupted following the consecration by its U.S. wing, the Episcopal Church, of a first-ever openly gay Bishop, New Hampshire's V. Gene Robinson. Some large Canadian Anglican churches and Episcopal congregations have also angered traditionalists by sanctioning the blessings of same-gender unions. Bishop Robinson had been provisionally invited to a once-a-decade meeting of Anglican leaders, the Lambeth Conference, to take place in England between July 16th and August 4th, but because of his lightening-rod persona, he was recently told that he should not attend at all. The Global South group of Anglican leaders, which includes several African bishops, but also some in Latin America, Asia, and Australia, had already decided to boycott Lambeth because the U.S. Episcopal Church has refused to repudiate its generally LGBT-inclusive positions. Those conservative bishops, led by outspokenly anti-queer Nigerian Archbishop Peter Akinola, have scheduled their own meeting in Jerusalem in June. Meanwhile, the British “Pinknews.com” Web site reported this week that two women in the Nigerian city of Kaduna have been sentenced under Islamic law to six months in prison and 20 lashes each for having a lesbian relationship. A Sharia court ruled that Malama Hauwa and Hajiya Ai'sha were violating the tenets of Islam. The women claimed in court to have been married for five years. Ai'sha said she had paid a dowry to Hauwa at the start of their relationship. According to the Nigerian newspaper “Punch,” their relationship came to the attention of the authorities when Ai'sha demanded the return of the dowry because she thought that Hauwa was about to leave her. Homosexual acts are outlawed in the Nigerian penal code. Predominantly Muslim states in the country introduced Sharia, a legal system said to be based on Islamic theory and philosophy of justice, in 2000. May 17th is the date in 1990 that the World Health Organization removed homosexuality from its list of mental illnesses. In recent years that day has been commemorated by an International Day Against Homophobia - or “IDAHO” - with a variety of demonstrations and educational events in countries around the world. Costa Rican President Óscar Arias Sánchez and Health Minister María Luisa Ávila have already issued an executive decree designating that day in their country as a “National Day Against Homophobia.” Their declaration urges "Public institutions [to] amply disseminate the objectives of this commemoration. They also must facilitate, promote and support activities directed at the eradication of homophobia." In a first for Denmark, the city of Copenhagen has approved two same-gender couples to be foster parents, according to a report last week in the “Copenhagen Post”. The couples were placed on a list to provide foster care to children removed from their original homes by government officials. Klaus Wilmann of the city's Center for Foster Care told the newspaper that "We can't guarantee that the two couples will be used as often as other couples. But we feel that a family consisting of two men or two women can have the same beneficial qualities as any other." Famously liberal Denmark, which in 1989 became the first country to pass a same-gender registered-partnership law, has nonetheless remained squeamish on issues involving children and lesbigay adults. A spokesperson for the official Danish Council of Ethics denounced Copenhagen's move as "supporting something abnormal." But finally, the largest city-run cemetery in Copenhagen has designated an area specifically for gays and lesbians who want to spend eternity among their own. The Rainbow Association, an organization created for that purpose, has reserved 36 plots for funeral urns, and has an option for 12 more in the same section of the Assistens cemetery in the Danish capital where famed writers Hans Christian Andersen and Soren Kierkegaard are buried. Each space will cost 2,500 kroner, or about 525 U.S. dollars. The new area is separated from the rest of the cemetery by a triangle of pebbles and a large rock draped with a rainbow flag. The Rainbow Association's Ivan Larsen told “Agence France Presse” that "We don't want to isolate ourselves, but we also feel a need to be together. We see this as a family grave, one that will be taken care of by our family." ************** It's Tax Time! Get tips, forms and advice on AOL Money & Finance. (http://money.aol.com/tax?NCID=aolcmp00300000002850)