Subject: Euroletter 56
From: [email-masked]
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 1998 12:54:02 +0100 (MET)

EURO-LETTER 

No. 56					January 1998

THE EURO-LETTER IS PUBLISHED ON BEHALF OF ILGA-EUROPE - THE
EUROPEAN REGION OF THE INTERNATIONAL LESBIAN AND GAY ASSOCIATION
BY GAY AND LESBIAN INTERNATIONAL LOBBY IN CO-OPERATION WITH THE
DANISH NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR GAYS AND LESBIANS. Editors:
Steffen Jensen, Ken Thomassen, Peter Bryld, Lisbeth Andersen and
Soeren Baatrup.  Contact to Euro-Letter: E-mail:
[email-masked] URL: http://www.inet.uni2.dk/~steff Fax: +45
2036 7856 Tel: +45 3324 6435 Mobile: +45 2033 0840 Mail: c/o
Steffen Jensen, Gl. Kongevej 31, 4.th, DK-1610 Copenhagen V,
Denmark  You can receive Euro-Letter by e-mail (send a message
to the above address)  and from no 30 onwards the Euro-Letters
are available on the Internet at 
http://www.france.qrd.org/assocs/ilga/euroletter.html
http://www.qrd.org/qrd/www/orgs/ILGA/euroletter  You can find a
link to Euro-Letters at http://www.inet.uni2.dk/~steff 

IN THIS ISSUE
SECOND SERIES OF MEETINGS BETWEEN EUROPEAN COMMISSION OFFICIALS
AND ILGA-EUROPE
ILGA-EUROPE PARTICIPATES IN EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT'S EQUAL RIGHTS
FOR GAYS AND LESBIANS INTERGROUP
PRESENTATION OF ILGA-EUROPE TO THE EQUAL RIGHTS FOR GAYS AND
LESBIAN INTERGROUP OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT
ILGA-EUROPE HAS GOT EU FUNDING FOR A HUMAN RIGHTS PROJECT
PENAL CODE AND HOMOSEXUALITY IN BULGARIA
BRITAIN TO LIFT GAY BAN IN MILITARY
PORTUGAL: PROPOSAL TO (NEARLY) EQUALIZE AGE OF CONSENT FAILED
KYRGYZSTAN DECRIMINALIZES CONSENTING SAME-SEX RELATIONS

Documents relating to ILGA-Europe can be found at ILGA-Europe's
homepage http://inet.uni2.dk/~steff/ilgaeur.htm

An update of the Survey on the Legal Situation for Gays and
Lesbians in Europe can be found at
http://inet.uni2.dk/~steff/survey.htm

A description of partnership laws and other laws regarding
same-sex partners can be found at 
http://inet.uni2.dk/~steff/partner.htm

ILGA-EUROPE ACTION PLAN FOLLOW-UP:
SECOND SERIES OF MEETINGS BETWEEN EUROPEAN COMMISSION OFFICIALS
AND ILGA-EUROPE
by Kurt Krickler and Alberto Volpato

In following-up the Action Plan, ILGA-Europe representatives
Kurt Krickler and Alberto Volpato, who is also member of
�galit‚, had five meetings with the following EU officials in
Brussels on 2, 3 and 8 December 1997:

Helena Petiz, member of the cabinet of Commissioner JoÆo de Deus
Pinheiro, responsible for the relations with the ACP (African,
Caribbean and Pacific) Lom‚ Convention countries and South
Africa;

Alisdair McIntosh, member of the cabinet of Commissioner Sir
Leon Brittan, responsible for the relations with North America,
Australia, New Zealand, Japan, China, Korea, Hongkong, Macau,
and Taiwan;

Giuseppe Callovi, Head of Unit A3 ("Free movement of persons and
citizens' rights") in DG XV, and his assistant Raquel de
Vicente, administrator - they received us on behalf of
Commissioner Mario Monti (Internal Market and Financial
Services);

William Aitchison and Georgios Zisimatos from the "Craft and
Small Enterprises" unit in DG XXIII - they received us on behalf
of Commissioner Christos Papoutsis (SMEs, Tourism);

Brian Owen from DG 1A - he received us on behalf of Daniela
Napoli, head of unit "Human rights and democratisation" (cabinet
of Commissioner Hans van den Broek).

As in the first series of meetings with EU officials last May
(compare "Euro-Letter" # 51, July 1997), the main purpose of the
meetings was to introduce the Action Plan and to explain its
"horizontal" approach of mainstreaming gay and lesbian concerns
in all activities and programmes of the EU where appropriate.
The portfolios of the various cabinets,
however, vary in relevance for our issue.

With Petiz and McIntosh we discussed mainly human rights issues
concerning third countries. We stressed the importance of
including sexual orientation based discrimination in the human
rights monitoring of third countries. Petiz suggested to inform
Francesca Mosca, head of unit 03 in DG VIII dealing with human
rights issues, and to propose a meeting between the unit and
ILGA-Europe in the future. AIDS could also be an area of
activity although the pattern of transmission in the ACP
countries is predominantly not gay related.

McIntosh frankly declared that the EU will certainly not bring
up the question of homosexuality in their relations with, for
instance, the USA. The only country falling in the portfolio of
Sir Leon that could be relevant in this context is China. His
cabinet is also responsible for human rights projects in China
for which there are certain budget lines, including
NGOs. He could imagine that lesbian and gay rights projects be
funded, however, all projects proposed must receive the approval
of the Chinese government. He promised in any case to provide
ILGA-Europe with the relevant information and guidelines.

The longest meeting we had was with Mr Callovi and Ms de Vicente
who had even prepared a "Note of Analysis" on "The right to
reside in a Member State other than the country of origin of a
European citizen accompanied by the partner of the same gender,
who is not a European citizen". The meeting lasted one and a
half hours. The "note" concluded that there is no right under
Community law for a right of residence in a Member State for the
same-sex partner of an EU citizen living in a member state other
than his/her country of origin. The only possibility would be if
the Member State concerned recognised to its
nationals that right "which currently does not seem to be the
case in most Member States".

In the course of our long discussion, Mr Callovi finally
conceded that there might be a chance for non-Danish and
non-Swedish EU citizens residing in Denmark or Sweden to win a
case if they are refused
registered partnership in these countries. This could constitute
a discrimination against other EU citizens compared to Danish
and Swedish nationals. We gave him a copy of ILGA-Europe's
leaflet on same-sex
partnership legislation in Europe and promised to keep him
up-dated on any new developments in this field.

Callovi was also very sceptical concerning further studies about
the practice of Member States to grant certain rights to
unmarried couples as it was proposed in the  Simone Veil report
on free movement of persons. He was quite convinced that this
legal question is anyhow quite clear: if unmarried couples, both
heterosexual and homosexual, should receive the same rights as
married couples, the definition of "spouse" simply has to be
changed. On the existing legal basis of the Union, there is no
way to extend
the rights of married couples to unmarried couples.

The meeting in DG XXIII circled around gays and lesbians in the
craft and business sector and related clearly to Action Plan
idea # 24 ("European gay and lesbian business association
network"). Aitchison and
Zisimatos were very open and supportive, proposed to meet other
people in DG XXIII, responsible for social economy (foundations,
associations), and mentioned links with DG XXII concerning
professional training. This DG is currently also running the
Third Multiannual Programme for small and medium-sized
enterprises (SMEs) in the EU (1997-2000). In Spring 1998, there
will be more tenders and calls for proposals under this
programme. They provided us with the information and guidelines
of this year's calls for proposals. Gay and lesbian businesses
or their networks are cordially invited to submit proposals. As
of 1998, the programme will also be extended to PHARE and
Mediterranean countries.

DG XXIII also plans to set up a web-site to diffuse information
and create networks, and it might be possible to set up a gay
and lesbian sub-site for a gay and lesbian network of the craft
and SME sector.

Brian Owen from DG 1A's Human Rights Unit provided us with
information on the budget lines concerning human rights project
funding. However, he does not see any chance to fund gay and
lesbian projects under these budget lines which have clearly
stated priorities. These budget lines would have to be amended
by the Parliament first. This is, therefore, something
ILGA-Europe should take up with commissioner van den Broek and
in the EP's Equal Rights for Gays and Lesbians Intergroup.

Kurt Krickler used his stay in Brussels to also meet with Paola
Giaculli, co-ordinator of this newly founded "Equal Rights for
Gays and Lesbians Intergroup" of the European Parliament, and
MEP Outi Ojala, President of this intergroup, to discuss
ILGA-Europe's participation in it. A full report will follow
after ILGA-Europe's first attendance of
the intergroup, e.g., of the 16 December 1997 meeting in
Strasbourg. 

RESUME
The "first round" of Action Plan activities, e.g., introducing
the Action Plan to the European Commission, is now successfully
completed.

ILGA-Europe has received written replies from almost all 20
Commissioners - with the exception of Bangemann, Bonino and de
Silguy.  ILGA-Europe has had meetings with representatives of
all Commissioners relevant for gay and lesbian issues, i.e.,
Oreja, Mar¡n, Gradin, Santer, Flynn, Cresson, Pinheiro, Sir Leon
Brittan, Monti, Papoutsis and van den Broek. A meeting already
offered by Commissioner Wulf-Mathies is still to be arranged.

ILGA-Europe, in these meetings, has collected a lot of
information about relevant EU programmes and funding
possibilities. In the second round of Action Plan activities, it
will be important to motivate ILGA members to submit project
proposals under the various EU programmes. Commissioner Oreja
has informed ILGA-Europe in a letter that project proposals from
ILGA-Europe and its members under the "Building Europe
together", "Sport in Europe" and cultural programmes would be
"very welcome".

There will be, however, also further Action Plan follow-up
activities of the Board of ILGA-Europe which will include
intensifying contacts and cooperation with certain DGs in the
Commission on specific topics.

ILGA-EUROPE PARTICIPATES IN EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT'S EQUAL RIGHTS
FOR GAYS AND LESBIANS INTERGROUP

On 22 October 1997, the intergroup on Equal Rights for Gays and
Lesbians had its founding meeting in Strasbourg (cf. Euro-Letter
# 55). Four political
groups have joined so far: GUE/NGL (Confederal Group of the
European United Left/Nordic Green Left), V (The Green Group),
PSE (Socialist) and PPE (European People's Party/Christian
Democratic Group). That the PPE joined, caused a controversy in
this group. 

PPE leader Wilfried Martens, former Belgian prime-minister,
agreed that his group joined without getting the consent of the
group. Austrian conservative MEP Karl Habsburg demanded even an
explanation publicly.

In the 19 November 1997 meeting of the intergroup, the official
name of the intergroup was decided upon. Outi Ojala (GUE/NGL,
Finland) was elected president, Claudia Roth (V, Germany),
Richard Howitt (PSE, UK) and Peter Pex (PPE, Netherlands) were
elected vice-presidents of the intergroup. ILGA-Europe and
�galit‚ were invited to permanently participate in the
intergroup. In this session, the intergroup also fixed its aims.

In the 14 December 1997 meeting of the intergroup in Strasbourg,
Marion Oprel, president of �galit‚, and ILGA-Europe board
members Maren Wuch and Kurt Krickler gave presentations on their
respective organisation. The history and structure, the main
activities and achievements of ILGA were presented. Maren and
Kurt also introduced the ILGA-Europe Working Programme towards
the EU as adopted at the ILGA-Euro Conference in London last
October. ILGA-Europe also made a list of proposals for joint
activities and actions within the intergroup. The full
text of ILGA-Europe's presentation is printed below and is also
available on ILGA-Europe's website
(http://inet.uni2.dk/~steff/ilgaeur.htm)

ILGA-Europe will continue to participate regularly in the
intergroup meetings which are scheduled to take place once a
month in Strasbourg at least until the summer break. The next
meeting will be on 14 January 1998.

ILGA-Europe member groups are cordially invited to cooperate
with the intergroup, either directly with the MEPs involved or
via ILGA-Europe, and to put forward any suggestions they seem
appropriate for the intergroup.

PRESENTATION OF ILGA-EUROPE TO THE EQUAL RIGHTS FOR GAYS AND
LESBIAN INTERGROUP OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT
Strasbourg, 16 December 1997

The International Lesbian and Gay Association, ILGA, was founded
almost 20 years ago, in 1978. It is a worldwide federation of
national, regional and local organisations and groups dedicated
to work for equal rights for lesbians, gay men, bisexuals and/or
transgendered people. It is registered as a non-governmental
non-profit international association under Belgian law.

ILGA World has today more than 300 member organisations in
around 70 countries on all continents. Its structure is still
very grass-roots oriented, ILGA is basically a network, and the
strength and success of ILGA lie to a large extent in the
achievements and progress made by the many member groups. Since
its foundation, ILGA World had been holding annual world
conferences, since 1995 these conferences are held in two-years
intervals. 

ILGA has also organised regional conferences, for instance in
Asia and Latin America, although on an irregular basis. In
Europe, however, there have been annual regional conferences on
a regular basis ever since 1980. In the past, in the
pre-internet times, these conferences have been the most
important opportunity for ILGA activists from around the world
to communicate, to exchange information, and to network.

Recently, ILGA has also taken some important steps to become a
more streamlined organisation. For that
purpose, it may sound a little paradoxical, ILGA started a
regionalisation process, at the end of which ILGA will have six
regions corresponding grosso modo to the defined continents. All
ILGA regions will have independent organisational structures. In
December 1996, ILGA-Europe was the first of these regional
associations to be founded. ILGA-Europe is also registered as a
non-profit international association under Belgian law. Each
ILGA region elects two representatives, one female, one male, to
the Executive Board of ILGA World. Gender parity is
an important feature in all ILGA business, the Board of
ILGA-Europe also consists of equal numbers of women and men.
Another important feature is diversity.

During the 19 years of its existence, ILGA has called for and
carried out innumerable campaigns for law reform in many
countries, campaigns against discrimination and against cases of
violation of the human rights of gays and lesbians. ILGA has
arranged countless protest actions and amnesty
international-style letter writing campaigns.

ILGA has also given impetus and support to gay and lesbian
groups in Latin America and in South Africa.

ILGA has played a crucial role in the emergence and development
of the first gay and lesbian organisations in the former
East-Bloc. ILGA's "Eastern Europe Information Pool", which
operated from 1982 to 1990, had lent support to the young
movement in Eastern Europe, sometimes even to the irritation of
the secret police of these countries, and so the names of ILGA
activists for instance ended up in the files of the GDR
intelligence service STASI as we have found out after the
collapse of the Berlin Wall. ILGA helped also organise ten
sub-regional conferences for Eastern Europe in the years 1987 to
1996 to allow the participation of people who could not travel
to conferences in the West and to specifically address the
problems and needs of gays and lesbians in this
part of Europe.

The issue of AIDS has been another focus of ILGA and has always
been integral part of ILGA conferences. ILGA has been closely
co-operating with the Global Programme on AIDS of the World
Health Organization and later with its successor, the joint UN
agency to fight AIDS, UNAIDS.

Major successes of ILGA's lobbying on the international level
include the deletion of "homosexuality" from the World Health
Organization's International Classification of Diseases, and the
inclusion, into the mandate of
amnesty international, of persons imprisoned solely on the
grounds of their sexual orientation.

ILGA has been lobbying many international organisations, such as
the Council of Europe, the United Nations, the Organisation for
Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), and of course the
European Union. ILGA has participated as an NGO in many
international conferences, such as the 2nd UN World Conference
on Human Rights in Vienna in 1993 or the 4th UN World Conference
on Women in Beijing in 1995, as well as in regional preparatory
conferences to these world conferences. ILGA has participated in
the so-called Helsinki Process since the Human Dimension Meeting
in Moscow in 1991, and successfully lobbied the recognition of
non-discrimination based on sexual orientation as an OSCE
commitment in the 1993 Implementation Meeting of the OSCE.

ILGA has also successfully lobbied the Council of Europe to
demand from candidate members, as a
pre-condition for admission, to repeal laws which provide for a
total ban on homosexuality which was relevant for membership
applicants such as Lithuania, Romania, Albania, Moldova, and
Macedonia. This autumn, ILGA was granted consultative status
with the Council of Europe.

ILGA and its European members have also lobbied the European
Communities and their institutions, especially the Parliament.
And we very much appreciate the landmark "Resolution on equal
rights for homosexuals and lesbians in the EC" which the
Parliament adopted in February 1994. We also appreciate the
reiteration of the demands of this resolution in the annual
reports and resolutions on the observance of human rights in the
EU for 1994 and 1995.

ILGA has also been involved in three projects carried out for
the European Commission: In 1993, ILGA, in
association with the European University Institute and the
European Human Rights Foundation, produced a pioneering report
for DG V entitled "Homosexuality: a European Community Issue", a
second report researched Lesbian Visibility in the EU member
states, and in 1995/96 ILGA carried out a project under the
PHARE/TACIS Democracy Programme helping set up gay and lesbian
organisations in the three Baltic countries and in St.
Petersburg and Moscow.

We also succeeded to get "sexual orientation" included in the
new Article 6a of the Amsterdam Treaty.

Even before ILGA-Europe was founded as an independent region one
year ago, the lobbying activities towards the European
institutions and organisations - EU, Council of Europe, and OSCE
- were carried out by a European Working Party composed of
several European ILGA members. The know-how, knowledge and
skills of this working party are now reassembled in
ILGA-Europe's Executive Board who will continue the lobbing work
towards all three of these European organisations.

ILGA-EUROPE'S WORKING PROGRAMME TOWARDS THE EUROPEAN UNION

As most of you are aware, ILGA-Europe has adopted an Action Plan
towards the European Union. This Action Plan was drafted by a member of
Egalite‚ and further elaborated with ILGA-Europe and its members.

This Action Plan is meant to be adopted and implemented by the
European Commission. We have used this year to introduce the
Action Plan to the various cabinets and to explain its
"horizontal" approach which, for us, means mainstreaming the
issue so that all cabinets should include and integrate lesbian
and gay concerns in their activities and programmes where
appropriate. Future budgetlines and funding programmes should
also be designed in a
way to address gays and lesbians, for instance youth, education,
sports, cultural, human rights, scientific, research and other
programmes. The human rights of gays and lesbians and the
observance and violation thereof should become an integral part
of the EU human rights monitoring and reporting on third
countries.

We have to say that ILGA-Europe is quite satisfied with the
official responses of the Commission to the Action Plan.
ILGA-Europe has received replies from all but three
commissioners so far, and we had meetings with representatives
of all commissioners whose portfolios we consider especially
relevant for our demands, e.g., we met with officials in the
cabinets of commissioners Oreja, Mar¡n, Gradin, Santer, Flynn,
Cresson, Pinheiro, Sir Leon Brittan, Monti, Papoutsis and van
den Broek. Another meeting with someone in the cabinet of
commissioner
Wulf-Mathies has been offered and will be arranged.

Other main topics of ILGA-Europe's lobbying towards the European
Union include:

to work for that the new article 6a of the Treaty of Amsterdam,
once ratified by all member states, be translated into concrete
action, for example into a general non-discrimination directive; 

to work for the re-definition of the term "legal spouse" in
order to recognise partners in same-sex relationships and
registered partnerships and to include same-sex partners and
their children in the concept and definition of "family" - which
also should affect adoption and joint custody of children as
well as artificial insemination for lesbians. This is of great
importance for the free movement of persons within the EU. 

ILGA-Europe has also submitted three project proposals under
various programmes, one has been recently approved. It is called
"Equality for lesbians and gay men - a relevant issue in the
civil and social dialogue". The project has three main
objectives: first to start and intensify communication and
contacts with other NGOs which are working in related areas such
as human rights in general, women's equality, xenophobia,
anti-racism, youth, family issues, or handicap but also trade
unions and employers' organisations; second to draw up a report
on the
existing legal and social situation of lesbians and gays in all
member states, and third to promote, between gay and lesbian
organisations in the EU, the exchange of experience and
information and to disseminate examples of good practice and
policies of non-discrimination based on sexual orientation. The
mentioned report could also become an important piece of
information for the intergroup.

COOPERATION WITH THE INTERGROUP
ILGA-Europe would like to use this opportunity to stress and
emphasise its strong commitment to work together with the
inter-group, to offer its expertise in the area of human rights
for gays and lesbians, to support any initiative to be taken by
this inter-group both towards the Commission and on the European
Parliament level, and to assist in all activities to be carried
out.

In this context, we have also several ideas and proposals for
possible initiatives which relate to the issues we have just
mentioned:

Article 6a of the Treaty of Amsterdam, which has only the
character of a declaration of intent so far, needs to be filled
with life, the measures enounced must be put into reality, for
instance as a substantial and comprehensive anti-discrimination
directive; 

Monitoring the human rights record of applicant members should
also cover sexual orientation based
discrimination. The admission of any country that does not
achieve a basic standard of non-discrimination towards lesbians
and gays must be opposed. We believe that Cyprus for instance,
with its total ban on male homosexuality, cannot be seriously
considered eligible for membership in the EU. Both the European
Court of Human Rights and the United Nations Human Rights
Committee have ruled in the past that such a total ban is a
violation of the European Human Rights Convention and of the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
respectively. Cyprus, thus, would persistently breach Article F
paragraphs 1 and 2 of the TEU. The same attitude would likewise
apply to all third countries which the Union concludes
agreements with;  

The non-recognition of same-sex partners as "spouse" is a severe
impediment to the free movement of persons within the Union.
This is even more serious for same-sex couples who have
registered their partnership in Denmark or Sweden and are
considered quasi married in these countries. As soon as they
move to other EU countries, they will only have the status of
strangers to each other. This is unacceptable and unworthy for a
civilised and humane society. In this field, we see a very
urgent need for action; 

The intergroup and the Parliament as a whole could question the
Commission about their intentions and
plans concerning the implementation of the Action Plan proposed
by ILGA-Europe; 

ILGA-Europe could also feed into the annual reports and
resolutions on the observance of human rights in
the EU - in the past two years gay and lesbian concerns have
been prominently addressed. This should continue; 
In order to make it easier for ILGA-Europe and its members to
obtain funding for concrete projects, the
budgetlines and programme guidelines of the various
Directorates-General should be designed in an inclusive way. DG
1A for instance informed us in the meeting with them that their
budgetlines specifically
address 15 priorities, and since "sexual orientation based
discrimination" is not one of these, they cannot
fund any human rights projects for gays and lesbians; for such a
purpose, the budgetlines would have to be
amended, and the Human Rights Sub-Committee of the Parliament
would be responsible for that. The
Intergroup, therefore, could monitor the design of all of the
programme guidelines and budgetlines and try to amend them
accordingly. 

We would like to thank you again for the opportunity to address
this intergroup and to cooperate with it, and we are convinced
that this cooperation will be very useful and fruitful for both
the European Parliament and ILGA-Europe and our common concerns.

ILGA-EUROPE HAS GOT EU FUNDING FOR A HUMAN RIGHTS PROJECT
By Steffen Jensen

The European Commission has granted ILGA-Europe 39.600 ECU
covering 60 % of a Human Rights Project in order to start and
intensify ILGA-Europe's collaboration woth other NGO's and to
draw up a report on the situation for lesbians and gay men in
the EU member states. See project describtion on ILGA-Europe's
homepage.

PENAL CODE AND HOMOSEXUALITY IN BULGARIA
By Nikolai Zhorov Georgiev

Here I like to clarify the legal situation of homosexuality in
Bulgaria. Note: OG = Official Gazette

PENAL CODE, Division VIII - Debauchery
Article 157 

(1) (OG, issue 28 from 1982) 
Whoever commits a sexual intercourse or acts of
sexual satisfaction with a person from the same sex with the use
of force or intimidation, or uses a position of dependence or
supervision, or with a
person deprived of ability for self-defence, is punished with
imprisonment from 1 to 5 years and with public censure;

(2) (OG, issue 28 from 1982, issue 89 from 1986, issue 62 from
1997) 
The same punishment is imposed on the one who commits homosexual
acts with a person not completed 16 years of age;

(3) (OG, issue 89 from 1986) 
The punishment according (1) is also imposed on
a person of age who has committed such homosexual acts with a
person not of age or with a person who could not understand the
nature and the significance of the deed;

(4) (OG, issue 89 from 1986) 
Whoever does homosexual acts in public or in a
scandalous way or in a way to lure somebody else into the way of
perversion is punished with imprisonment up to 2 years or with
correctional labor, and with public censure;

(5) (OG, issue 28 from 1982, issue 89 from 1986) Whoever commits
homosexual acts with the aim to obtain a real estate gain or
with such an aim lures
somebody else into such acts, and the one who lures somebody
else into homosexual acts through giving or promising gain is
punished with imprisonment up to 3 years and a fine up to 600
leva, whenever the court may enact a compulsory settlement.

Comments:

1. The (3) has been changed this year(!) from 14 to 16 years. I
remember when the MPs voted on the new Penal Code but they
probably did not pay so much attention on this single Article.
So we are worse off since July 1997 speaking about age of
consent for homosexual people.

2. The fine in (5) is rather old. In 1986 it would cost about
300 USD while now it costs exactly 0.60 DEM

BRITAIN TO LIFT GAY BAN IN MILITARY
By Rex Wockner

Britain will move this winter to lift its ban on gays in the
military rather than be forced to do so by rulings expected from
the European Court of Human Rights and the European Court of
Justice.

Proposed legislation reportedly draws on the U.S.' failed 'don't
ask, don't tell' policy.

One of the European cases likely will open the floodgates for
about 4,000 gays and lesbians who were kicked out of the
military since 1978 to sue for damages -- at a cost to the
British government of up to $1.7 billion. 

"As well as compensation for loss of pay and pensions, sacked
gay personnel will get massive punitive damages for being put
under surveillance, arrested, interrogated, imprisoned and
humiliated,"

said gay activist Peter Tatchell of the group OutRage! "For
every week the government continues to defy the [European Union]
Equal Treatment Directive, the bill grows bigger."

PORTUGAL: PROPOSAL TO (NEARLY) EQUALIZE AGE OF CONSENT FAILED
by Helmut Graupner, Rechtskomitee LAMBDA Vienna

Within the past months the Portuguese government presented to
parliament a proposal for a revision of the sexual offences
provisions of the Criminal Code.

This proposal among others also contained a revision on the
homosexual age of consent.

According to the bill the age of consent (now 14 for HTS and 16
for HS; see Euroletter 55) would have been equalized at 14 but
an inequality would have remained in the provisions on
"seduction" (of 14 and 15year old adolescents): seduction to HTS
acts would have been criminal only in the case of vaginal, anal
or oral copulation (Art. 174 CC) while HS seduction would have
been criminal in all cases (also manual sex, petting etc.) (Art.
175 CC).

The Government proposal however did not get a majority in
parliament and failed.

KYRGYZSTAN DECRIMINALIZES CONSENTING SAME-SEX RELATIONS

Amnesty International, the International Secretariat reports
that  the  new Criminal Code of Kyrgyzstan which  entered into
force on 1 January 1998 decriminalizes consenting same-sex
relations between adults.

Article 130 of the new criminal code - "violent actions of a
sexual nature" - - punishes "homosexual, lesbian or other
actions of a sexual nature resorting to the use of force or to
the threat of force against the victim or against other
individuals or taking advantage of the weakness of the victim"
with a prison sentence of between three to eight years.

***************************
Steffen Jensen
E-mail: [email-masked] 
http://inet.uni2.dk/~steff
Tel. +45 3324 6435 or +45 2033 0840  Fax: +45 2036 7856