24-OCT-1993 14:25 RIGHTS GROUP DOCUMENTS WORLDWIDE OPPRESSION
OF GAYS
    NEW YORK, Oct 24 (Reuter) - Oppression of gay and lesbian
people ranges from execution in some Islamic countries and death
squads to imprisonment and torture in other countries, the head
of an international gay rights organisation said.
    In an interview in the current edition of Newsweek
International, Julie Dorf of the International Gay and Lesbian
Human Rights Commission told the magazine that abuses in Iran are
among the most well-documented: "Iran ... gives you four options
for your execution," she said.
    Other Islamic countries "have harsh laws as well," she said,
and in China, the former Soviet Union and Romania torture,
"usually through psychiatric treatment," is inflicted on gay
people.
    Dorf said "the government is failing to prosecute anti-gay
death squads" in places like Brazil, Ecuador and Peru, and that
there have been 12 targeted murders of activists in Mexico in the
past year.
    Amnesty International, after years of pressure recently began
taking gay and lesbian cases. The U.S. State Department included
gay and lesbian cases in last year's report on human rights for
the first time, Newsweek International said.
    Dorf said her organisation, founded in 1991 and based in San
Francisco, also works on abuses against people with acquired
immune deficiency syndrome or the virus that causes AIDS, Human
Immunodeficiency Virus.
    "We've seen abuses ranging from publishing the names of HIV-
positive people in the local newspapers in Russia to injecting
HIV-positive prostitutes with cyanide in Burma," she said.
 REUTER