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JAMAICAJune 2004 - December 2004
Human Rights Watch has released its report on JAMAICA'S homophobia, violence and HIV/AIDS. The document is the result of a study following the mutilation and knife murder of Brian Williamson, Jamaica's leading gay rights activist, in June 2004. The report found that violent acts against a "battyman" (homosexual) are commonplace because HIV/AIDS and homosexuality are thought to be synonymous. As well consensual sex between adult men is criminalised in JAMAICA. The report considers that while ever the government chooses to allow popular prejudices to proliferate, attempts to establish rights-based HIV/AIDS policies will continue to be undermined.
FROM IGLHRC: LACCASO Action Alert: Leading Jamaican HIV/AIDS activist murdered
December 14, 2005
Texto en Español sigue Le texte en français suit.
Dear friends and colleagues:
The night of the 30th of November, 2005, Steve Harvey, a leading Jamaican HIV/AIDS activist who had been working for 14 years to defend the health and human rights of people living with and at high-risk of HIV/AIDS, was murdered. He was found dead early in the morning with gunshot wounds in his back and head in a rural area, miles from his home.
Steve worked with Jamaica AIDS Support since 1997, and represented the interests of marginalized people and people living with HIV/AIDS in Jamaica and throughout the region. As coordinator of targeted interventions for Jamaica AIDS Support, he had been responsible for ensuring that the most marginalized of Jamaicans-gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender individuals; sex workers; prisoners-were provided access to HIV/AIDS information and services. By mid 2005, he was chosen as LACCASO\'s (Latin America and Caribbean Council of AIDS Service Organizations), in-country project coordinator for Jamaica. His capacity, dedication and courage signaled the way for the most successful implementation of our Advocacy Project.
Steve Harvey was a person of extraordinary bravery and integrity, who worked tirelessly to ensure that some of Jamaica\'s most marginalized people had the tools and information to protect themselves from HIV/AIDS, said Rebecca Schleifer, researcher with the HIV/AIDS and Human Rights Program at Human Rights Watch and author of a recent report on anti-gay violence and HIV/AIDS in Jamaica.
"From 1935 onwards the slightest sign of homosexual tendencies were punished. Waves of arrests and trials followed. A secret report of the Federal Security Office for Combating Abortion and Homosexuality disclosed that 42,919 homosexual men were sentenced between 1936-39. About 12,000 indictments were recorded between 1941-44. The military courts were very busy enforcing the anti-homosexual regulations. More than 7000 German military men were caught and convicted for homosexual misdeeds. Overall, the number of males convicted of homosexuality is estimated to be 60,000."
Prof. Konrad Kwiet German Studies (1991)
Jeff Whittington murdered in Wellington New Zealand on 8 May 1999
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------A New Zealand jury convicted a college student of murdering a gay stamp collector after deliberating overnight.
The defendant, Dick Faisauvale, 19, claimed that Robert Hunt sexually attacked him after inviting him home for a meal.
Faisauvale told the Auckland court he feared he was going to be raped, so he cut and stabbed Hunt 42 times.
Faisauvale's attorney, Panama Le'au'anae, told the jury that Faisauvale was not a cruel, cold, conniving, calculated killer, but a young man who feared for his safety.
But the prosecutor, Philip Hamlin, told the court that Faisauvale was not as innocent as he claimed. Faisauvale even admitted he had previously been paid for sex by another man.
Hamlin added that Faisauvale told a friend he took a knife to steal Hunt's TV, DVD and car.
The court agreed with the prosecution, convicting Faisauvale of murder.
Justice Marion Frater set Faisauvale's sentencing for September.
During the last ten months of 1990, sixty transvestites were brutally massacred in Peru. Unfortunately, violence against gays has provoked little response from Peru's Human Rights groups, who, following Amnesty International's lead, considers that aggression directed against gays are not examples of violations of human rights.
Movimento Homosexual De Lima, I.L.G.A. Bulletin 3/91 (1991)
"In the 1st detachment (otyad) of the Lipetsk Prison there is a total of 150 prisoners. Out of these 60 are 'clean' and the rest have become homosexuals (ie sodomized) in prison. . . . All the time we are subject to injections and painful medical tests. It is horrible. If you don't take the test it is regarded as insubordination and you are punished with 3 to 15 days of isolation where the test is taken by force."
I.L.G.A. Bulletin 1/91 (1991)
The following article was in the Sydney Star Observer on 20 May 2009:
For the fourth time in as many years, Moscow Pride has been violently suppressed by Russian security forces who stood by while participants were bashed by skinheads and Orthodox Christian thugs.
The official reason for the ban on this year’s march was that police could not guarantee the safety of participants — yet Moscow’s mayor Yuri Luzhkov has continually labelled the gay rights movement “satanic” and has failed to issue permits for a single gay protest in his city in the thirteen years of his administration. In comparison he approved two anti-gay counter-protests in the last week.
Moscow’s police chief showed himself to be equally unimpartial, telling the Interfax news service, “It’s unacceptable. Gay pride parades shouldn’t be allowed.” His concluding remark held a chilling warning for Pride participants that came true on Saturday: “Such bravehearts will be torn to shreds.” Within minutes of protesters assembling in Pushkin Park, next to Moscow’s State University, riot police from the dreaded OMON paramilitary unit began the mass arrests.
Anyone they could identify as gay was dragged down the pavement and thrown into waiting buses and cars. When a second wave of activists identified themselves and began speaking to journalists, not even rolling TV cameras stopped police, with many dragged away mid-interview. The 31 arrested included foreign nationals from Finland, Belarus and the USA, and Australian-born British activist Peter Tatchell, who was bashed by thugs at another march in 2007.
The Finns had been talking to Estonian journalists when a homophobic mob descended on them, throwing kicks and punches, before police intervened to arrest them — but not their attackers. Activists were attacked elsewhere in the park while police watched. Back at the police station, those arrested were denied access to their lawyer for two hours, then a judge banned supporters from entering the courthouse to watch as their charges were read out.
Russia’s antipathy to the rights of its sexual minorities is ironic considering how much of its cultural fame was build on the backs of gay men — Tchaikovsky, Nijinsky and Nureyev were all gay, as were Battleship Potemkin director Sergei Eisenstein and the writer Nikolai Gogol.
Organisers hoped that holding the march just hours before the Eurovision finals would focus world attention on their plight, and this mostly succeeded.
Yet how many more years do Russian GLBTs have to be bashed on television before serious diplomatic pressure is applied?
PlanetOut News crime file 16 July 2000: - 3 Yemeni men executed in Saudi Arabia on 14 July 2000 for "committing the extreme obscenity of homosexuality and imitating women" as well as sexually molesting boys. 3 other men were beheaded on 11 July for similar crimes plus charges of same-gender marriage.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------December 2004
Courageous lesbian and Sierra Leone gay activist, Fanny Ann Viola Eddy, has been brutally murdered. She was working late in the Lesbian and Gay Association Office when she was attacked, raped and knifed. She was recently elected to the interim steering committee at the All Africa Symposium on Human Rights in Johannesburg.
The latest crimes to be uncovered are those concerning the medical attacks, through so-called psychiatry, and chemical means, of attacking gays and lesbians in the Army to make them "straight".
The stories are horrific, and are getting worse with ongoing revelations of mutilations, suicides, psychological scars which are permanent, operations for gender re-assignment which were never completed - the drama goes on and on.
The doctor responsible for these events is a Jewish psychiatrist who fled to Canada when the apartheid years came to an end in 1994, with the story that his daughter had been attacked in their home at knife point, and he wasn't going to continue to live in such a country.
The reality is that, as an extreme racist, he was not prepared to live under a black government because of his fears of what would happen to him if the truth of his activities ever surfaced. His racism is one issue, his fanatical homophobia is something else again!
The National Coalition of Gay and Lesbian Equality (NCGLE) is now fighting to get Dr Aubrey Levin to be brought back to South Africa and to be put on trial for human rights abuses relating to all the crimes he has committed. Dr Levin is working at the University of Calgary and is threatening to sue the South African newspaper the Mail and Guardian.
This is one of the incidents of homophobia which those of us in the outside world ought to watch with keen interest.
NEWS - Report in South Africa's GMax online newspaper
Alleged murderer claims to have pulled the trigger
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May 25, 2004
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JOHANNESBURG — Alleged murderer Ruben Grundeling claimed in his trial in the Johannesburg High Court on Monday that he killed a wealthy bachelor during a struggle over a gay date.
Grundeling told the court that the version he previously gave to a Scorpions investigator was "a pack of lies."
"I would have said anything to get out of trouble," Grundeling said during cross-examination by State advocate Rachelle van der Walt.
Ruben Grundeling, his brother Francois Grundeling and Michael Montgomery pleaded not guilty to charges of murdering Bruce Rex Currin and robbing him.
The prosecution case is that Montgomery killed Currin because Currin was angry over losses on his overseas investment account.
Currin was last seen alive on March 1, 2002 and his burnt body was found in mielie fields in the Kempton Park area 10 days later.
The Grundelings were arrested after the police received information that a car was to be sold in an insurance scam.
Ruben Grundeling claimed that on the night of the murder he had with him an illegal firearm which he bought in Soweto for protection after receiving threats.
He said an argument broke out after Currin allegedly said "he knew of my past and would not say anything if I could arrange a date for him with Montgomery at some or other gay club in Johannesburg."
Grundeling said he told Currin that Montgomery – who is married – "was like that."
One thing led to another after he swore at Currin and Currin allegedly swiped at him with a board. Grundeling claimed he then drew his gun.
It was alleged that during a struggle for the gun, the fatal shot went off.
Currin was a teacher at the St John's College in Houghton, northern Johannesburg.
The trial continues. – Sapa
NEWS from South Africa's GMax Online newspaper
Court hears details of Papo's death
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August 12, 2004
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PRETORIA — The Pretoria High Court on Wednesday heard chilling details of how Technikon Professor William Papo was strangled in January last year while engaged in a sex orgy before being stabbed in the neck.
One of the murderers, state witness Joseph Bongani Mahlangu, 29, testified on Wednesday the plan was to go to Papo's home under the pretence of “playing a game of hockey”, whereafter they would have robbed Papo.
Mahlangu said he and Papo were gay lovers for about four years and he often went to the professor's home to “play a game of hockey.” By this he meant that they engaged in gay sex acts or orgies.
Mahlangu, who is serving a 55-year sentence after he pleaded guilty to the murders of Papo and a couple visiting him, said the plan was to strangle or throttle Papo while one of them was busy having sex with him.
His co-accused, 24-year-old Sidney Albert Mashigo and Patrick Lekalakala, pleaded not guilty to the triple murders and robbery with aggravating circumstances.
Mashigo said he stood outside Papo's home and only saw his co-accused returning from inside with blood on them. Lekalakala denied ever going to Papo's Doornpoort home or that he ever met the professor.
Mahlangu, however, testified that his two co-accused agreed with his plan to rob Papo. The professor agreed to pick them up on January 12 last year at Wonderboom station, whereafter they went to his home under the pretence of having an orgy.
There they found he had two house guests, Mmathapelo Jacqueline Mamaila, 20, and her boyfriend, 25-year-old Lebo Moloto.
After a few drinks and a meal, Mamaila and Moloto went to bed.
“After a few minutes we also went upstairs. The professor made me a bed on the floor, while he slept on the bed with Mashigo and Lekalakala. Papo switched on the television set and then they started to arouse each other.”
Mahlangu said Papo handed Lekalakala a condom and he use it for having sex with the professor.
“While they were in the act, Mashigo strangled Papo,” he said.
He explained that Lekalakala stopped his sex act and assisted Lekalakala in attacking the professor. They took the cord from the TV set and strangled him with it.
Mahlangu said he fetched some ties in the cupboard and helped them tie Papo up.
They then covered him with a duvet. He meanwhile fetched Moloto from downstairs and asked him to “assist them because Papo had lost consciousness.”
His two accused waited for Moloto at the door and when he entered the bedroom, they grabbed him and placed their hands over his mouth. He was then tied up.
The same happened to the woman, Mahlangu said.
He explained that clothes were stuffed into their mouths and they were not able to scream for help.
“After they were tied up we said we wanted their ATM cards.”
Mahlangu said after the two gave their cards and pin numbers, his co-accused drove to the bank to verify it. He stayed behind to keep watch. The two younger victims were still alive at that time, while Papo was motionless.
After thirty minutes they returned with R1,000 cash, which they later shared. The three of them loaded Papo's two vehicles with goods from the house before returning to his bedroom.
“By that time I realised he was dead. But Mashigo stabbed the professor once with a knife to make sure whether he was dead or not. Blood came out...”
Mahlangu said he took Moloto downstairs to kill him, while Lekalakala took the girl to another room.
“I went to the kitchen and got a knife. Moloto was lying on the floor, covered with a duvet. I then cut his throat. He made muffled screaming noises and his feet kept on kicking.”
“While I was cutting his throat Mashigo came in with something that looked like a hammer. It had a sharpened end and he hit Moloto one on the head. Moloto kept on kicking throughout.”
Mahlangu said he went to check how far Lekalakala was with the woman. “She was half naked. He had already stabbed her on the thighs and he was busy stabbing her in the heart. He said she did not want to die. She also kicked and kicked.”
He testified that Lekalakala suggested that they place plastic bags over the heads of their victims to make sure that they were dead. After they did this, they left with the loot in Papo's two vehicles, Mahlangu said.
Cross-examination by the defence will continue on today. – Sapa
9 July 2007In July 2007 two young black lesbians, Sizakelle Sigasa and Salome Masooa, were found in a field near Soweto, tortured, raped and murdered because of their sexuality.
INTERNATIONAL GAY AND LESBIAN HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION
Lesbian Killing In South Africa: We Demand Justice!
(July 9, 2007) The South African lesbian and gay communities through the Joint Working Group* and partner organisations STRONGLY CONDEMN the killing of Sizakele Sigasa (34) and Salome Masooa (23) from a township in Johannesburg. They were found (Sunday 8th July) murdered, execution style, in a nearby field in Meadowlands; a shocking image that is not so new in South Africa in the light of the recent increase in violence and rape against women either identified as, suspected of or supporting lesbian and gay rights.
Gays and lesbians are men and women, human beings who deserve equal rights and treatment - not to be ridiculed or called names, beaten, tortured, raped or killed. These gross human rights violations are not just inhuman and barbaric - they must not be tolerated! Sizakele and Salome's killers, like everyone else, HAD NO RIGHT TO THREATEN OR KILL THEM!!
Violence against lesbians and gays is unSouth African. Here, oppression and discrimination have no place, still there are parents who reject or kick children out to the streets; siblings, friends and communities who hurt, beat, rape, torture and even kill lesbians and gays. If they survive all this, they face further victimisation at in the hands of the police and even the courts - THIS IS NOT JUSTICE AT ALL. People who inflict harm upon and even kill lesbians and gays (or anyone else) do not belong in South Africa. Leaders and communities that do not oppose violence against gays, lesbians, women, children, rape survivors and HIV+ people do not belong here.
1) We call on the Meadowlands Police Services to investigate this matter - efficiently and rigorously;
2) We call on other state bodies and communities to support the families by working with the Police and the Prosecuting Authorities towards ensuring that the killers are brought to book.
We express our deepest condolences to the bereaved families and friends. We offer our support to the colleagues and comrades as they mourn the death of these two precious women.
MEMORIAL SERVICE: Thursday 12 July 2007, 12h00-15h00 (Epelegeng Centre)
FUNERAL: Saturday, 14 July 2007, 12h00 (Meadowlands Community Centre)
====================Contact: Busi Kheswa, Gay and Lesbian Memory In Action, 011-717/4239/1963 Prudence Mabele, Positive Women's Network, 078 383 9529
For assistance in dealing with trauma and loss or for a debrief please contact the: UNISA Centre for Applied Psychology: 012 429 8089/8544 or Out-Well Being: 012-344-6500
Issued by Nonhlanhla Mkhize (031 301 2145) for the Joint Working Group (JWG).
*The JWG is a network of LGBTI organisations and partners in South Africa. Our Vision is to strengthen the organised LGBTI sector to maximise our response to LGBTI needs through partnerships, collective use of resources, and drawing on the strengths of participating organizations in contributing towards social justice and the reconstruction and development of South African society
(SSO 030497 Swaziland homophobia)
GAY AND LESBIAN HATE CRIMES - BIBLIOGRAPHY AND RECOMMENDED READING LIST