Hamas and Islamic Jihad murder queers
Palestinian Authority jails and tortures LGBTs
Gay Palestinians appeal for international solidarity
Palestinian Authority jails and tortures LGBTs
Gay Palestinians appeal for international solidarity
THE GAY DIVIDE
BBC Radio 4, Monday 30 May 2005, 8.30 - 9pm GMT
Listen to the programme:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/factual/gay_divide.shtml
(available online only until Sunday 5 June 2005)
Please show solidarity with LGBT Palestinians. Help us end the homophobic persecution of Palestinian lesbians and gays.
1) Email the UK representative of the Palestine Liberation
Organisation, Afif Safieh
Palestinianuk@aol.com
Or fax Mr Safieh on London 020 8563 0058 - from outside the UK +44 208 563 0058
2) Fax the President of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, in Ramallah, on 00 9728 282 2365
Thank you for helping LGBT Palestinians.
If you want more information concerning homophobic persecution in the Palestinian territories, go to the OutRage! website:
www.outrage.org.uk
Then go to Briefings, then to Palestinian Gays.
Solidarity! - Saoud Khan, OutRage! London
-------------
Excerpts from the BBC Radio 4 programme:
Reporter Eric Beauchemin explores Muslim attitudes to homosexuality through the lives of some of the gay and lesbian Palestinians forced to flee to Israel:
Throughout the Muslim world homosexuality is a taboo, punishable in several countries by death. On the West Bank and Gaza women or men who have sex with people of the same sex face imprisonment and torture. They are also rejected by their families and the rest of society.
Several hundred Palestinian gays and lesbians have fled to Israel.
Because they're Palestinian, they're illegal and cannot readily obtain asylum in Israel. But having tried in Israel, it is virtually impossible to obtain asylum in another country, as you can only apply for asylum once.
While on a recent trip looking at how the Middle East conflict was affecting individuals, Radio Netherlands journalist, Eric Beauchemin, met several gays and lesbians caught in this legal limbo. They talked to him about their experiences being caught up between religion, prejudice and politics. 25 year old Rami fled to Tel Aviv when he was a teenager.
"I am afraid, really afraid. One of the last times I was deported, the Israelis left me on a deserted road. I saw a lot of people from my village and they started asking me what I was doing there. I don't speak very good Arabic anymore, so they started saying that I was a collaborator. I was afraid they would kill me. I fear my brother and Hamas more than the Israeli police, because if the Israelis catch me, they won't kill me. They will just arrest me. But Hamas will surely kill me."
Because they form a relatively small group in the Middle East, gays and lesbians receive scant attention in the media and from society. The director of the Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group, Bassem Eid, recognises that despite the human rights of these Palestinians being violated, these abuses, he says, pale in comparison to what's happening to the majority living in the occupied territories.
" the homosexuals and the lesbians is the smallest topic right now, which nobody wants to add it, you know, to the Palestinian suffering here. If the situation will calm down a little bit, I believe that this issue must have, (sic), to be raised publicly and more and more awareness should have,(sic), to be spreading among the Palestinian
society".
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/factual/gay_divide.shtml
More Useful Links
Radio Netherlands (the Dutch International Service)
http://www2.rnw.nl/rnw/en/
Agudah (Israeli gay and lesbian group:)
http://www.geocities.com/westhollywood/stonewall/2295/
ASWAT (Palestinian lesbian group in Haifa)
http://www.aswat-palestiniangaywomen.org/
ENDS
BBC Radio 4, Monday 30 May 2005, 8.30 - 9pm GMT
Listen to the programme:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/factual/gay_divide.shtml (available online only until Sunday 5 June 2005)
Please show solidarity with LGBT Palestinians. Help us end the homophobic persecution of Palestinian lesbians and gays.
1) Email the UK representative of the Palestine Liberation
Organisation, Afif Safieh
Palestinianuk@aol.com Or fax Mr Safieh on London 020 8563 0058 - from outside the UK +44 208 563 0058
2) Fax the President of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, in Ramallah, on 00 9728 282 2365
Thank you for helping LGBT Palestinians.
If you want more information concerning homophobic persecution in the Palestinian territories, go to the OutRage! website:
www.outrage.org.uk
Then go to Briefings, then to Palestinian Gays.
Solidarity! - Saoud Khan, OutRage! London
-------------
Excerpts from the BBC Radio 4 programme:
Reporter Eric Beauchemin explores Muslim attitudes to homosexuality through the lives of some of the gay and lesbian Palestinians forced to flee to Israel:
Throughout the Muslim world homosexuality is a taboo, punishable in several countries by death. On the West Bank and Gaza women or men who have sex with people of the same sex face imprisonment and torture. They are also rejected by their families and the rest of society.
Several hundred Palestinian gays and lesbians have fled to Israel.
Because they're Palestinian, they're illegal and cannot readily obtain asylum in Israel. But having tried in Israel, it is virtually impossible to obtain asylum in another country, as you can only apply for asylum once.
While on a recent trip looking at how the Middle East conflict was affecting individuals, Radio Netherlands journalist, Eric Beauchemin, met several gays and lesbians caught in this legal limbo. They talked to him about their experiences being caught up between religion, prejudice and politics. 25 year old Rami fled to Tel Aviv when he was a teenager.
"I am afraid, really afraid. One of the last times I was deported, the Israelis left me on a deserted road. I saw a lot of people from my village and they started asking me what I was doing there. I don't speak very good Arabic anymore, so they started saying that I was a collaborator. I was afraid they would kill me. I fear my brother and Hamas more than the Israeli police, because if the Israelis catch me, they won't kill me. They will just arrest me. But Hamas will surely kill me."
Because they form a relatively small group in the Middle East, gays and lesbians receive scant attention in the media and from society. The director of the Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group, Bassem Eid, recognises that despite the human rights of these Palestinians being violated, these abuses, he says, pale in comparison to what's happening to the majority living in the occupied territories.
" the homosexuals and the lesbians is the smallest topic right now, which nobody wants to add it, you know, to the Palestinian suffering here. If the situation will calm down a little bit, I believe that this issue must have, (sic), to be raised publicly and more and more awareness should have,(sic), to be spreading among the Palestinian
society".
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/factual/gay_divide.shtml More Useful Links
Radio Netherlands (the Dutch International Service)
http://www2.rnw.nl/rnw/en/ Agudah (Israeli gay and lesbian group:)
http://www.geocities.com/westhollywood/stonewall/2295/ ASWAT (Palestinian lesbian group in Haifa)
http://www.aswat-palestiniangaywomen.org/ ENDS
e-mail:
Homepage:
Comments
Hide the following 9 comments
Who runs Palestine?
03.06.2005 16:25
Your first link returns a 404, and your most current link is from February 2003 - theres not a lot there is there?
Why is Israel deporting these people? What do you recommend doing about that?
This is simply getting boring now........
ftp
israeli soldiers kill unarmed palestinians
03.06.2005 16:28
"I fear my brother and Hamas more than the Israeli police, because if the Israelis catch me, they won't kill me. They will just arrest me. But Hamas will surely kill me."
On the day the Independent carries a report of the killing 3 years ago of unarmed palestinians by israeli soldiers to suggest israelis will only arrest and not kill me may not be the way to get support for gays and lesbians in palestine.
independent
and for the spambots : media@outrage.org.uk
03.06.2005 16:28
It only seems fair that you should use the same format for all email addresses, especially as OUTRAGE! claims that it supports the Palestinian struggle for independence.
ftp
Statement of QUIT! Queers Undermining Israeli Terrorism
03.06.2005 18:09
Recently, the queer and mainstream press have reported on three Palestinian gay men who say that they were severely abused and humiliated by Palestinian police. One of the young men reportedly escaped the police, only to be threatened by his own family. They have been living underground in Israel for the last several years, and now Israel is deporting them back to Palestine, where they fear being killed as suspected collaborators.
As queer activists, we condemn the persecution of LGBT people anywhere in the world. This includes Palestine, where many LGBT people experience special oppression living in conservative religious communities, within an oppressed nation.
LAGAI, one of the groups involved in QUIT!, has been actively working for two decades to support queers in north, central and south America, Africa, and Asia. When we first formed, QUIT! took an active role in organizing to support the Egyptian gay men who were arrested in a raid on a gay bar in 2001. We have at times had to struggle for inclusion in the Palestinian solidarity movement, because there were some individuals and groups here who objected to our presence.
We strongly believe that any struggle for liberation has to include queer liberation, because queers are part of all oppressed groups.
However, the story about the three Palestinian men is being used by pro-Israeli gay organizations to suggest that the military occupation of Palestine is justified by anti-gay oppression within Palestinian society. We are outraged by this cynical response to the stories.
Palestine is by no means unique in being a place where gay people are threatened, abused or tortured by the police. It happens in every western society, including in San Francisco. Palestinian queers are also not alone in being in danger in the small conservative towns and villages where their families live, or in being threatened with violence from their own families.
What is unique is that Palestinian queers are prevented from leaving those repressive small towns and from meeting and organizing with other queers by the ever-tightening restrictions on their movement imposed by the Israeli occupation forces. When Israeli soldiers stop young men at checkpoint after checkpoint, telling them no, they cannot travel outside of their villages, they do not ask them if they're gay and need to leave because they fear violence from their families. Israeli police routinely threaten to "out" queer Palestinians if they do not provide information.
The presence of Israeli occupation forces in Palestine does nothing to help and much to hurt LGBT Palestinians.
International law, as repeatedly reaffirmed by the United Nations, recognizes the right of Palestinians to live in any city or town in historic Palestine, including the parts that are now called Israel. This is called the Right of Return of Palestinian refugees. These young men should therefore be able to stay in Israeli cities without asking for asylum. But, under current Israeli law, even if they are granted full Israeli citizenship (which is unlikely), as Palestinians they will be denied equal civil rights with Jews, even Jews who do not live in the country -- they could not own land and they would be ineligible for many social benefits.
In the current situation, it is impossible for queers to have civil rights in the nation of Palestine, because that nation is denied itsright to exist. You cannot have civil rights when you have no human rights. Our support of national liberation for Palestinians is not a quid pro quo for the Palestinian Authority's recognition of queer rights. We support self-determination for all Palestinians, including queer ones, because it is the right of every people.
As people who care about queer rights and all other human rights, we demand:
An immediate end to the military occupation of Palestine and
evacuation of all illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank
(including East Jerusalem) and Gaza;
Equal civil and political rights for all in Israel and Palestine;
Israeli compliance with UN Resolution 194, recognizing the right
of Palestinians to return to their homes;
Until the above are realized, end all U.S. aid to Israel.
We look forward to supporting Palestinian queers in demanding and ensuring the protection of their civil rights in independent Palestine. In the meantime, we certainly would join you in demanding that gay Palestinians be granted refuge and asylum in any country where they choose to live.
QUIT!
Homepage:
http://www.quitpalestine.org/
...
03.06.2005 23:39
The Muslim world sees the West and sees that in many ways we enjoy greater sexual freedom and forms of self-expression. They also see that this culture is exploiting and oppressing them, funding the illegal zionist project, bombing them and their children in Afganistan and Iraq. It is not surprising there is a conservative backlash. And bear this in mind...there was a time when the Muslim world was considered more sexually liberal than the conservative, christian west.
The approach of QUIT is much more encouraging. They stand in solidarity with the Palestinians but do not hide the fact they are gay. They support the rights of an oppressed people, a people who even hate them, because it is the right thing to do. And by showing this solidarity, they can build good feeling. I read their site, about how when they were marching, various groups told them to take down their banner, and they said they would respect that decision, but wouldn't march without it. The first time, they were told to take it down, and didn't march. But the second time, they were told they could march with the banner. They asserted their identity by simply being openly gay at the march. Perhaps in that way, a Palestinian who sees that will be less likely to turn the other way when a gay Palestinian is being persecuted in the occupied territories. But if that same man sees the gay community seemingly attacking him and his people's right to be free, then he's not going to feel inclined to be open-minded about the issue.
End the brutal occupation. When this happens, the Palestinians will, in the words of Nelson Mandela, 'be free to be free'. With self-determination they can build an egalitarian society, with rights for straights and gays, or live under another backwards dictatorship. But there is simply not this choice under the chains of occupation.
Hermes
well said
06.06.2005 11:00
type
Nelson Mandela
07.06.2005 10:00
Nelson Mandela never called for unconditional solidarity with the South African liberation struggle. The ANC produced the "Freedom Charter" outlining their vision for a new South Africa. As a 'government in waiting', the ANC started work on a new constitution that guarenteed the rights and freedoms of ALL South Africans.
If the Palestinians take any tips from Nelson Mandela, it should start with that. The idea that the world should turn a blind eye to their own human rights abuses might work with a minority of apologists, but it won't with most democrats. Having a vision for a liberated Palestine is a key ingredient for broad international solidarity and support - just as Nelson Mandela recognised it was for South Africa's liberation movement.
Qwerty
Email Addresses
07.06.2005 10:11
By asking people to email letters of protest to the PA, we're trying to save people's lives - that's our only motivation for publishing the relevant email address.
Press releases are simply copied and pasted from the master template into the IndyMedia form, occasionally they may contain an email address. My own email (unmodified) address is all over IndyMedia.
Brett Lock
OutRage!
Brett Lock
So .......
08.06.2005 18:34
And Brett Lock, the email thing has happened twice
:)
ftp