j u s t o u t ▼ July 1, 1 0 0 4 ▼ 3
world briefs
BERMUDA
In a 22-16 vote, the Bermuda House of Assem
bly has legalized same-sex relations between men.
The vote followed a tense and bitter debate. The
proposed legislation must still pass the British
colony’s Senate.
CHINA
The millions of gay men in China live miser
able lives, according to a groundbreaking report by
the Taiwanese magazine China Times.
Journalists from the magazine spent two months
surveying the gay scene in the cities of Shenzhen,
Guangzhou, Beijing, Tianjin, Shenyang, Harbin,
Dalian, Qingdao, Shanghai, Nanjing, Chongqing,
Chengdu, Wuhan, Zian and Urumqi.
The reporters found that gay men can meet only
in public toilets, parks and baths, due to the cramped
housing situation and police arrests.
They also found that gay men are treated with
drugs, acupuncture and electroshock to change
their sexual orientation. Atone hospital, the Nanjing
Psychiatry Research Institute, 1,832 gay men were
treated between 1981 and 1991. Only 11 became
heterosexual, according to the staff.
Nearly every gay man interviewed said he
could survive only by marrying a woman, with the
option of divorcing later and not remarrying.
The reporters found that most gay men do not
use condoms because, as one man in Shenzhen
said, “If I love someone, I am ready to die for him.
Who cares about AIDS?”
They found gay men unwilling to be tested for
AIDS for fear of being caught in a government
“trap.”
“The most difficult part of our work was to gain
their confidence,” the reporters wrote. “Every gay
man feared exposure because they have known
others who lost jobs or were jailed on charges of
‘hooliganism.’ ”
Only three gay men agreed to be photographed
for the magazine. One was Gao Yanhai, the China
Health Research Institute employee who formed
the Men’s World gay support group and launched
China’s first AIDS hotline in Beijing in 1992. Gao
was fired in 1993, and the group and hotline were
discontinued, China Times discovered.
ENGLAND
After being criticized by Conservative politi
cians, the British Broadcasting Corporation has
currently suspended its
policy of giving a wedding
gift and one week paid va
cation to its employees who
marry. The BBC had re
cently started giving the
benefits to its gay and les
bian employees to be “in
line with our equal oppor
tunity policy.” The BBC has said it will re-evaluate
its policy in light of the criticism.
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Ministerof Parliament Michael Brown resigned
after detailed reports appeared in newspapers re
garding his alleged sexual relationship with a 20-
year-old man. The reports, which Brown disputed,
are the latest in a series of sex scandals involving
ranking members of Prime Minister John Major’s
government.
INTERNATIONAL
The International Gay and Lesbian Human
Rights Commission will honor a South African
queer rights group, a lesbian Serb and a gay Co
lombian with its first Felipa da Souza Awards, to
be presented during the Stonewall 25 celebrations
in New York City.
ABIGALE, a South African queer rights group
in Cape Town, organized the country’s 1993 pride
march and does HIV education in the townships.
Belgrade lesbian Lepa Mladjenovic is co
founder of Arkadia, Serbia’s first queer rights
organization.
JU5T
Compiled by Jann Gilbert and Rex Wockner
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ISRAEL
The daily newspaper Yediot Aharonot reported
in mid-May that a new curriculum will be imple
mented by the Ministry of Education in the coming
school year. According to the report, the Ministry
said the revised curriculum will “provide reliable
information on homosexuality to school staff and
students, and help young people develop tolerance
toward a different way of life.” Gay men and
lesbians will visit schools to talk to students and
teachers as part of the new program. Israel repealed
its anti-sodomy law in 1988, and banned discrimi
nation in the workplace in 1992. In 1993, the Israeli
military strengthened its policy to allow gay men
and lesbians to serve.
LITHUANIA
More than 100 delegates attended a gathering
of gay and lesbian activists from former commu
nist countries which was held recently in the coastal
town of Palanga.
“The conference was solid, enjoyable and well-
organized,” Dr. Aare Raudsepp told the Swedish
newspaper Reporter. Raudsepp works with the
Estonian group Eosti Gaylift.
Attendees came from Latvia, Lithuania, Esto
nia, the Czech Republic, Romania, Ukraine, Rus
sia, Serbia, Croatia, Sweden and Finland. The
World Health Organization sent representative
Henning Mikkelsen.
Raudsepp lamented that no one attended the
safer sex workshop and only four people came to
a panel on “Sexual Minorities and Medical Prob
lems.”
Another conference is set for next spring in
Tallinn, Estonia, to discuss cooperation among
sexual minorities in Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia.
THE
THE OTHER HAND
Juan Pablo Ordonex is a civil rights attorney
from Bogotá who has been persecuted by the
government for investigating murders of "dispos
able persons,” including sexual minorities, said a
spokesperson for IGLHRC.
“These are the unsung heroes of the human
rights movement,” said IGLHRC executive direc
tor Julie Dorf. "They have put themselves on the
line, at great personal risk, and achieved results.”
The awards are named for a Brazilian woman
who was tortured by the Portuguese inquisition in
1591 for having had lesbian sex.
JAPAN
In a sharp departure from what Japanese gov
ernment officials had promised, a U.S. citizen who
is an AIDS activist was detained at the border after
stating he was gay and HIV positive. The news
deeply embarrassed the organizers of the 10th
International Conference on AIDS, who have been
declaring for months that no one would be turned
away from Japan “simply because he or she is HIV
positive.” Japanese laws forbid entry by all former
and current sex workers and convicted drug users,
and those HIV positive people whom immigration
authorities deem “likely to infect the general pub
lic.” The International Conference on AIDS is
expected to draw thousands of scientists, activists
and educators, many of them HIV positive, when
it opens in Yokohama on August 7, 1994.
Access is important to the activists who are
committed to the conference being held in Asia,
where every day there are some 2,000 new HIV
infections. Japanese lesbian and gay activists met
with the Ministry of Health and Welfare, the Min
istry of Justice, members of the Japanese Diet, and
conference organizers in an effort to make the
conference more accessible to those that Japan’s
immigration laws seek to keep out of the country—
sex workers, drug addicts and people who are HIV
positive. These efforts met with qualified success
June 3, when the Ministry of Justice announced '
that it would grant special, one-time permission to
former sex workers and drug users if the Ministry
determines they would play a key role in confer
ence proceedings.
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