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BRA ZIL
Fifteen gay men and lesbians will run for office
in Brazil’s October municipal elections, the IPS
news service reports.
Several o f the candidates met Feb. 12-13 in
Salvador, in Bahia state, to plot strategy. The Forum
of Gay Men, Lesbians and Transvestites in Politics
will emphasize equality for homosexuals, sex edu
cation, control o f sexually transmitted diseases, and
reducing violence and social inequality.
“We must have our own candidates,” said Luiz
Mott of Salvador, president o f the Bahia Gay Group,
who is seeking a municipal-council seat. “We can be
as good at politics as we are in the arts, fashion and
music.”
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We are f a m ily concerned ab o u t the w e ll being a n d secu rity o f a ll oth er fa m ilie s.
M ott’s group tracks anti-gay murders in Brazil
and has recorded more than 1,300 since 1981. One
of the “patron saints” of the new Forum is Renildo
Jose dos Santos, a councilor from the small city of
Coquiero Seco, who was murdered and dismem
bered after coming out publicly in 1993. Parts of his
body were burned and his head was found in another
province, IPS said.
Most of the gay candidates are affiliated with
left-wing parties, nine of them with the Workers
Party. Five will stand for election in the southern
state of Parana.
A recent survey in the Parana capital, Curitiba,
found that 56 percent o f respondents supported the
idea of gay candidates.
CANADA
Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Board said
in late February that homosexuals from Algeria,
Colombia and Russia seeking asylum in Canada
could qualify to have their cases expedited because
of the violently anti-gay climate in their homelands.
In Colombia, gays are targeted by guerrilla
groups, death squads, paramilitary groups, drug
traffickers and criminal organizations, the board
said.
Algerian gays face violence from the police, the
army, the secret service and several Islamic funda
mentalist movements.
In Russia the threat comes from criminal organi
zations, right-wing groups and the police, the board
said.
C Y BER SPA C E
A gay W orld W ide W eb site banned by
Germany’s University of Cologne is back on-line,
and the administration apologized for having equated
homosexuality with pornography.
On Feb. 6 the university ordered the Internet
providerCologne Net to delete the “MacMan-online”
site or lose its Net connection, which is provided by
the university.
The German Gay Association and a gay student
group protested, saying gay men had been cut off
from information on AIDS, gay studies and legal
issues. The university relented on Feb. 12.
The incident follows German police activity
against CompuServe, America Online and other
Internet service providers that allegedly have al
lowed access to obscene and/or pro-Nazi writings
and images.
The URLforM acM an is http://www.cologne.de/
-macman.
FINLAND
Finland may become the fourth country to legal
ize gay marriage, following in the footsteps of
Denmark, Norway and Sweden.
The Minister Groups of four of the five parties in
the Cabinet— the Social Democrats, Left Alliance,
Greens and Swedish National Party— said in late
February that they favored passage of a Scandina-
vian-style registered-partnership law for same-sex
couples that grants all the rights of marriage except
access to church weddings, adoption, artificial in
semination and in-vitro fertilization.
The fifth party, the conservative National Coali
tion, has taken a neutral position on the legislation.
FRA N CE
Squeaky French wheels get the grease.
French Prime Minister Alain Juppe on Feb. 28
blasted U.S.-based Abbott Laboratories, makers of
the anti-HIV protease inhibitor Ritonavir, for plan
ning to send only enough of the experimental drug to
France to treat 100 people with AIDS.
Juppe also denounced his own National AIDS
Council for proposing a lottery to choose the 100
patients, and demanded that officials get enough
Ritonavir for everyone who wanted it, whatever the
cost.
Forty members of ACT UP chained themselves
to Abbott’s French plant outside Paris on Feb. 29,
halting production for six hours.
“Abbott in the United States holds the key to the
crisis,” one protester told France-Info radio. “They
must send more products to Europe.”
And Abbott did. Juppe announced on March 13
that enough Ritonavir had arrived to treat everyone
who wanted it. France has about 18,000 AIDS cases.
“We already have sufficient supplies of the drug
to satisfy demands from centers treating AIDS,”
Juppe said.
M EX IC O
Some 40 gay and lesbian leaders from around
Northwest Mexico will gather in La Paz, capital of
Baja California South, April 12-14 for the Fourth
Northwest Mexico Gay and Lesbian Conference.
Delegates are expected from the cities of Tijuana,
Culiacân (Sinaloa), Ciudad Obregôn (Sonora),
Mexico City, Cabo San Lucas and La Paz.
For more information, contact Tijuana activists
José Navarro or Alejandro García at (direct dial)
011-52-66-80-99-63.
La Paz is 925 miles south of San Diego.
NEW ZEALAND
Three lesbian couples in New Zealand filed suit
in February demanding marriage licenses, corre
spondent Mark Proffitt reports.
New Zealand’s 1955 Marriage Act does not state
that spouses must be of opposite sexes. The lawsuit
also charges the government with violation of the
national ban on discrimination based on sexual
orientation.
The women are trying to raise $20,000 for their
legal b attle. F o r m ore in fo rm atio n , e-m ail
proffitt@iconz.co.nz
SW ED EN
Sweden’s top female rock star, Eva Dahlgren,
who came out of the closet and married her girlfriend
on Jan. 25, won the Swedish Grammy Award for
“artist of the year” Feb. 19 in Stockholm.
It was Dahlgren’s ninth award, making her
Sweden’s Grammy record-holder.
At the ceremonies, Dahlgren performed her hit
“When a Wild Red Rose Unfolds It Spreads Its
Fragrance to the Whole Forest,” which, correspon
dent Bjoem Skolander said, “gays and lesbians
understood as a metaphor for the effect her coming
out and marriage will have on the Swedish gay,
lesbian and bisexual community.”
One in 17 Swedes owns Dahlgren’s 1991 album
The Heart o f a Faded Blonde.
W O RLD PR ID E DATES
Here are some dates for gay and lesbian pride
parades around the world: London, July 6; Mexico
City, June 29; Quebec City, July 7; Tijuana, June 29;
Toronto, June 30; Vancouver, B.C., Aug. 4; Victoria,
B.C., July 7; Vienna, June 29. For more information
and other dates, visit the World Wide Web site http:/
/ww w . tde .com/-i al gpc.
Compiled by Rex Wockner