1
nTïïTTflneivs
MEXICO
ity and state police raided several gay bars in
downtown Aguascalientes the first week
end in April and arrested 38 people on prostitu
tion charges. According to the International
Gay &. Lesbian Human
Rights Commission, offi
cers beat gay activists
Cesar Froilan Gonzalez
and Ernesto Martinez dur
ing a raid of El Morbo.
Mayor Ricardo Mag-
daleno Rodriguez re
portedly has announced
he is ready to “fight all the
Ricardo Magdaleno faggots
in
Aguasca
Rodriguez
lientes,” “push the gay bars
out of town” and “arrest anyone with homosexu
al appearance” caught walking down Lopez
Mateos Avenue, a main thoroughfare. The state
of Aguascalientes is one of only a few locales in
Mexico where discrimination based on sexual
orientation is banned by law.
C
INDIA
ndian gay activist Nishat Saran, 26, was killed
in a car accident April 24 in New Delhi.
He was best known for three films he made—
Fifty-Fifty , Summer m My Veins and Perfect Day.
Four other people in the same car also died,
including Channel V VJ Pooja Mukerji, 20.
I
UNITED KINGDOM
street preacher in Bournemouth, England,
was fined about $1,011 April 24 for
harassing gays in his sermons. A gay man had
filed a complaint against the Rev. Harry Ham
mond, 69, saying his preaching incited anti-gay
violence.
A
countries, Brazil gets put in first place, followed
by Mexico, with a yearly average of 35 homi
cides of homosexuals, and the United States,
with a yearly average of 25,” said President Luiz
Mott, author of the study and an anthropology
professor at Federal University of Bahia.
A total of 88 of the victims were gay men, 41
were trans people, and three were lesbians. “Brazil
is the world champion in murders of homosexu
als, having registered between the years 1980 and
2001 a total of 2,092 such murders— an average
of 104 deaths per year,” Mott said.
In 2001, the most murders occurred in Sao
Paulo state (24) followed by Pernambuco (16),
Bahia (14) and the Federal District (11). Less
than 20 percent of the murderers have been
caught, the report said.
PERU
T ay activists in Peru are pushing for protec-
$ tions against discrimination in a revamp of
the nation’s constitution that is under way. The
Right to Be Different Front is seeking support
from other nations.
C
TAIWAN
aiwan’s defense minister lifted a ban on gay
military police officers May 2, just days
after the Military Police Command acknowl
edged its existence.
The official change of heart followed a rare
street protest by dozens of gay activists. The pol
icy stated that people with “sexual orientation
impairment” cause inconvenience in “managing
and meeting the needs” of the job.
“We don’t remember when the rule was for
mulated,” a police spokesman said, “but we are
certain that sexual orientation impairment was
considered a mental illness at the time. Now
T
CHINA
n A ID S awareness magazine for
gay men has begun production
in China.
Friend Exchange publishes six times
a year with funds from the U.S. Ford
Foundation. Editor Zhang Beichuan
says the most important thing the
magazine can do is keep repeating "the
A BCs” of HIV prevention.
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DRAZIL
he Sao Paulo Official Press has
refused to print a magazine edit
ed by students at the Casper Libero
Zhang Beichuan receives an award for his contributions
School of Journalism because a cover to A ID S education and prevention in China
photo showed two men kissing.
times have changed. The rule is not quite appro
Activists responded by filing suit under a state
priate by current standards.”
law banning discrimination based on sexual
Taiwan has about 10,000 military cops who
orientation.
The press was created in 1931 to publish the protect installations, government offices and
the president. The nation’s army, navy and air
state government’s official newspaper. Its current
force do not ban gays.
function is to print any material needed for public
administration, including material for universities.
INTERNATIONAL
he International Lesbian & Gay Associa
tion was denied reinstatement of its con
he president of the gay group Habeas Cor
sultative status April 30 at the U.N. Economic
pus Potiguar in Natal, Rio Grande do
and Social Council when the full council
Norte, received a death threat issued in the
upheld a Jan. 23 decision by its Committee on
name of the well-known White Hand death
Non-Governmental
Organizations. The vote
squad April 27.
was 17-29 with seven abstentions.
The International Gay & Lesbian Human
Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands
Rights Commission said the note referenced Jose
Dantas’ advocacy on behalf of the city’s transves and the United States strongly fought for
tite sex workers, who suffer high rates of discrim ILGA’s inclusion, while Egypt lobbied Arab,
Muslim and Catholic nations to reject the
ination and murder. IGLHRC is seeking support
group. Spain was the only European Union
from activists abroad to secure his protection.
country to vote against the association.
ILGA was stripped of U.N. status in 1994
*o*
after
a scandal in which a small number of its
total of 132 Brazilian gay men, lesbians and
member organizations were accused of not tak
trans people were murdered in anti-gay
ing a strong enough stance against pedophilia.
hate crimes last year, Grupo Gay da Bahia
reported April 24. “When compared with the
Continued on Page 23
homophobic crimes documented in 25 other
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