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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (Dec. 7, 2007)
DECEMBER 7. 2007 lustoutii world EUROPE Italian Gay Leader Dies One of the most important gay activists in Italian history died of colon cancer Nov. 4. of other demonstrations, con tion is in the army also. [But] when they want, professional Americans ferences, exhibitions, and Go on working, raising come [to Cubai via a third country and we have artistic awareness, doing things, excellent relations and excellent e-mail contact.” intellectual and events. Massimo Consoli, 61, also was a journalist, changing Cuban society, Later, he also was an and you’ll change every translator, AI DS and safer-sex organizer. thing else, including our archivist and historian. He wrote more than 30 “I’ve lived the history of writer, playwright, poet, theorist, hooks, mostly on gay issues. the institutions.’ ” ASIA/PACIFIC Iranian s Sodomy Death Sentence Lifted It’s Castro Espin said After an international outcry by activists, a 21- Among his many accomplishments, Consoli inside me,” Consoli told The she has taken a direct year-old Iranian man sentenced to hang for alleged founded two Italian gay organizations in the days International I lerald-Tribune interest in gay issues ly committing sodomy and rape when he was 13 since 2004. years old saw lus sentence commuted Nov. 14. before the Stonewall Riots. gay movement. last year. In 1971 he wrote Gay Manifesto, which inspired His Web site, www.cyber the creation of other gay organizations, including core.com/consoli, will remain the important Italian Revolutionary Homosexual online, maintained by friends. Sex educator Mariela Castro Espin, daughter of Fidel Castro's brother Raul, says her father supports gays serving in the military. United Front, Fuori. In 1976 Consoli organized the nation’s first Pride- related activities. He went on to organize hundreds AMERICAS Daughter: Raul Castro Supports Gays in Military Raul Castro, who is leading Cuba during his brother Fidel’s lengthy illness, supports gays serving openly in the military, says his daughter, Mariela Castro Espin, director of the island’s National Center for Sex Education, Cenesex. Ayatollah Syed Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi, than 40 cross-dressers the nation’s chief justice, nullified the death sentence and transsexuals from Havana came to see me at of Makvan Mouloodzadeh, apparently agreeing with Cenesex to let me know about the difficulties they Mouloodzadeh's lawyer that evidence of the alleged were having with the police in the central La Rampa crimes was lacking and that numerous elements of zone, where they were meeting and still meet," she the case violated proper procedure. Mouloodzadeh said. “The police were arbitrarily arresting them and remains jailed in the city of Kermanshah, and the then letting them go without charges, just because case will be returned to a local court for a retrial. people were complaining [about them|.” Three years later, Cuba is set to begin offering sex-change surgery. “The only reason this young man managed to escape is that he had a relative in Germany that knew someone in Iran, and that someone was a “There are 27 transsexuals waiting for the oper- | reporter and she was brave enough to make a fuss Castro Espin was asked about “gays in the mili ation, [and] the medical team is being trained," about it,” said Hossein Alizadeh, communications tary” in a Nov. 4 interview with the Buenos Aires Castro Espin said. “As soon as it's ready...they will director of the International Gay and Lesbian daily newspaper Clarih. start to operate.” Human Rights Commission and a gay Iranian who “I always say where there’s humanity there’s Castro Espin also told Clarin that 80 percent of won asylum in the United States based on Iran’s diversity, and in the military world there are gays people with 11IV in Cuba are men and that 85 per treatment of gay people. “I’m sure there are many also, but of course they are careful because it’s cent of those are men who have sex with men, a milieu that doesn’t accept them," Castro Espin “often in connection with prostitution." people like him who die because there was no one to hear their story,” he told MSNBC. <© said. “It is still considered that the conditions to make changes do not exist. Well, my dad, the min Gay Italian journalist, poet, playwright and historian Massimo Consoli died Nov. 4. “A group of more She also mentioned that she wants to visit the United States, “but they won’t give us a visa." R f .X W i XKNER has reported for the gay press since ister of the Revolutionary Armed Forces, says to me: “I was there once and I’ve been invited back ‘Linik, I think that to the extent the population twice since then, hut they didn’t give it to me,” she Drake University and started his career as a radio changes, the army will change, because the popula said. “I asked for it, and they didn’t respond.... reporter. 1985. He hits a Bachelor’s degree in journalism from
