Posts tagged advocacy
Hero Mom Confronts Human Traffickers in Argentina
She has survived two murder attempts, her house was burnt down, she has received countless death threats, but nothing has stopped Susana Trimarco from looking for her missing daughter for the last 10 years.
Anti-gay group in Liberia issues hit list, threatens to ‘get to them one by one’
An anti-gay group in Liberia distributed fliers over the weekend with a hit list of people who support gay rights, and one member of the group threatened to “get to them one by one.”
The fliers mark the latest development in an increasingly hostile national debate about gay rights in this country on Africa’s western coast.
via washington post
Imagine — if you will, for a moment, hard as it may be — that you are under a collapsed building, fighting for your life. Think of the chaos, the pain and suffering, the confusion, the yearning to get out from under the heaps, the visceral need to break free. To survive. Imagine that you can hear the muffled voices of neighbors and rescue teams. Their voices are a balm, a relief, a sign from above that the immediate ordeal is ending.
As those people on the outside approach you, their words become clearer. You are nothing but ears now, a single sense honed in, dreaming of deliverance. “Thank you, Jesus,” you hear, and you concur. But the next words that come into focus do not brief relief or freedom or hope: “The president of the pedophiles is dead.” Another voice, cheered on by others: “Death to the masisi!” Death to the faggots.
read full article on HuffPo
Human Rights Watch recently released a report based off of 58 interviews done in detention centers in Afghanistan. Approximately 400 women are imprisoned there for ‘moral crimes’ - in other words, fleeing forced or abusive marriages or sex outside of marriage due to rape.
via HRW
Prosecutors in Chile are asking for murder charges in the death of a young gay man whose attackers brutally beat him and carved swastikas into his body.
Daniel Zamudio died Tuesday night, 25 days after he was attacked. The case has prompted a national debate in Chile over hate crimes, and his death prompted Chilean President Sebastian Pinera to say from Asia that his government won’t rest until a proposed anti-discrimination law is passed.
Four suspects are jailed, some with criminal records of attacks on gays. Prosecutors asked Wednesday for murder charges carrying life sentences. Gay activists want torture charges as well, saying the attackers beat him for hours, burned him with cigarettes and carved Nazi symbols into his body.
via SF Gate
Liberian Writer Mae Azango Forced Into Hiding for Story on Female Genital Cutting
Ever since she published a front-page story about female genital cutting within a secret society of women, the Liberian journalist Mae Azango has lived in fear, and threats have sent her into hiding—but she says she will continue to speak out.
The GLAAD Commentator Accountability Project (CAP) aims to put critical information about frequent anti-gay interviewees into the hands of newsrooms, editors, hosts and reporters. Audiences need to be aware that when they’re not talking to the mainstream media, these voices are comparing the LGBT people to Nazi Germany, predicting that equal treatment of LGBT people will lead to the total collapse of society, and even making accusations of satanic influence.
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From IGLHRC:
The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission has today received reports from Iraq of a wave of targeted killings of individuals who are perceived to be gay or lesbian. According to Iraqi human rights activists, in early February 2012, an unidentified group posted death threats against “the adulterous individuals” in the predominantly Shiite neighborhoods of Baghdad and Basra. The threats gave the individuals, whose names and ages were listed, four days to stop their behavior or else face the wrath of God, and were to be carried out by the Mujahedin. According to sources inside Iraq, as the result of this new surge of anti-gay violence close to 40 people have been kidnapped, brutally tortured and murdered. The Iraqi authorities have neither responded to this targeted violence nor have they publicly denounced it. It is widely believed that these atrocities are being committed by a group of the Shiite militia.
April 2012 has been designated as Sexual Assault Awareness Month (SAAM) and the California Coalition Against Sexual Assault (CALCASA) is excited to partner with public officials, college campuses, law enforcement, victim advocates and communities across California to raise awareness.
