The U.S. has decided to withdraw its ambassador to Zambia, after the president of the southern African nation said he didn’t want him there for criticizing the jailing of two men for having a consensual relationship, according to two people familiar with the matter.
The State Department is “dismayed” with Zambia for having effectively declared Foote a persona non grata, it said in an emailed statement. The U.S. government strongly opposes abuses against sexual minorities, it said, without confirming Foote’s withdrawal.
Zambia denounced Foote after he said he was “horrified” at the news that two allegedly gay men had been sentenced to 15 years in prison for consensual sex.
Unlike many current US diplomats, Foote has spent his entire career with the State Department and has been posted to numerous countries.
The State Department has not said when or even if Zambia will get a replacement for Foote.
RELATED: Zambia not only criminalizes homosexuality, it is illegal there to advocate for LGBT rights. According to its Wikipedia entry, Zambia was targeted by “fundamentalist missionaries” more than any other African nation during its colonial period.
Several actors, DJs, models and Instagram influencers have come under fire for promoting a music festival in Saudi Arabia, a country with a horrific human rights record.
Electronic festival MDL Beast took place on 21-23 December in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia’s capital, with a lineup that included DJs David Guetta, Dish Dash, Tiesto and Steve Aoki.
While the model Emily Ratajkowski reportedly rejected the festival out of concern for human rights, the actors Armie Hammer and Ed Westwick both attended, as did supermodels Jazelle, Joan Smalls, Amy Jackson and Alessandro Ambrosio.
The Conde Nast publication Glamour UK also included a sponsored campaign from the festival.
They are now being condemned for giving their support to the festival, with many noting that Saudi Arabia still enforces gender segregation and punishes homosexuality with death.
Podcast host and writer Aminatou Sow said on Twitter that influencer culture was “shameless”, while fashion commentator Diet Prada accused those involved of taking part in “rehabilitating” the country’s image in return for six-figure sums.
“What’s worse than an all white @revolve influencer trip?” their Instagram post asked. “Cashing big fat checks in exchange for #content creation (aka propaganda) to rehabilitate the image of Saudi Arabia, a country said to be causing ‘the world’s worst humanitarian crisis’, according to the United Nations.
“According to anonymous sources, six-figure sums were offered for attendance and geo-tagged posts.”
In a statement addressed to Diet Prada, Ratajkowski explained why she declined to attend the festival.
“It’s very important to me to make clear my support for the rights of women, the LGBTQ community, freedom of expression and the right to a free press. I hope coming forward on this brings more attention to the injustices happening there,” she said.
Praising the festival, Armie Hammer declared that it felt like a “cultural shift” – although the culture hasn’t shifted far enough to stop punishing homosexuality with public whippings, chemical castrations, life imprisonment, torture and death.
Journalist Yashar Ali responded by asking Hammer: “Did you find Jamal Khashoggi’s body while you were there?”
Another commenter asked: “How much did Mohammed Bin Salman pay you to say this?”
A senior Thai legislator has been forced to apologise after two gay men kissed at a press conference in parliament on Wednesday.
The conference was held by the Future Forward party to highlight Thailand’s marriage laws, with LGBT coordinator Ekkawat Pimsawan ceremoniously submitting a proposal calling for a legal change to allow same-sex marriage.
TV footage of the conference shows an MP standing next to the two men, James Panumas and Tattep Ruangprapaikitseree, and applauding as they embraced. The simple kiss was so extraordinary that it sparked widespread accusations of “improper” behaviour in parliament.
Senator Somchai Sawengkarn reportedly wrote on Facebook that he found the incident too shameful and beyond forgiveness, and urged parliament to probe the ethics of the MPs and the House committee concerned.
House speaker’s secretary Tankhun Jit-Issara said: “There are rules for using the press conference room that prohibit inappropriate language, insults, slander and indecent behaviour. Furthermore, users must maintain polite manners at all time in the establishment and follow other stated rules strictly.”
Parliament President Chuan Leekpai has demanded a report on two men and will later decide on what “punitive action” should be taken against those who arranged the event.
MP Mukda Pongsombat, who chairs the committee, was forced to issue an extensive apology for the display of public affection, and promised it would not be repeated.
“As the chairwoman, I accept a lack of prudence, but it was unexpected,” she said. “The committee did not plan for such incident to happen and we are sorry that the incident affected the image of the House of Parliament. I will admonish the persons involved and make sure that such an incident never happens again.”
She added: “While we are within our rights to express ourselves, we should also show respect for the venue.”
Thailand is often viewed as a very LGBT-friendly country, but public sentiment is not always so liberal. Thai law currently does not recognise same-sex marriages, civil unions, or domestic partnerships, although LGBT+ activists are fighting for this to change.
The incoming mayor of Bogota, who takes office in January, thanked her bride for “loving me always” and promised “to honor and love” her the rest of their days. Photographs show the pair dressed in white, holding a simple bouquet of flowers and smiling.
The couple’s union has become a rallying cause among supporters promoting LGBTQ rights in the traditionally conservative, Catholic country – though Colombia has permitted gay marriage since a landmark Constitutional Court ruling in 2016.
Lozano told Colombia’s BLU Radio that the couple has tried to marry previously but their schedules made organizing a wedding complicated.
“We told ourselves, ‘We have to do it now or another four years will pass by,” Lozano said. “Because Claudia’s priority the next four years will be her job.”
Claudia Lopez, mayoral candidate for Bogota, celebrates after winning local elections in Bogota, Colombia on Oct. 27, 2019.Luisa Gonzalez / Reuters file
When she is sworn into office, López will become the first openly lesbian mayor of a capital city in Latin America, a region slowly advancing in improving LGBTQ rights but where long-standing cultural biases and inequality remain barriers.
López has been making waves in Colombia for years, starting from her days as an analyst shedding light on corruption in the highest echelons of power. In her personal life, she’s been equally upfront and transparent, sharing a passionate kiss with Lozano as the election results came in during the October vote for Bogota mayor.
Few details about the ceremony were released, but López said their white pant suits were crafted by Colombian designer Ángel Yañez.
“Thank you life for this marvelous year!” López hailed on social media. “I graduated with my doctorate, won mayoral office and married the love of my life!”
Grindr has announced a rollout of new features designed to help users in countries where the prevailing culture of homophobia, biophobia, and transphobia puts them at risk.
In what it describes as “part of its continued commitment to the safety and security” of its users, the popular dating/hookup app is introducing new features including: 1) the ability for users to “unsend” messages that they want to remove from the conversation; 2) expiring photos that give users the ability to have their personal photos disappear from a conversation as a protective measure; and 3) screenshot blocking for photos, chats, and profiles. The latter is a particularly important feature which allows users to protect their identity when sharing content that could personally identify them in areas where it is illegal or unsafe to be LGBTQ. These new security features are a part of the company’s continued efforts to make user safety a top priority.
Scott Chen, President of Grindr, said in a statement, “As Grindr has grown to become a vital part of the gay, bi, trans, and queer community, we feel a responsibility to provide important information and evolving tools to facilitate our users’ safe dating experience. Our work in improving the well-being for the LGBTQ community around the globe is far from finished, but we are proud of these additional features to help provide a safer platform for our users.”
In addition, Grindr has unveiled a Holistic Security Guide, covering: 1) digital security; 2) personal safety; and 3) emotional well-being. As part of Grindr’s ongoing efforts to enhance its security features, the company has partnered with LGBTQ activists and online safety advocates around the world, such asArticle 19, on this Holistic Security Guide. The Guide will debut in six languages – English, Spanish, French, Arabic, Russian, and Nigerian Pidgin – and can be found in two formats. The first is in the form of a FAQ much like Grindr’s Sexual Health Resource Center (SHRC) and the Gender Identity Resource Center (GIRC). The second is a standalone report written by Azza Sultan, Associate Director of Grindr for Equality, which can be found on Grindr for Equality’s website.
Grindr for Equality (G4E) is an initiative within Grindr focused on the ever-evolving mission to promote justice, health, safety, and more for LGBTQ+ individuals around the globe. G4E works with health, digital rights and LGBTQ/human righs organizations as well as local community leaders and queer activists to find ways of using the Grindr app, technology and platform to mobilize, inform, protect and empower Grindr users. Grindr for Equality also recently announced that it granted $100,000 to LGBTQ activists and organizations in the Middle East-North Africa region.
The director of Grindr for Equality, Jack Harrison-Quintana, said, “We are so proud to introduce these new security features, along with the Holistic Security Guide, as we continue to promote safety and justice for our users around the globe. We are grateful for the feedback from users and the various organizations and activists around the world who have helped us to continue improving the quality of life for Grindr users.”
In addition to Grindr’s efforts to advance user safety and security, Grindr is working towards a kinder, more respectful community. To learn more, visit: https://www.kindr.grindr.com.
Sanna Marin, the newly-elected prime minister of Finland, will be the youngest sitting country leader in the world and is the daughter of same-sex parents.
The Social Democrat, 34, will replace Antti Rinne who resigned last week, making the country’s five-party coalition entirely led by women. Four out of five are in their thirties.
The rest of the coalition is made up of Li Anderson, 32, of the Left Alliance; Maria Ohisalo, 34, of the Green League; Katri Kulmuni, 32, of the Centre party and Anna-Maja Henriksson, 55, of the Swedish People’s party.
Marin is currently Finland’s transport minister but was elected as as the country’s leader on December 8 and will be sworn in this week. She will be the third female prime minister in the Nordic country’s history.
She was the first in her family to go to university, and was raised by a mother in a same-sex relationship, or what she has previously described as a “rainbow family”.
Finland’s government is now led by these five party leaders. #newgeneration
Sanna Marin: New prime minister of Finland said her LGBT+ family felt “invisible”.
Marin told the Finnish site Menaiset in 2015 that she felt her upbringing in a LGBT+ household influenced her values as a politician.
She said: “For me, people have always been equal. It’s not a matter of opinion. That’s the foundation of everything.”
But growing up those around her did not always feel the same way, and she said that growing up with same-sex parents made her feel “invisible” and that they “were not recognised as a true family or equal with others”.
She added: “But I wasn’t bullied much. Even when I was little, I was very candid and stubborn. I wouldn’t have taken anything easy.”
Marin has shot up through ranks of politics in Finland since she became head of the council in Finland’s third largest city Tampere at just 27 years old. She is also mother to an almost two-year-old daughter.
A gang of teenage boys were sentenced to 13 years after luring gay men they met on Grindr into a city park before robbing and humiliating them in a homophobic attack.
By using fake Grindr accounts, the teens would target gay men and tempt them into Bordesley Green in Birmingham, England, reported Birmingham Live.
The four victims were left fearing for their life after the teens tied them up, urinated on them and robbed them in a string of attacks from January 5 to March 29.
One Grindr victim was gagged before being forced to walk in dog excrement.
Three victims were bound by their hands and feet and two were urinated on.
In one attack, gagged with a pair of socks, the victim was forced to walk through dog excrement in a deluge of degrading acts.
One victim was told he deserved to be attacked and robbed because he was a “white man responsible for attacks on Muslims in New Zealand”.
The string of attacks occurred in a city park in England in the first quarter of the year. (PinkNews)
Moreover, one man’s torture lasted for around two hours, and one attacker used a screwdriver to repeatedly stab his jacket.
He was then threatened to have the weapon be stabbed in his eye, spat on, urinated on, tied up and his trousers pulled down as the gang snapped photos of his genitals as they demeaned him.
Mohammed Khan, 18, of George Road, Hay Mills and Mohammed Umar, 18, of Denville Crescent, Bordesley Green, had previously admitted conspiracy to rob and conspiracy to commit a burglary.
Qaasim Ahmad, 18, of Heather Road, Small Heath, was found guilty of those charges and also conspiracy to falsely imprison.
The men ‘deliberately degraded and humiliated’ the victims, says judge.
Kham and Ahmad were both sentenced by the Birmingham Crown Court to 13 years and four months detention.
While Umar was given a sentence of 11 years and three months.
Judge Heidi Kubic QC, as she passed the sentence, said: “You deliberately degraded and humiliated your victims.
“They had the courage to come forward and publicise their ordeal
“I am quite satisfied all four men were targeted because they were gay men.
“You had set up fake Grinder accounts to lure them to secluded areas.
“You subjected your victims to serious physical assaults and you threatened them with various weapons, including a large hunting knife, a screw driver and you used a metal bar to inflict injuries.”
The courts heard that the men dragged their victims into the park bushes. One victim was threatened with having their face superimposed on a video of a paedophile.
This year’s Miss Universe pageant will include the first openly gay contestant in the competition’s 67-year history, who bravely came out despite homosexuality being illegal in her home country.
Swe Zin Htet is the reigning Miss Myanmar and she came out publicly on a beauty blog just a week before she is due to take part in the final of the pageant on Sunday (December 8).
The 21-year-old, who has chosen preventing child abuse as her cause to advocate for during the contest, told People: “I have that platform that, if I say that I’m a lesbian, it will have a big impact on the LGBTQ community back in Burma.
“The difficult thing is that in Burma, LGBTQ people are not accepted, they are looked down on by other people and are being discriminated against.”
Although Htet has been out to those around her for some time, and has been in a relationship with the famous Burmese singer Gae Gae for three years, she said telling her family she was a lesbian was difficult.
She continued: “At first, they were mad. They didn’t accept me. But later, when they found out more about the LGBTQ community, they started to accept me.”
(swe_zin_htet/ Instagram)
Paula Shugart, Miss Universe president, also told People: “We are honoured to give a platform to strong, inspirational women like Miss Universe Myanmar, who are brave enough to share their unique stories with the world.
“Miss Universe will always champion women to be proud of who they are.”
The Miss Universe pageant has had a controversial past and was previously owned by Donald Trump, but it has been breaking new ground recently.
Last year, the competition featured its first-ever trans contestant Angela Ponce.
Addressing the Trump administration’s anti-trans record, Ponce said at the time: “More than a message to him, it would be a win for human rights. Trans women have been persecuted and erased for so long.
“If they give me the crown, it would show trans women are just as much women as cis women.”
Kenyan police brutally battered LGBT+ refugees and lobbed teargas bombs in an attack that led to four in a coma today, activists on the ground have claimed.Moreover, the organisation said that “five persons have returned to the reception centre to access these registration services.”ADVERTISING
For days, rainbow refugees staying at the Kakuma camp un-rolled mats outside the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to peacefully protest the “unclean” conditions of the camp and ask to be allowed to “live quietly in Nairobi just like other urban refugees”.
But activists reported that camp law enforcement descended upon them, described as “death squads” by one protester, to “bludgeon” them.
“[They] want us dead,” alleged one trans protester.
According to them, officers teargassed them while Kakuma locals seized refugees’ “phones, documents and bags”.
Protesters in Kenya pummelled by camp police, many allegedly hospitalised and jailed.
Queer refugees in the Kenyan camp – many fleeing from neighbouring country’s vicious anti-LGBT laws – have reported being under siege from assaults in recent weeks.
Approaching boiling point, LGBT+ refugee leaders organised to leave the camp and re-locate outside the UNHCR main offices on November 28 to peacefully protest against these conditions.
According to an UNCHR statement shared to PinkNews, around 50 to 60 queer refugees are camped outside offices.
Rainbow refugees rolled-out sleeping bags and Kats outside the UNHCR main offices in Kakuma, Kenya. (Facebook)
Refugees told PinkNews they are sleeping near bushes swarming with scorpions and snakes, small ponds of brown water being the only source of water while many go hungry.
“We are helpless,” a refugee attacked by officers, who wished to remain anonymous, told PinkNews, “we are hungry.”
Yet, Refugee Affairs Secretariat – the security body that provides protection for Kenyan refugee camps – allegedly raided the refugees’ makeshift camp today.
The organisation is under the Ministry of Interior and Coordination of National Government and works with the UNHCR.
Refugee Affairs Secretariat officers allegedly dotted the dusty roads leading to near villages and beat LGBT+ refugees. (Facebook)
Authorities arrived on the scene on motorcycles before allegedly launching an attack as well as firing “teargas” bombs at refugees.
Officers can be seen in photographs taken on refugee’s mobiles lining the dusty roads.
Protesters were reportedly battered by officers, with one refugee suffering gaping gashes on their arm and lower torso and wounds on their back, photographs shared to PinkNews showed.
A queer protester was allegedly attacked by police, suffering a wound on their lower right torso as a result. (Supplied)
The trans protester, who fled from Uganda after his family attempted to kill him for his gender identity, later told PinkNews he thinks, “the guys [RAS] want to see us dead.”
Moreover, another activist said the incident saw “four members in a coma”, and five refugees jailed. “They are all expected to be arrested, handcuffed and directed to a police cell,” he claimed.
“The RAS death squads came with sinister plans to cause as much havoc as possible,” he said.
Testimonies from refugees to PinkNews have detailed a camp playbook of near-weekly attacks from not only fellow refugees, but reportedly from camp organisers themselves.
Last month, a trans asylum seeker was attacked by fellow refugees just hours before a group of locals from a neighbouring town pelted stones at the LGBT+ refugees.
Kakuma, a town in northwest Kenya. (PinkNews)
While the week before, another trans refugee had his neck cut and genitals tugged on by a similarly described “homophobic group”.
“My life is in danger,” he told PinkNews, explaining how camp paramedics only gave him “paracetamol” to treat the wounds on his neck.
Conditions in the camp have forced some LGBT+ refugees to fundraise for financial aid, as they report of “unclean” living situations and daily abuse.
A news release from UNCHR stated that, on 29 November, protesters were informed:Refugee Affairs Secretariat will register all unregistered asylum-seekers present in Kakuma and that the data of those who are already registered will be transferred from Nairobi, regardless of whether they raised asylum claims based on sexual orientation and/or gender identity or not.
The U.S. ambassador to Zambia said a high court ruling sentencing two men to 15 years in prison for homosexuality was horrifying. Ambassador Daniel Foote [photo] urged the government to reconsider laws that punish minority groups.
“I was personally horrified to read yesterday about the sentencing of two men, who had a consensual relationship, which hurt absolutely no one, to 15 years imprisonment,” he said in an emailed statement Friday.
The constitution stipulates that the southern African nation is Christian, and laws dating back to Britain’s colonial rule of the country that ended in 1964 forbid gay sex.
Via press release:
Pan Africa ILGA condemns the prosecution and sentencing of a gay couple arrested in Zambia. The arrest follows the invasion of privacy that occurred when the two parties were seen being intimate by a housekeeper.
This in itself is a gross violation of privacy and by extension, an assault on the dignity of the parties. We therefore strongly implore the concerned arms of the Zambian government to challenge this homophobic and dated trajectory of their laws and the application of such laws.
This is because where people’s privacy has been invaded, it is clearly an assault on their fundamental rights to privacy as provided by extant laws and the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights and constitutes the impairment of one’s right to practice their full identity as a human being.
The harsh 15-year sentence meted out to the two consenting adults has shocked the world and is a blow to the continued global efforts to decriminalize same-sex consensual sexual conduct as well as to enact laws which protect LGBTIQ+ rights and liberties.
Ambassador Foote is a career diplomat and has served with the State Department for 22 years. Over 95% of Zambia’s 17 million residents are Christians.
Zambia not only criminalizes homosexuality, it is illegal there to advocate for LGBT rights.
According to its Wikipedia entry, Zambia was targeted by “fundamentalist missionaries” more than any other African nation during its colonial period.
