Five men in Malaysia have been jailed, fined and caned for attempting homosexual sex in the Muslim-majority country.
Selangor Shariah High Court near Kuala Lumpur sentenced four of the men to six months in jail and six strokes of the cane as well as fines of RM4,800, local newspaper Harian Metro reported.
Their crime: “Attempting intercourse against the order of nature.”
A fifth man was sentenced to seven months jail, six strokes of the cane and a RM4,900 fine for the same offence, although it’s not clear why he was singled out for harsher punishment.
Homosexuality and all same-sex sexual acts are illegal in Malaysia and carry prison sentences of up to 20 years, although convictions are usually rare.
The five men were detained along with seven others by Islamic enforcement officers during a November 2018 raid on a two-storey apartment.
“The facts show that there was an attempt to carry out intercourse outside of the order of nature and that it was not in the early stages of preparation,” said judge Mohamad Asri Mohamad Tahir, reported by Reuters.
LGBT+ rights in Malaysia.
Homosexuality is doubly illegal in Malaysia as it is banned by the country’s secular, colonial-era legal code, as well as its special Islamic courts.
The Human Rights Watch says discrimination against LGBT+ people in the country is “pervasive”, and the capital, Kuala Lumpur, was recently ranked as one of the top 10 worst cities in the world to be LGBT+.
In 1994 the Malaysian government banned all LGBT+ people from appearing in the state-controlled media. Later in 2010 the Film Censorship Board of Malaysia announced it would allow depiction of homosexual characters, but only as long as the characters “repent” or die.
The Malaysian prime minister has repeatedly rejected the notion of LGBT+ rights, dismissing it as “Western values” and comparing LGBT+ acceptance to “walk[ing] around naked”.
The government currently runs a gay ‘rehabilitation programme’ and last year claimed it had ‘cured’ 1,450 people of homosexuality.
In less than three days a protest organized by students against the increase in subway fares turned into an imposing and unexpected national protest over years of inequalities in Chile that completely paralyzed the country and put the entire Chilean political class on notice. Millions of people have taken to the streets over the last few days to demonstrate their discontent.
Some of the massive marches have nevertheless ended with protesters attacking businesses, torching and looting supermarkets in the worst unrest the country has seen in decades. Chilean President Sebastián Piñera declared a state of emergency, deployed soldiers to the streets and imposed a curfew that deepened the conflict by unleashing the worst cases of human rights violations in the last 30 years in the Latin American country. A group of lawmakers have announced a constitutional complaint against Piñera.
“These weeks have been a time bomb that we all knew was going to explode, but we did not know that it would explode now and with such intensity,” said Alessia Injoque, executive president of Fundación Iguales, a Chilean LGBTQ organization. Franco Fuica, legislation and public policy coordinator of Organizando Trans Diversidades (OTD), a trans advocacy group, has a similar opinion.
“We are living a social revolution,” he affirmed.
The crisis in Chile has been brewing for a long time. Dictator Augusto Pinochet in 1973 staged a coup to topple Salvador Allende, Latin America’s first democratically elected Socialist president. Pinochet reversed Allende’s model and began to implement a diametrically opposed economic formula. The country became a sort of neoliberal laboratory and a cruel dictatorship that persecuted, tortured and killed its opponents.
A group of liberal economists who were educated at the University of Chicago, where they learned the ideas of Americans Milton Friedman and Arnold Harberger, who were known as the “Chicago boys,” led Pinochet’s economic changes. They implemented economic and social reforms that privatized everything, and were enshrined in Chile’s 1980 constitution that was adopted in 1980 and remains in place.
Chile is the only country in the world where water is privatized, retirement pensions are low, health is bad and the majority of households have difficulties making ends meet at the end of the month. A report the U.N. Economic Commission of Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) published in January that analyzed the evolution of poverty, spending and social inclusion revealed Chile continues to maintain its high rates of inequality. “1 percent of the population holds 26.5 percent of wealth,” the investigation concludes.
“We have been in an unfair system for years, where everything is done to ensure the same people always win. Beyond that injustice, there was impunity where nothing happened to people who caused a lot of damage that runs from pain to frustration. The government was indolent and everything came to a head,” said Injoque. The trans activist said they were truly afraid.
“I had chills when I found out that soldiers were out on the streets,” they said.
“Piñera declared war against my grandchildren on national television, deployed the army to shoot and kill them for peacefully protesting (against) their enormous suffering and the people realize there is complicity there and I hear another loud clamor: ‘Resign Piñera,’” Pamela Jiles of the Frente Amplio, a new political force in the Chilean Congress who has lead the impeachment movement, told the Washington Blade.
“My duty as a lawmaker is to constitutionally accuse Piñera, as Humanist Congresswoman Laura Rodríguez would have done, using a parliamentary procedure and a constitutional provision, to turn my back to the elite and face the people,” Jiles explained. “It cannot be anything else because he has already seriously jeopardized the nation’s security, has plunged the country into misgovernment and is the main — although not the only — person responsible for the deaths of those they should have protected.”
Brutal cases of human rights violations allegedly committed by the Chilean armed forces have been reported since the onset of this social revolution. Repression, abuse of power, indiscriminate violence, illegal detentions and deaths prompted U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet, who is Chile’s former president, to decide to send a team of observers to verify the cases, which include a young gay man who was illegally detained, tortured and sexually abused by the police.
Josué Maureira, a medical student at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile who was arrested while bringing first aid to injured protesters, claims he was beaten until he was unconscious, mistreated because of his sexual orientation and gender identity, beaten again until his septum was broken, violated with a baton, threatened with death and jailed because of alleged attacks against police officers. The National Human Rights Institution has filed a sexual torture complaint.
“The states of emergency authorize the restriction of free movement, but not attempts to take people’s lives. The ‘exit from the crisis’ as the elite likes to say, is only Piñera’s exit. it is our obligation to stop the killing of innocent people,” said Jiles.
Shane Cienfuegos, an activist and investigations coordinator of Colectiva Neutres who in recent weeks has managed to unify the majority of LGBTQ groups, mentioned that “I have been in the streets since the subway evasion, activating constituencies. We summoned all the organizations and more than 50 came. We made a diagnosis and discovered that we were vulnerable.”
A massive demonstration across the country was called for Oct. 25. #LaMarchaMásGrandeDeChile (Chile’s biggest march) was a trending topic on Twitter around the world and television stations across covered the historic protest, which drew more than 1.5 million people. “The other thing that I was going to say, that we have also forgotten to mention, is apart from soccer teams and Chilean flags that are very important, there are many flags from the LGBTQ movement, many people with different sexualities are also present and they are movements that are protesting today and their flags are there in the streets,” interrupted Mónica Rincón, a CNN reporter and LGBTQ ally, on live television.
The majority of Chilean LGBTQ institutions on their social media networks backed the protests, while people of diverse sexualities were deployed in groups to participate. “We went out with a lot of passion and creativity to rise up with force and at the same time claim our rights that have been violated by the Chilean state for decades and go against a neoliberal system that oppresses us,” added Cienfuegos.
Chile in 1999 decriminalized sodomy, and in 2012 enacted an anti-discrimination law — to which activists have pointed as inadequate — and same-sex couples since 2016 have been able to enter into a civil union. A gender identity law that will recognize trans people’s right to identity will take effect in December of this year. There are also public policies that benefit sexual and gender diversity, but however, there is still much to do to win full equality in the country.
“We created a roundtable with 19 civil society organizations with a presence throughout Chile, to be able to work on certain matters of law that need to be modified to be able to ensure recognition, rights and guarantees to the LGBTQ+ community,” said Natalia Castillo, a young member of the Chilean House of Representatives from the leftist Frente Amplio party who is behind a multiparty group for the rights of lesbians, gays, bisexuals, trans and queer called the “Diversity Caucus.”
A marriage equality bill stalled in the Senate’s Constitution Committee more than a year ago. The “Diversity Caucus” led by Castillo, on the other hand, is working on the creation of other legislative initiatives in favor of sexual and gender diversity that will be presented in the coming weeks.
“I think that it is a great opportunity to perfect the anti-discrimination law, to promote a law that penalizes the incitement of hatred, and perhaps, this is the moment that LGBTQ+ people will be compensated by the Chilean state for their historic violation,” Fuica concluded.
The “rainbow wave” of the 2018 elections continued Tuesday, with 99 of 200 known LGBTQ candidates winning their races — including a number of successes in historically conservative states such as Virginia and Kentucky.
The Victory Fund, a group that trains, supports and advocates for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer candidates who are pro-choice, said 80 of its 111 endorsed candidates emerged victorious Tuesday. So far in 2019, the organization found 144 LGBTQ contenders won in 382 races, for an overall victory rate of 38 percent.
LGBTQ men ran in much higher numbers than their women counterparts, though queer women had a higher success rate, 46 percent to 37 percent, according to Victory’s election tracker. Trans women specifically — who won in state races in Virginia, Utah, Massachusetts and Iowa — had a success rate at 56 percent. The vast majority of LGBTQ candidates (83 percent) ran as Democrats, with just 2.4 percent running as Republicans. LGBTQ Democrats had a success of 40 percent, compared to 33 percent for their GOP counterparts.
Among Tuesday’s noteworthy winners were twice-elected transgender state Rep. Danica Roem, gay, black Muslim school board member N.J. Akbar, and the new LGBTQ members of the Indianapolis City Council.
Akbar, who won a seat on the Akron Board of Education in Ohio, became one of the first gay, Muslim, African Americans ever elected to any office in the U.S., according to the Victory Fund.
“As one of the first openly LGBTQ Muslims elected in United States history, N.J. will become a role model for so many LGBTQ students, students of color and Muslim students who too rarely see people like them in positions of power,” Annise Parker, president and CEO of the Victory Fund, said in a statement.
In Virginia, State Delegate Danica Roem, the first openly trans person elected to statewide office, won a second term. In 2017, Roem ran on expanding Medicaid to her constituents and fixing the traffic-clogged Route 28 in Manassas.
“I’m grateful to represent you because of who you are – never despite it,” Roem wrote on Twitter. “I’ll see you Nov. 20 at our next #fixRoute28 public hearing.”
The Indianapolis City Council tripled its number of LGBTQ representatives by re-electing Zach Adamson and newly electing Alison Brown and Keith Potts. Brown is the first out LGBTQ woman elected to that body.
Not all noteworthy races in question have been called. The nationally watched race for Texas’ 28th state legislative district is heading for a runoff with no candidate having secured an outright majority. Democrat and out lesbian Elizabeth Markowitz ran against six Republicans and won roughly 40 percent of the vote. Markowitz will now face Republican Gary Gates in a runoff election that has not yet been scheduled by the governor.
Anti-trans ads: A losing strategy?
In several states that saw transphobic political attack ads flop against LGBTQ-supportive candidates, political watchers are asking whether such ads will be effective heading into 2020’s general election.
The apparent victory of pro-LGBTQ Democrat Andy Beshear in Kentucky in the race for governor, signaled that outside efforts to use transphobic election scare tactics — like one that implied transgender inclusion in sports, would mean that “anyone at any time could change teams for any reason” — are not a clear path to electoral victory.
Chris Hartman, executive director of Kentucky’s Fairness Campaign, a LGBTQ advocacy group, said the anti-transgender ads run in Kentucky “looked initially like a desperate ploy” and noted that he and his LGBTQ friends were heavily targeted with these ads on YouTube and Hulu.
“As more information came out, we learned that we were a testing group for what the conservatives thought was going to be their new election tactic, in the way that trans bathrooms used to work for them, in the way that gay rights used to work for them,” Hartman said. “They’re testing the field to see if anti-trans bias is strong enough to propel them to victory in places that have unpopular candidates.”
Don Haider-Markel, a professor of political science at the University of Kansas, said that a 2015 ballot measure in Houston, used “fear-based advertising” around transgender people’s access to public accommodations and bathrooms.
“It’s clear that that was effective,” Haider-Markel said. However, “the ads in Kentucky about high school sports and things like that don’t seem to have the same traction.”
“Tagging that to a candidate instead of an issue on the ballot is something different,” Haider-Markel continued. “For LGBTQ candidates, success doesn’t come from what your sexual orientation or gender identity is, success comes from focusing on the issues that people care about in their local community.”
Danica Roem is “a prime example of that,” Haider-Markel said.
Danica Roem, a transgender woman who was elected to the Virginia House of Delegates in 2017, was the highest ranking LGBTQ winner Tuesday. Her re-election makes her the longest serving transgender state legislator in U.S. history, and the first to ever win re-election.
Although she is a history maker and was targeted because of her transgender identity, Roem has become known to her constituents for her laser focus on her district’s Route 28 — a traffic-clogged artery that many of her district’s voters struggle with on a daily basis as they commute into Washington, D.C.
“The success of trans candidates this Election Night – in states red and blue – is a warning to those using cynical campaign tactics to divide communities for their own political gain,” Victory’s Parker said in a statement.
Alphonso David, president of the Human Rights Campaign, echoed Parker, saying “the biggest topline takeaway” from Tuesday’s results is that “voters care about equality.”
“What we saw in Virginia specifically is that anti-equality candidates have been using an outdated and offensive playbook that is not working anymore,” David said.
A federal judge in New York has vacated a Trump administration “conscience rule” allowing health care workers to get out of procedures with which they have religious objections, such as abortion or gender reassignment surgery.
In a lengthy 147-page decision against the “conscience rule,” U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer, an Obama appointee, concludes the measure was enacted in contravention of the Administrative Procedures Act, calling the violations “numerous, fundamental and far-reaching.”
“The court’s finding that HHS lacked substantial rule-making authority as to three of the five principal conscience provisions nullifies the heart of the rule as to these statutes,” Engelmayer writes.
The Trump administration, Engelmayer concludes, also issued the rule in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Emergency Medical Treatment & Labor Act with respect to health care employment and emergency contexts.
Further, the rule’s assertions about discrimination against health care workers objecting to certain procedures over religious beliefs doesn’t meet the definition of the term discrimination, Engelmayer writes.
Although the Trump administration asserted it implemented the rule in a “significant increase” of complaints by health care agencies unsure of the rules for exemptions, Engelmayer finds that claim “flatly untrue.”
HHS cites 358 complaints between November 2016 and the end of fiscal year 2018, but Engelmayer notes the Trump administration has admitted six percent are duplicates, leaving only 343, and “only around 20 complaints implicate any of the conscience provisions.”
“In all events, far from reflecting a ‘significant increase’ in complaints implicating the Conscience Provisions as claimed by HHS, the administrative record reflects either no increase at all, or that any increase was so small as to be asymptotic to zero,” Engelmayer writes.
Although the litigation also contended the rule is unlawful because it violates the Establishment Clause under the First Amendment prohibiting the U.S. government from aligning with any particular religion, Engelmayer rules “the challenge here fails” in this regrad.
“Like the Conscience Provisions it purports to construe, the Rule equally accommodates all conscience-based objections to covered health care services and research activities,” Engelmayer writes. “That is so whether the individual objector’s qualms derive from a religious or a secular moral conviction.”
The Department of Health & Human Services made the conscience rule final in May to the consternation of progressive activists, who objected to the threat to access to abortion and the potential to refuse service to LGBT people, including for gender reassignment surgery and other transition-related care for transgender people.
Jamie Gliksberg, a senior attorney with the LGBT group Lambda Legal, said the decision against the rule “has likely saved countless lives.”
“Courts across the country are seeing the denial of care rule for what it is, an egregious violation of the civil rights of and a direct attack on the lives of women, LGBT people, religious minorities and many others,” Gliksberg said. “The denial of care rule was deeply rooted in animus against some of our most marginalized and vulnerable communities, and that has no place in our society. We are thrilled about today’s decision.”
The decision is the first court ruling against the “conscience rule” amid a plethora of lawsuits in federal courts against the measure. According to the Equality Case Files, eight cases are pending in four courts challenging the HHS rule.
The ruling from Engelmayer is a consolidated case initiated by three sets of plaintiffs: One of state plaintiffs consisting of 19 states, D.C. and three local governments; another is Planned Parenthood; and another is National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association & Public Health Solutions, Inc., which provide abortion services.
Caitlin Oakley, an HHS spokesperson, declined to comment on the ruling against the “conscience rule.”
“HHS, together with DOJ, is reviewing the court’s opinion and so will not comment on the pending litigation at this time,” Oakley said.
The Ames man accused of tearing down a pride banner from Ames United Church of Christ and setting it on fire was found guilty by a jury Wednesday morning.
Adolfo Martinez, 30, was found guilty of a hate crime, third-degree harassment, reckless use of fire and habitual offender, Story County Attorney Jessica Reynolds said. The habitual offender charge associates with previous reckless use of fire crimes.
It was the first time a hate crime has gone before a jury in Story County, Reynolds said. “Hate crimes will not be tolerated in our jurisdiction,” she said. “Offenders will be held accountable.” A date for sentencing was not immediately set, but he faces up to 15 years in prison.
Plans for forced HIV tests for people whose bodily fluids come into contact with police – despite there being no record of this ever happening – has been widely slammed by lawmakers and activists.
New South Wales’s Labor party, Australia, signalled its intent to introduce a scheme that will allow for mandatory testing of HIV and other blood borne viruses (BBV) of those who assault police and frontline workers.
The proposed model would also give authorities the power to determine when testing occurs.
HIV experts as well as lawmakers have slammed the move, branding it unscientific and “dangerous” while urging parliament to stymie it, Star Observerreported it.
Sydney lawmaker: Plans for forced tests are ‘fear-mongering’.
Alex Greenwich, an independent member of parliament and Australian Marriage Equality co-chair has urged for lawmakers to block the proposed plan.
He described how the Labor-led policy would force citizens to submit to blood tests despite there being no realistic chance of acquiring HIV, lambasting the plan as “fear-mongering”.
“This proposal has no basis in medical evidence to back it up and risks vexatious targeting of the LGBTI community and other vulnerable groups,” Greenwich explained.
“The LGBTI community has worked hard in recent years to develop a good working relationship with the police.
“Given the history of police violence towards us, this hasn’t always been easy, and progress has been hard won.
“This proposal jeopardises not only our relationship with law enforcement, but decades of progress in de-stigmatising the LGBTI community and winning equality in the eyes of the law.
“It is fear-mongering, pure and simple,” he concluded.
Bill aims to stop people acquiring HIV in a way that hasn’t happened in nearly two decades.
Opposition leader Jodi McKay said Labor would introduce the bill to test offenders for viruses such as HIV and hepatitis C.
In 1978 a young artist named Gilbert Baker (1951–2017) created a flag to represent the LGBTQ community at that year’s San Francisco Gay Freedom Day Parade. Over the subsequent 40 years, the rainbow flag has become an internationally recognized symbol of the LGBTQ community and an icon of contemporary design. In 2017, shortly after Baker’s death, his estate selected the GLBT Historical Society to preserve his personal archives, artwork and memorabilia.
These precious materials are at the heart of a new exhibition, “Performance, Protest and Politics: The Art of Gilbert Baker,” opening November 1 at the GLBT Historical Society Museum. Co-curated by Jeremy Prince, who has overseen many exhibitions at the museum, and Joanna Black, the archivist who oversaw the donation of the Gilbert Baker Collection, the exhibition positions the rainbow flag as a starting point for exploring Baker’s artistic endeavors, showcasing how Baker deployed his talents in service of his activism. History Happens interviewed Prince and Black to discuss their curatorial approach to the exhibition.
How has the concept for this exhibition evolved since the GLBT Historical Society received the Gilbert Baker Collection two years ago?Prince: It was always intended to explore Baker’s life and artistry beyond the rainbow flag, including his drag personas. But the more Joanna and I explored the treasures in the collection, the more amazed we were by the sheer depth and breadth of his artistic output. From his “Pink Jesus” persona to the recreated concentration-camp prisoner uniforms, Baker’s artistic oeuvre was shocking, provocative and expressed his opposition to the injustice he witnessed in the 1980s and 1990s. That’s what led us to focus the theme of the exhibition on art and performance as protest.
Black: As I arranged the transfer of the collection to the society’s archives, I sorted through exquisite costumes, large-scale paintings, silk-screened posters and bedazzled footwear, but also protest banners, fliers and provocative photographs. I came away deeply moved and knew that we had to share this aspect of Baker’s life with the public. One constant of the exhibition has been to provide a sense of Baker’s artistic range and his unique personality. But it wasn’t until later in the process that Jeremy and I decided to incorporate quotes from Baker’s posthumously published memoir, Rainbow Warrior, into the curation. It’s comparatively rare to be able to include an artist’s own words alongside examples of their work; Baker tells his own story, and the exhibition helps bring those words to life.
What aspects of Baker’s artwork do you think viewers will find surprising?Prince: I think they’ll be struck by the facets of Baker’s personality — artist, provocateur, diva. And they’ll be impressed by his achievements: Designing and overseeing construction of the two original flags for the 1978 San Francisco Gay Freedom Day parade was a groundbreaking accomplishment, but sewing a mile-long flag — and later a 1.25-mile-long flag — is recordbreaking.
Black: I think viewers will be most surprised by aspects of Baker’s drag personas. For example, “Pink Jesus” is pretty shocking, and Baker ownedthat persona entirely. He crashed the 1990 Pride Parade nearly naked, covered in hot-pink body paint and carrying a giant cross — now that’s a statement! And it wasn’t out of vanity. He was always guided by the desire to press for social and political change.
What do you hope visitors will take away from the exhibition?Prince: Exploring the history of the rainbow flag and contextualizing it really underlines its significance. This is an American story about a gay boy from Kansas who designed a wildly successful symbol — and then spent his life deploying his artistic talents as a weapon to fight for rights, equality and dignity against institutions actively trying to erode them.
Black: I hope viewers bear witness to what a multifaceted, complex, passionate and compassionate human being Baker was. His struggle to exist and live his truth openly is universal. Without the courage of artists like Gilbert Baker, we’d all be living in a less free society than we do.
NOTE: “Performance, Protest and Politics” is on display at the GLBT Historical Society Museum through March 8, 2020.
Charles Beal is a lifelong social activist and an award-winning art director for film and television. He was a close friend of Gilber Baker.
The data, released last week, shows police recorded 14,491 crimes committed against people because of their sexual orientation in 2018-19.
Police recorded a further 2,333 offenses against transgender people because of their gender identity.
Every year, the UK government releases police data on hate crimes on the basis of race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, and gender identity. Offenses are recorded as hate crimes if the victim or witnesses believe the motivation is one of these things because of, for example, slurs shouted during the attack. The term “hate crime” can cover verbal abuse, intimidation, threats, harassment, assault and bullying, as well as damage to property.
This year reported figures were up across the board, something the Home Office says is largely due to improved reporting and recording methods. According to Stonewall UK, only one out of five hate crimes against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people is reported to police.
But despite an increase in reporting, the number of cases that lead to prosecutions has actually fallen.
One way to help reduce the vitriol aimed at LGBT people could be to teach children about inclusion and acceptance from a young age.
But attempts to add more LGBT-inclusive curriculum have caused some parents to pull their children out of school in some cases on faith grounds.
Protests targeted the No Outsiders program, which is taught at a group of schools in Birmingham and encourages children to accept differences in, among other things, families and relationships.
The UK plans to make “relationship” education compulsory by 2020, which is great news for future generations of LGBT children. But for adults facing intolerance now, the police should send a clear message that hate crimes will not be tolerated and will be investigated.