Scott Long on the Ugandan anti-homosexuality bill

Yesterday I highlighted a couple of interviews that journalist Rex Wockner did during his stay in New York in October. I'd helped to transcribe those interviews from the original recordings and noted that there was a third interview that might or might not see the light of day - and that I'd make note of it if and when it was published.

Well, Rex just posted his interview with Scott Long tonight on his blog and it's truly worth a read. Scott is the Director of the LGBT Division at Human Rights Watch and, in it, he speaks candidly about his long-standing work on LGBT rights around the world.

Of particular interest, are his comments on a proposed and draconian anti-gay bill making its course through the Ugandan legislature which would make homosexuality a crime punished by death.

An advance quote:

When we first were leaked the text of it, a bunch of us were just looking at it in astonishment. (T)he preparation for it has been laid by years of fanatical homophobic agitation in Uganda that comes from the president and comes from the first lady and comes from ... the minister of ethics and integrity, James Nsaba Buturo, who are all obsessed by homosexuality. But the groundwork has also been laid, again, by these years of religious agitation, which has been promoted by U.S. evangelicals...

To read more about the involvement of U.S. evangelical leaders in this horrible bill as well as the rest of Rex's interview with Scott, please go here.

And, on a related note, for updates on the latest on the Uganda bill, please visit Box Turtle Bulletin. The latest, as of tonight: There are indications that worldwide pressure on the Ugandan government to scratch the bill might be working ("Op-Ed In Ugandan Gov’t Newspaper: 'Parliament Should Not Pass This Bill'”).

Colombia: International calls for justice in murder of Alvaro Miguel Rivera

In the last few days, a few of the leading international human rights and LGBT rights advocacy organizations have released statements demanding that Colombian authorities properly investigate and resolve the March 6th murder of 41 year old Álvaro Miguel Rivera (pictured right) in the city of Cali.

They include:

• The International Federation of Human Rights (FIDH), which is based in France [Spanish language statement].
• The Inter-American Commission of Human Rights (CIDH) of the Organization of American States (OEA), which is based in Washington, DC [Spanish language statement].
• Spain's National LGBT Federation (FELGBT) [Spanish language statement].
• And, last but not least, the International Gay & Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC), which released a statement also backed by Human Rights Watch [English language statement which includes a sample letter you can send to Colombian authorities].
  

To his credit, Jorge Iván Ospina, Cali's Mayor (pictured left), held a community town hall meeting on March 12th, six days after Rivera was found murdered and before most international organizations released their statements.

According to Cali's El Pais, Ospina announced that his office would give $20 million pesos (approx. $8,300 dollars) to anyone willing to give information leading to the capture of Rivera's killers.

Ospina also announced that his office would create a task force to address hate crimes against the LGBT population and not only when it came to murder investigations.

He also acknowledged that police authorities under his command might not be the most enlightened public force authorities, but argued that his office was trying to make things better, and said that authorities were still investigating the murders of dozens of transgender individuals named by Colombia Diversa.

El Tiempo also covered the town hall meeting and says that not everyone welcomed the Mayor's overtures. Pedro Julio Pardo, a member of a transgender rights organization in Cali called the Santa Maria Foundation, criticized the fact that it took Rivera's murder for the Mayor's office to take any action when he said that different organizations had spent months asking them to respond to the increasing number of murders, particularly in the transgender community.

Pardo said that, in the past two years, 22 transgender women have been found murdered and another 33 had reported being attacked and asked the Mayor to develop specific public policies to address the situation.

In the end, the Mayor and several LGBT community advocates agreed to form a "dialogue table" and to engage in follow-up meetings to develop an appropriate response to these crimes.

Previously:

• In Alvaro Rivera's murder, advocates demand hate crime investigation (March 10, 2009)
• A hero murdered (March 8, 2009)

Gay City News: Ongoing debate about hanging of Iranian youth

Today's issue of Gay City News continues to report on the ongoing fissures among activists regarding the hanging last year of two Iranian youths possibly for being gay. It's a fascinating if painful debate that only seems to widen as the days go by. The related articles are as follows:

• The Fog of Debate by Duncan Osbourne
• Iran: Setting the record straight by Doug Ireland (in response to an OpEd by Scott Long last week)
• Letter from the Editor by Paul Schindler
• People-to-people dialogue key to human rights progress by the founders of the Queer Iran Alliance

We had previously written about this when an as of then internal debate on the hangings broke out publicly and after we attended an event at the LGBT Center put together by Human Rights Watch and IGLHRC, among others, on the same day that public demonstrations were happening elsewhere in New York and the world.