Iran Executes 2 Gay Men over Sodomy Charges

Feb 2, 2022 | Interview with Peter Tatchell, Director at the Peter Tatchell Foundation.

Met Says Its Officers Will Not March in Uniform at London Pride Event

THE GUARDIAN: Move comes after Peter Tatchell and other LGBTQ+ campaigners raise concerns about homophobia

The Metropolitan police have said its officers will not march in uniform at Pride in London after LGBTQ+ campaigners voiced concern about “institutional homophobia” within the force.

Scotland Yard said on Friday that officers who wish to join the celebrations should do so in civilian clothes rather than police uniform after listening to the “legitimate concerns” of activists.

Uniformed officers will still police the annual parade, which celebrates its 50th anniversary on Saturday with performances by the American singer-songwriter Ava Max and the British star Emeli Sandé.

The decision comes after the human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell raised concern about the Met’s “homophobic” handling of the investigation into the serial killer Stephen Port. Tatchell said the case showed that “institutional homophobia is alive and kicking in the Metropolitan police” and that it would not be right for uniformed officers to march in the parade.

The official organisers of Pride in London later said the police uniform “undermines” the balance between listening to the concerns of members and being as welcoming as possible. » | Josh Halliday and David Batty | Friday, July 1, 2022

LGBT Campaigner Peter Tatchell Refuses Jubilee Invitation to Be Declared ‘National Treasure’

THE GUARDIAN: Veteran human rights advocate, a lifelong republican, says Queen has snubbed LGBT+ people for 70 years

Peter Tatchell speaks at a protest outside Downing Street against the exclusion of transgender people from plans to ban conversion therapy. Photograph: Yui Mok/PA
Peter Tatchell has refused an invitation to be declared a “national treasure” at the Queen’s platinum jubilee because of the monarch’s “neglectful stance towards the LGBT+ community”.

Tatchell, who has been campaigning for gay rights and equality since 1967, had been invited to attend the pageant outside Buckingham Palace as one of more than 100 “national treasures”.

But he declined, stating his lifelong republicanism and also that: “To my knowledge, [the Queen] has never publicly acknowledged that LGBT+ people exist. The words lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender have never publicly passed her lips and she has never visited or been a patron of any LGBT+ charity.”

He added: “To be ignored for 70 years feels like a deliberate snub.”

In a letter to the platinum jubilee co-chair, former publishing titan Nicholas Coleridge, Tatchell also claims that for many years palace staff were prohibited from bringing same-sex partners to the Christmas ball.

He also claims that “after the 1999 Soho gay pub bombing, which killed three people and injured over 70 others, the Queen did not visit the scene or the victims in hospital”. » | Helen Pidd | Sunday, May 15, 2022

No thanks, Ma’am. For LGBT campaigners like me, your jubilee is nothing to celebrate : I was asked to join the Queen’s pageant as a ‘national treasure’, but I won’t take part in this public relations exercise »

Peter Tatchell on Julian Assange 50-week Sentence: "This Is Excessive, Extreme and Unjustified"

Tatchell: "Why Is Assange Being Pursued & Not NYT or The Guardian? It Smacks of Double Standards"

"Why is Julian Assange being pursued and not the The New York Times or The Guardian? It smacks of double standards" says Peter Tatchell after Assange is arrested after spending almost 7 years inside Embassy of Ecuador, London.

Peter Tatchell: ‘FIFA Has No Option But to Cancel Qatar World Cup’ over Tests to ‘Detect’ Gays

PINK NEWS: Human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell has called on FIFA to cancel the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, as it was revealed that Gulf Cooperative Countries introduced new rules to “detect” and ban gay people from entering the country.

Mr Tatchell said the new rules, announced earlier this week, “will mean that gay players and spectators will be banned from attending the football world cup.”

Speaking to PinkNews, he said: “There is no known medical test to detect homosexuality. I wonder what quackery the Kuwaiti authorities plan to invent in their vain attempt to identify gay men. It simply won’t work.

“Banning gay people from entering the country will deter foreign investors and companies. They won’t want to subject their employees to such barbaric, medieval humiliations.

“The proposal that this gay ban will apply across all Gulf Cooperation Countries will mean that gay players and spectators will be banned from attending the football world cup in Qatar in 2022. This contradicts previous assurances given to FIFA by the Qatar government that everyone will be welcome and that there will be no discrimination.

“FIFA now has no option but to cancel the world cup in Qatar. Allowing it to go head in these circumstances would involve FIFA colluding with homophobic discrimination.” » | Joseph Patrick McCormack | Tuesday, October 08, 2013

Related »

Price for Truth: 'Manning Gets Harsh Sentence While Exposed Criminals Stay Free'

Whistleblower Bradley Manning has been sentenced to 35 years behind bars. The former Army private, who leaked thousands of classified US documents to Wikileaks, will also be dishonourably discharged. Human rights activist Peter Thatchell joins RT to discuss Manning's sentence.

Owen Jones: Gay People Have Come a Long Way – But Hatred Is Still Out There
THE INDEPENDENT: Outright bigotry is in retreat, but a substantial chunk of the population still has a problem

When it comes to homophobia, it's fair to say that ex-Everton football player Michael Ball doesn't mince his words. "That fucking queer," he tweeted about Coronation Street's Antony Cotton. "Get back to your sewing machine in Corrie, you moaning bastard." His aggressive antipathy towards gay people is shared by Jason Gibbs, a former Brighton teacher who called his students "poofs" and "batty boys", warning one class not to "go into the shower because this group will start bending you over and do you up the ass".

Both episodes are unpleasant reminders that anti-gay hatred hasn't gone away. But they also offer hope, too, about just how far we've come. Ball's bigoted tirade landed him with a £6,000 fine from the Football Association on Tuesday – the highest the body has ever imposed for homophobia; the same day, Gibbs was banned from teaching indefinitely.

There was more evidence of progress in how the media reported the 60th birthday of veteran gay rights activist Peter Tatchell on Wednesday. Throughout his tireless campaign for gay equality and dignity, he has been pilloried, demonised, and marginalised; but this week, journalists patronised him as a "national treasure". It's a fate which befalls radicals who are no longer regarded as a threat: iconic left-winger Tony Benn, who has been transformed from the "most dangerous man in Britain" to a kindly grandfather figure, is another classic example. But in Benn's case, it was because the left was beaten; Tatchell is no longer a threat because the gay rights movement has vanquished nearly all before it.

There has undoubtedly never been a better time to be a gay man in Britain, and that's down to the courageous sacrifices and struggles of activists like Tatchell. Anyone aged over 45 was born into a country where having sex with another man was sufficient grounds to have you locked up. » | Owen Jones | Friday, January 27, 2012

Peter Tatchell Bids to Overturn Gay Marriage Ban at European Court of Human Rights
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Campaigners for equal rights for homosexuals will launch an attempt to overturn England’s “discriminatory” marriage laws at the European Court of Human Rights today.

Eight British couples will argue that the twin bans on same-sex marriages and heterosexual civil partnerships are unlawful and should be reversed.

Over the last two months four homosexual couples have all been refused marriage licenses at register offices across England, while four heterosexual couples were turned away when they applied for civil partnership status.

The couples will file a joint application to the court today, which is the fifth anniversary of the first civil partnership ceremonies in England.

They will argue that the current ban on gay marriages is a breach of the Human Rights Act, specifically the right to respect for private and family life, the right to marry, and the prohibition of discrimination.

Peter Tatchell, the equality activist coordinating the “Equal Love” campaign, of which the couples are part, said bans on same-sex civil marriages and opposite-sex civil partnerships were “a form of sexual apartheid”.

“Outlawing black marriages would provoke uproar,” he said. “The prohibition on gay marriages should provoke similar outrage.” >>> Tim Ross, Social Affairs Editor | Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Sexual Cleansing in Iraq
Some of the links in this article will take you to sites containing images of violence which you may find disturbing

THE GUARDIAN: Islamist deaths squads are hunting down gay Iraqis and summarily executing them

The "improved" security situation in Iraq is not benefiting all Iraqis, especially not those who are gay. Islamist death squads are engaged in a homophobic killing spree with the active encouragement of leading Muslim clerics, such as Moqtada al-Sadr, as Newsweek recently revealed.

One of these clerics, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, issued a fatwa urging the killing of lesbians and gays in the "most severe way possible".

The short film, Queer Fear – Gay Life, Gay Death in Iraq, produced by David Grey for Village Film, documents the tragic fates of a several individual gay Iraqis. You can view it here. Watch and weep. It is a truly poignant and moving documentary about the terrorisation and murder of Iraqi lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.

Since this film was made, the killings have continued and, many say, got worse. For gay Iraqis there is little evidence of the transition to democracy. They don't experience any newfound respect for human rights. Life for them is even worse than under the tyrant Saddam Hussein.

It is a death sentence in today's "liberated" Iraq to love a person of the same sex, or for a woman to have sex outside of marriage, or for a Muslim to give up his or her faith or embrace another religion.

The reality on the ground is that theocracy is taking hold of the country, including in Basra, which was abandoned by the British military. In place of foreign occupation, the city's inhabitants now endure the terror of fundamentalist militias and death squads.
Those who are deemed insufficiently devout and pure are liable to be assassinated.

The death squads of the Badr organisation and the Mahdi army are targeting gays and lesbians, according to UN reports, in a systematic campaign of sexual cleansing. They proudly boast of their success, claiming that they have already exterminated all "perverts and sodomites" in many of the major cities.

You can view photos of a few of the LGBT victims of these summary executions 
here and here. Sexual Cleansing in Iraq >>> By Peter Tatchell | September 25, 2008

The Dawning of a New Dark Age – Paperback (US) Barnes & Noble >>>
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