Video: Iraqi government complicity in anti-gay pogrom

Iraqi LGBT presents evidence of government forces actions against gays and transgender people in Iraq.

Testimony smuggled out of Iraq shows how police and Interior Ministry forces are terrorising LGBT people.

Event: Celebrate launch of new Iraqi LGBT website

Image via Wikipedia

HABIBI CLUB LONDON

BEST MIDDLE EASTERN LGBT CLUB NIGHT IN LONDON

COME and CELEBRATE the Launch of LGBT IRAQI SOLIDARITY GROUP web site
10% of door takings going to the LGBT Iraqi Solidarity Group.
There will be snacks and lots of freebies.

RESIDENT DJ NIKKI LUCAS will be playing the finest Rai’n’B, Arabic, Turkish, Greek, Urban Desi and Balkan flavas, with special guests SHEERIEN (Uber Lingua Austraila) & GEORGIA (Hade,Notes,Yalla, Wotever World)

SNAKEBOY SUNNY will be live and direct on the dancefloor

SPREAD THE WORD AND SEE YOU THERE!!!

ADMISSION
£4 before 10pm, £6 till midnight, £7 After
Free entry to Drag Artists

Start Time:	Saturday, June 12, 2010 at 9:00pm
End Time:	Sunday, June 13, 2010 at 3:00am
Location:	The Oak Bar
Street:	79 Green Lanes, Stoke Newington
City/Town:	London, United Kingdom
	View Map

From Baghdad to Blantyre: Gays in Iraq express solidarity with gays in Malawi

Press statement

In a message from Baghdad, lesbians and gays living in hiding from death squads in that city have expressed their solidarity with the Malawian gay couple Tiwonge Chimbalanga and Steven Monjeza sentenced to 14 years imprisonment in Blantyre this week.

Their message reads:

"The Lgbt community inside Iraq would like to shows its solidarity and support for Tiwonge and Steven in Malawi."

بغداد ٢٠-٥-٢٠١٠

تستنكر منظمة مثيليي العراق بكافة اعضايها داخل وخارج العراق قرار الحبس الجائر بخصوص

"As the Lgbt community inside Iraq is suffering the most in the modern history of Iraq, we feel that our pain is similar, our enemy is one."

"Homophobia is the enemy all the Lgbt are facing. We call for action and solidarity and we call upon the Malawi government to immediately release the couple and issue an apology to the Lgbt community in Malawai."

Lesbians and gays in Iraq are supported by two safe houses run by Iraqi LGBT, a human rights organisation based in London.

The five year old organisation has previously run more safe houses but is unable to offer more support through safe houses or in most parts of the country due to lack of funding. Nevertheless, Iraqi LGBT has members throughout Iraq who try to support each other.

Iraqi LGBT also supports some refugees who it has helped flee to escape direct threats on their life. Threats have followed some of them outside Iraq. Leader Ali Hili moved house in London due to them and continues to receive regular threats.

The group has documented the violent deaths of over 700 lesbians, gays and transgender people in Iraq at the hands of militias and some government forces over the past five years.

No one has been prosecuted for these crimes and no action has been taken by the Iraqi government to offer any sort of protection for lesbians, gays and transgender people.

Steven Monjeza and Tiwonge Chimbalanga were handed a 14 year jail sentence for homosexuality on Thursday in Blantyre, Malawi.

The sentence has been condemned by many governments. Human rights activist Peter Tatchell said: “Fourteen years with hard labour could kill Steven and Tiwonge. Malawi's prison conditions are appallingly unhealthy.”

“Detainees die in custody. Infectious diseases like TB are rife. Medical treatment is sub-standard. Food rations are very poor nutritional value; mostly maize porridge, beans and water, causing malnutrition. After only five months behind bars, Steven has been seriously ill and has not received proper medical treatment.”

Iraqi LGBT takes part in International Day against Homophobia

Camden LGBT Forum 
Saturday 15 May, 2.30PM
The 52 Club, Gower Street

Talks by Ali Hili, Reverend Roland Jide Macaulay, Exhibition of Paul Harfleet's amazing Pansy Project, Songs by Pilar Awa, Exclusive Video Footage of Iraq
Free Refreshments-no need to book-just turn up.

Just Friends
IDAHO special: gays in Iraq
Wednesday 19 May, 7:00PM.

This event  is open to members of “Just Friends” only, but if you are interested in attending, please email deco24@tiscali.co.uk

Iraqi LGBT receives Monette-Horwitz award

Iraqi LGBT is honoured to have received a 2010 Monette-Horwitz Trust Award.

The awards were established in the will of the late novelist Paul Monette to recognize his relationship with the late Roger Horwitz and to honor individuals and organizations for their significant contributions toward eradicating homophobia. They come with a $2500 cheque.

They are awarded to individuals of diverse cultural backgrounds, genders, and sexual orientations. The Trust acknowledges the accomplishments of organizations and persons working in arenas ranging from academic research and creative expression to activism and community organizing.

The Trust told Iraqi LGBT "what you are doing to monitor abuse of LGBT in Iraq is very important, and we want to support and encourage your continuing work."

"We greatly admire what you are doing and we hope the encouragement offered by the award will help you continue your work and activism. We appreciate what you are doing for the global community."

"You are in distinguished company."

Iraqi LGBT spokesperson Ali Hili said: "This has come as a complete surprise and we are very honoured, particularly to be amongst such esteemed other awardees both this year and previously."

"Unfortunately we are unable to travel to accept the award in person [at the 2010 Lambda Literary Awards Ceremony in New York] as my travel is restricted by the British government, so the Trust has posted it to us."

Following Monette's instructions, there are no applications for the awards. Recommendations are given by an Advisory Committee to Monette's appointed Trustee, his brother Robert L. Monette.

Paul Monette and Roger Horwitz were committed to bringing about an end to homophobia both through their individual activities and through their union.

Roger Horwitz wrote poetry in his student years and received his undergraduate degree from Brandeis University, where he was a member of Phi Beta Kappa. His first jobs were in France teaching English and then working for the publishers Larousse and Gallimard. He received his Ph.D in comparative literature from Harvard University in 1972, writing his dissertation on French novelist Henri Thomas as he also began Harvard Law School. He received his law degree in 1973.

Paul Monette was an honors student at Phillips Academy in Andover, MA and received his undergraduate degree in English from Yale in 1967, where he was Class Poet. Monette and Horwitz met September 4, 1974 in Boston, during the middle years of gay liberation. As he described their introduction in Becoming a Man: Half a Life Story (1992), Paul Monette said to Roger Horwitz, "Say hello to the rest of your life."

Paul and Roger moved to Los Angeles in November 1977, and both men were associated strongly with the LGBT activities of that city until their deaths. Horwitz worked as a corporate attorney, then founded his own practice with clients such as the Downtown Women's Center. He succumbed to AIDS in 1986. After Roger's death, Monette did the writing and activism for which he will remain known, capturing in his verse, fiction, non-fiction, fable, and public speaking appearances, the hopes, dreams, and rage of an entire generation.

Before his own death from AIDS in 1995, Monette established the Monette-Horwitz Trust to ensure the continued fruits of their activism as well as the memory of their loving partnership.

The other awardees are: the transsexual 'warrior' Leslie Feinberg; Impact Stories, which is a Californian oral history project; the Rev. Eric P. Lee, president of the Los Angeles chapter of Southern Christian Leadership Conference; Naz Foundation, the largest AIDS healthcare NGO in India, and; RFD and White Crane Journal, America's two oldest reader-written-and-produced quarterlies celebrating queer diversity.