murder

(From Women Living Under Muslim Laws)

In March 2010, Women’s human rights defender and WLUML council member, Shadi Sadr, took the extraordinary step of dedicating her International Women of Courage Award to Shiva Nazar Ahari, a young human rights activist and a member of the Committee of Human Rights Reporters (CHRR), currently imprisoned in Iran for ‘acts against national security’. Sadr refrained from attending the award ceremony in the U.S. in the hope that her absence would draw the international community’s attention to Nazar Ahari’s dire situation, urging the audience in a speech recorded for the event that “any measures available to you [be taken] to help to free Shiva along with other human rights activists and journalists in Iranian prisons”. According to Nazar Ahari’s mother, she will be brought to trial at Revolutionary Court No. 26 on Sunday 23 May. The offences she is being accused of carry severe penalties.

Please see attached our sample letter:

WLUML sample letter to Head of Judiciary of the Islamic Republic of Iran.pdf

You can follow this link (and scroll down) to watch a series of films in Farsi on Shiva by Iranian WHRD, filmmaker and WLUML ally, Mahboubeh Abbasgholizadeh.

The Women Living Under Muslim Laws (WLUML) International Solidarity Network calls on civil society organisations and UN member states to ask the Honourable Ayatollah Sadegh Larijani to do everything in his powers, as head of the Judiciary of the Islamic Republic of Iran, to address our grave human rights concerns and immediately release Shiva Nazar Ahari. 

Please, sign the petition below by February 28, 2010, by sending an email message to info@stopdhunes.org that says:

I sign the Petition in Support of the Victims of Violence against Women and Women’s Rights Defenders in Albania.

Please, provide the following information in your message: first and last name, organization, country, and email address.  Thank you for your support!

TO:

Directors of public and private TV and radio stations in Albania

Editors-in-Chief of daily newspapers and weekly magazines in Albania

The Albanian National Commission on Radio and Television

Dear Madams/Sirs:

We would like to bring to your attention recent regrettable cases of incorrect and unfair media reporting on cases of violence against women and the work of the organizations that provide support and shelter to the victims of this violence in Albania. The most recent case was a report by the program “Fiks Fare” in Top Channel related to the case of a woman victim of extreme domestic violence that has included severe and repeated physical violence. Inexplicably, “Fiks Fare” sided with the perpetrator, who exploits the victim’s children to stop his wife from divorcing him after years of severe domestic violence. This perpetrator, other than repeatedly abusing his wife, has over the last four years threatened and intimidated several women’s rights defenders who provided assistance to her.

Ending the custom of Honor Killing by changing tribal perspectives, Empowering local women & promoting positive customs!

For the cost of a few cups of coffee, you can help save lives!!!

Participatory Development Initiatives (PDI), a youth-led civil society organization in Pakistan, has taken the bold step towards injecting life into traditions of death and headed towards abolishing the custom of Honor Killing in Pakistan!

The most unreasonable idea and the dynamic changemaking strategy is attacking the crime strategically by promoting the diverse positive tribal traditions in patriarchal societies of Pakistan, and actually taking the whole community itself towards changing the tribal codes of Honor.

The Issue

The Courts in Iran have sentenced a number of men to death after they were accused and convicted of sodomy. Under Iranian law, sodomy includes sexual intercourse between members of the same sex, and is illegal. The punishment for same-sex intercourse between two men (Lavaat) is death and between two women (Mosaheghe) is 100 lashes for the first three offenses and the death penalty for the fourth.

Join the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) and OTRANS Reinas de la Noche in calling on Guatemalan President, Mr. Alvaro Colom, and other authorities to condemn and seek justice in the murders of Kenia Mayli, Jessica Andreina and Sabrian Garcia Cajas, as well as to take measures to prevent the murders of trans people in Guatemala in the future.

Three trans women murdered in Guatemala

Three trans women were brutally murdered in Guatemala in just one week between October 26 and November 2, 2009.

On Monday October 26th, Kenia Mayli was shot to death in the center of Guatemala City. Her body showed signs that she was tortured by being hit by a car around her head and shoulders before she was shot.

Then, on Saturday, October 31, Jessica Andreina's body was found by other trans women colleagues, in the city of Puerto Barros, departament of Izabal, in the north of the country. She was also killed by gunfire.

Shortly thereafter, on Monday November 2nd, Sabrina Garcia Carjas, was stoned to death. Sabrina was a member of the organization OTRANS — Reinas de la Noche.

TAKE ACTION NOW!

IRAQI LGBT – November 2009 – The rise of fundamentalist groups in Iraq since the 2003 U.S. led invasion has proven deadly to LGBT Iraqis, who are now being forced to either hide or face the consequences.

Using the internet as a means to track down new victims, militia members are now employing computer analysts to monitor traffic on gay dating and networking websites in the region.  They work with internet café owners to single out people who frequent these sites and set up fake profiles in the attempt to lure them out. 

On the 28th of August, police raided the houses of Asad Galib and Faeq Ismail, both 24 years old, and took them into custody.  They were held and questioned for about four hours, accused of viewing gay websites in an internet café on the 21st of July.  Both men denied the accusations and explained that the websites had already been open when they had begun using the computers.  They were later released and are now in contact with Iraqi LGBT, a London based organization working to support and protect LGBT individuals in Iraq.

Others who have been accused or are suspected of such activities have not been as lucky.

Sexual minorities in Africa have become collateral damage to our domestic conflicts and culture wars as U.S. conservative evangelicals and those opposing gay pastors and bishops within mainline Protestant denominations woo Africans in their American fight, a groundbreaking investigation by Political Research Associates (PRA) has discovered.

Globalizing the Culture Wars: U.S. Conservatives, African Churches, and Homophobia, a new report by the Rev. Kapya Kaoma, PRA Project Director, exposes the U.S. Right’s promotion of an agenda in Africa that aims to criminalize homosexuality and otherwise infringe upon the human rights of LGBT people while also mobilizing African clerics in U.S. culture war battles.  U.S. social conservatives, who are in the minority in mainline churches, depend on African religious leaders to legitimize their positions as their growing numbers makes African Christians more influential globally.

The investigation’s release could not be timelier, as the Ugandan parliament considers the Anti-Homosexuality Bill of 2009.  Language in that bill echoes the false and malicious charges made in Uganda by U.S antigay activist and Holocaust revisionist Scott Lively that western gays are conspiring to take over Uganda and even the world.

(IRQR – Toronto, November 15, 2009) Nemat Safavi from the city of Ardebil, Mehdi P. from Tabriz, and Mohsen Gh. from Shiraz were all arrested, tried and sentenced to death in different courts in Iran, based on accusations of homosexual acts (known as "Lavat").

They were under the age of 18 at the time of arrest and have been kept in prison since then. In Nemat’s case, he was jailed for five years so that he would reach the legal age (according to Islamic law) at which death sentences can be carried out.

Human rights activists working on Nemat's behalf have determined that the authorities in Ardebil are claiming Nemat dons not even exist.  Having observed many similar cases before, IRQR considers this statement to be reason for even greater worry.

Mehdi and Mohsen are awaiting their execution despite the fact that they have both pleaded innocent and have denied the allegations.  There is not one single witness in either of the cases, and even the judge himself has no evidence whatsoever to prove that the plaintiffs are guilty.  (According to Islamic law, the accused person would accept his guilt four times, or there would be four male adults testifying on the crime committed, before a court can legally rule on someone’s guilt.)

By Christi van der Westhuizen

CAPE TOWN, Nov 11 (IPS) - The Anti-Homosexuality Bill under consideration in Uganda was sparked by a conference in Kampala earlier this year at which fundamentalist Christians from the U.S. identified homosexuality as a threat to "family values".

The draconian law will institute the death penalty for "aggravated homosexuality" and criminalise human rights work.

Christopher Senyonjo, a retired Anglican bishop from Uganda, and Reverend Jide Macauley, from Nigeria's House of Rainbow church, told IPS that a conference took place on March 5-7 this year, arranged by Stephen Langa, the director of a Ugandan fundamentalist Christian grouping called Family Life Network (FLN).

The FLN invited speakers attached to U.S.-based religious and "educational" organisations that propagate the idea that homosexuality is an "illness" that can be "cured".