Fear and Loathing

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Russia: IKEA shuts down magazine to avoid violating Gay Propaganda Ban

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IKEA will shutter the website for its magazine, IKEA Family Live, in Russia to avoid running afoul of the country’s ban on “propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations” among minors. 

“When we do business, we observe the legislation of the countries where we work, therefore to avoid violations, we have taken the decision to stop publishing the magazine in Russia,” IKEA said in a statement carried by AFP.

The Swedish furniture chain has featured same-sex couples and their families in the magazine, which is published in 25 countries. It came under fire internationally in 2013 for excluding a story on Clara and Kirsty, a British lesbian couple, from its Russian edition after the propaganda ban was passed. Activists held a kiss-in at the Brooklyn, New York, IKEA store to protest the move. Read More 

Jamaica: Alleged Gay Youth Stoned to Death

A recent video of an alleged homosexual youth was stoned to death in Jamaica was posted and subsequently removed from a Jamaican online news Facebook page. The video depicts the lifeless body of a young man clothed in tight pants with long hair laying in a pool of blood and continuously being stoned by his executioners.

In the video, one can hear clearly anti-gay slurs being used by one of the executioners with a Jamaican accent while carrying out the barbaric act lamented, "Batty-man yuh fi dead", in translation it means "gay, you should die", repeatedly. The identity of the deceased and location where the execution took place in Jamaica are being investigated.  Read More

Kenya: Vigilante group threatens to behead homosexuals

An increase in threats against Kenya LGBTI activists from various quarters has culminated in a vigilante group issuing a warning to behead all homosexuals in a village in Mombasa. 

The founders of PEMA Kenya, the oldest LGBTI organisation in Mombasa allegedly received a leaflet that warned him to vacate the area lest he is beheaded. While a police report has been filed in Mombasa, no investigations or further action has been taken. Read More

Iraq: Islamic State executes four in Iraq for homosexuality

Members of the Islamic State terrorist group publicly beheaded four young people on charges of homosexuality in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul on Monday.

A local administration official, Mohamed al-Faris, said that the jihadis summoned the inhabitants of al-Rashidia district, located in northern Mosul, to watch the execution of 4 young people, all aged between 20 and 30 years. Read More 

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Peru: Leftist Legislator claims Mein Kampf 'Is Right' about gay people

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Leftist legislator Rubén Condori Cusi cited Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf as an inspiration for his vote against legalizing same-sex civil unions in the South American nation. Following the vote, Condori Cusi called homosexuality “a misconduct” and added, “Matters regarding cleaning, ironing, cooking, those are gender-exclusive.”

While some leftist leaders in Latin America–including Cristina Fernández de Kirchner of Argentina, Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela, and Rafael Correa of Ecuador–have paid lip service to the LGBT cause, all three have close ties to the Islamic Republic of Iran, a nation that openly executes its own citizens on charges of “sodomy.” Argentina and Venezuela have also been implicated in aiding not just the Iranian government, but the Shiite Islamist terrorists of Hezbollah. Read More 

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Dolce & Gabbana comments trigger public outrage--and uncomfortable silence

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In an interview with the Italian magazine Panorama, designers Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana of Dolce & Gabbana had some contentious things to say about same-sex families and children born of IVF: “You are born to a mother and a father, or at least that’s how it should be,” Mr. Dolce said. “I call children of chemistry, synthetic children. Rented uterus, semen chosen from a catalog.” 

Outrage was swift.  Read More

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Turkey: Police beat 2 gay Iranian refugees, deny asylum to Iranian Trans person

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In a country that LGBT Iranian refugees are finding increasingly hostile, two gay Iranian men were severely beaten by a police officer. The case was documented by the LGBT Refugee Outreach Program of the Iranian Queer Organization (IRQO), based out of Toronto, Canada. The organization promotes and protects the rights of Iranian gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transsexuals in Iran and abroad.

According to IRQO, some 200 Iranian LGBT individuals residing in Turkey are waiting for refugee determination by the UNHCR and for the resettlement process elsewhere to be completed. Read More

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Syria: Gay Men Driven From Iraq Face Violent Persecution And Death

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Following the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 and the chaos that engulfed the region in its aftermath, many Iraqi ga men left their country and fled to neighboring countries, including Syria and Turkey. Despite Syrian law that prohibits homosexuality — and before the onset of the Syrian civil war and the rise of ISIS — the option to relocate across the border into one of the most secular countries in the Middle East offered asylum from Iraq’s far-right religious militia groups, who to this day target and persecute gays based on either fact or suspicion.   See photojournalist Bradley Secker's report here. 

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Ireland: Warning over homophobic ‘catfish’ attacks

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Members of Cork’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transsexual community have been warned to take safety precautions when meeting online dates after reports of orchestrated attacks by assailants using websites and dating apps to attract their victims.

James Upton, auditor of UCC’s LGBT society, said that he was aware of a rise in physical and verbal homophobic attacks against the group’s members in the past six months. He said he believes it is a backlash against the LGBT community as the upcoming Marriage Equality referendum approaches.

“We can’t tell our members not to go on these sites, but we issue a word of caution about meeting people from them, they could be catfished,” he warned. Read More