UK: Did police homophobia allow a serial killer to target gay men for over a year?

The deaths of gay men in 2015 went unconnected despite similarities between the cases and a history of serial killers targeting gay men. A 2007 review into the Metropolitan Police's investigation of 10 killings and attacks on LGBT people concluded that the police's work on such cases was influenced by institutional homophobia. The review, published by the independent police advisors LGBT Advisory Group, condemned the 1993 Gay Slayer police investigation as a "serious failure of policing." It said: "The initial investigations seemed to us to be more focused on determining promiscuity and risk taking," adding that more should have been done to warn the community.

In fact, one of the world's foremost experts on serial killers, the British criminologist David Wilson, says that the gay community receives "at best, a patchy service from the police." In his 2007 book Serial Killers: Hunting Britons and Their Victims 1960-2006, Wilson concluded that "homophobia has created the circumstances in which gay men have become one of the prime targets of serial killers in this country."

While somewhere between one and ten percent of the UK population is LGBT, since Nilsen's conviction in 1983, gay men have accounted for all or most of the victims of five out of the 14 serial killers since active in the UK. Read more via VICE

South Africa: Ekurhuleni lesbian teen murdered on her birthday

Lucia Naido, a young lesbian woman, was stabbed to death on the night of her birthday in Katlehong on Johannesburg’s East Rand.

The teen was murdered in a suspected hate crime meters from her home on March 19. She was found dying by her horrified mother, who ran outside when she heard her daughter’s desperate screams.

Her mother Xoliswa is now concerned for her own safety and fears being targeted by the two suspects (who likely live in the same community) because she is a witness. She also has little confidence that the police will find the men.

“I don’t think the police are going to do something. It is better for us to find the two men before they find us. I am scared to go outside and I can’t go to the shops. It’s not safe anymore in my own community,” she said. Read more via Mamba Online

Brazil: How to fight transphobic violence

Imagine if one transgender person was murdered every 21 hours in the United States. In Brazil, we don't have to imagine this horrific, overwhelming epidemic of fatal violence against transgender individuals. One transgender person truly is killed every 21 hours, according to a statement from Transgender Europe’s Trans Murder Monitoring Project emailed to my colleague Eduarda Alice Santos. She is a correspondent for Planet Transgender, an English-language hub for international transgender concerns, who also provided the image above from a "die-in" protest in Rio de Janeiro this year.

Brazil has the world’s highest rate of fatal violence against transgender people. In fact, the South American nation's trans murder rate is 16.4 times higher than anywhere else on the planet. If the world overall experienced Brazil’s transgender murder rate, there would be 1,260 homicides in approximately 70 days worldwide. In a year, we would lose an estimated 6,588 transgender people to homicide. Read more via the Advocate

Ukraine: The 'new Ukraine' is failing us, LGBT activists say

With the subsequent ousting of pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych – who was known to court president Vladimir Putin’s favour by emulating his infamous “anti-gay laws” – the LGBT community was optimistic that attitudes would change.

However, two years on many have since found that persecution and prejudice continues, and that the free­doms called for by the protesters in Kiev’s independence square have been un­evenly ap­plied in post-rev­o­lu­tion Ukraine – particularly when it comes to sexuality.

In the west­ern city of Lviv lo­cal au­thor­i­ties announced earlier this month they could not pro­tect a fes­ti­val or­ga­nised by an LGBT or­gan­i­sa­tion, allowing the ho­tel where the event was about to take place to become sur­rounded by far-right ac­tivists in masks shout­ing “kill, kill, kill”. The or­ga­nis­ers were forced to cancel the event and leave the city over fears for their safety.

“The sit­u­a­tion can lean ei­ther way,” says Kis, explaining that with the Maidan protests now playing a key part in the narrative of the “new Ukraine” the LGBT community – despite being on the frontlines of the unrest – has struggled to find its place.  Read more via the Guardian 

Africa: Four in five Africans don't want gay neighbours

Africans are generally tolerant of people of different ethnic groups and religions - but not of gays and lesbians, according to a new report from Afrobarometer. The continent-wide collaborative group released the report based on more than 50,000 interviews with members of the public in 33 countries across the continent.

"While Africa is often portrayed as a continent of ethnic and religious division and intolerance," the report says, "(our) findings show high degrees of acceptance of people from different ethnic groups, people of different religions, immigrants, and people living with HIV/AIDS...

But the report goes on to add: "A major exception to Africa's high tolerance is its strongly negative attitude toward homosexuals... Only 21 percent of all citizens across the 33 countries say they would like or would not mind having homosexual neighbours."

The lack of tolerance is not universal - the report says most people in Cape Verde, South Africa, Namibia and Mozambique would tolerate gay neighbours. More than four in 10 in Mauritius, São Tomé and Principe and Botswana think likewise. Nevertheless, there is "near unanimity" in rejecting homosexuality in Senegal, Guinea, Uganda, Burkina Faso and Niger. And in Algeria, Egypt and Sudan the issue was not even surveyed because Afrobarometer deemed the question "too sensitive". Read more via All Africa

US: Anti-Gay attacks continue in Dallas

Last week, we told you how LGBT Dallas residents are taking matters into their own hands in the wake of a recent string of violent anti-gay attacks in the city’s Oak Lawn neighborhood.

About 20 new recruits have signed up for the Dallas Police Department’s Volunteers in Patrol program since more than a dozen anti-gay attacks were reported last fall. However, police still haven’t made any arrests in connection with those incidents, and the volunteers’ presence apparently has done little to quell the wave of violence against LGBT people in the city’s gay entertainment district.

John Anderson, the volunteer featured in our report, says there have been at least five additional attacks against LGBT people in the last three weeks in Oak Lawn. But none of the victims have reported the crimes to police.  Read more via Towleroad 

Ukraine: Far-Right homophobic thugs attack LGBT Equality Festival in Lviv

The Equality Festival events planned in Lviv were disrupted and activists effectively – and with violence – driven out of the city.  The police did not detain any of the young far-right thugs in masks who first harassed activists, then surrounded the hotel and attacked a coach with Equality Festival activists.

The LGBT initiative Equality Festival had planned an Equality ‘Quest’ on March 19, as part of various anti-discrimination, pro-tolerance events over the weekend.  The quest was to go around places linked with ideals of equality and freedom within the city. During the early hours of Saturday morning, the Lviv District Administrative Court passed a ruling banning all events in the area where the Equality Festival quest had been planned. Having been forced to give up street events, the organizers hoped to at least hold the exhibition of anti-discrimination posters, film viewings and a literary evening.  

The activists were basically barricaded in the hotel because of the far-right thugs outside.  Then within hours of the Festival beginning, the hotel had to be evacuated due to a bomb alert. Fortunately nobody was hurt, and the activists have now safely left the city. Read more via KHPG