Music: Boops (Here We Go)

Sly and Robbie may well be the most prolific recording artists ever. One staggering estimate is that they have played on or produced some 200,000 songs.

Sly and Robbie are reggae’s longest lasting production team. The rhythm section of drummer Lowell Dunbar (nicknamed Sly after Sly Stone, one of his favorite musicians) and bass guitarist Robert Shakespeare started working together in the mid 1970s, after having established themselves separately on the Jamaican music scene.

They changed the face of Reggae several times: in 1976, they introduced a harder beat called “Rockers”, which quickly replaced the then prevalent “One drop” style, then introduced the “rub a dub” sound in the early 1980s. Sly and Robbie were important in developing the trend towards computer assisted music and programmming in the mid 1980s.

They produced three of Grace Jones' albums: Living my Life, Nightclubbing and Warm Leatherette.

Boops is their sole UK hit.

Brown opposes Prop. 8, refuses to act on homophobic Home Office

Gordon Brown on his return from Washington:

"I was in America yesterday and I know you will be sorry I didn't bring Barack Obama back. He is coming soon. But what I saw in America told me what we have to do. This Proposition 8 [which banned gay marriage in California], this attempt to undo the good that has been done. This attempt to create divorces among 18,000 people who were perfectly legally brought together in partnerships, this is unacceptable and shows me why we always have to be vigilant, why we have always got to fight homophobic behaviour and any form of discrimination."

Speech by Peter Tatchell at Amnesty International headquarters on Friday 16 May 2008:

“Since 1999, the Labour government has repealed most of Britain’s anti-gay laws and introduced new legislation to recognise same-sex partnerships and protect gay people against discrimination.

“These positive gay rights measures are being undermined by Labour’s failure to tackle the homophobic and transphobic bias of the asylum system.

“We need urgent government action to implement five key policy changes to ensure a fair hearing for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) asylum applicants:

“First, all asylum staff and adjudicators should receive sexual orientation and transgender awareness training. They currently receive race and gender training but no training at all on sexual orientation and gender identity issues. As a result, they often make stereotyped assumptions: that a feminine woman can’t be a lesbian or that a masculine man cannot be gay. They sometimes rule that someone who has been married must be faking their homosexuality.

”Second, the government should issue explicit instructions to all immigration and asylum staff, and to all asylum judges, that homophobic and transphobic persecution are legitimate grounds for granting asylum. The government has never done this, which signals to asylum staff and judges that claims by LGBT people are not as worthy as those based on persecution because of a person’s ethnicity, gender, politics or faith.

”Third, the official Home Office country information reports - on which judges often rely when ruling on asylum applications - must be upgraded and expanded to reflect the true scale of anti-LGBT persecution. At the moment, the government’s documentation of anti-gay and anti-transgender persecution in individual countries is often partial, inaccurate and misleading. It consistently downplays the severity of victimisation suffered by LGBT people in violently homophobic countries like Pakistan, Uganda, Egypt, Nigeria, Iran, Cameroon, Iraq, Zimbabwe, Palestine and Saudi Arabia.

”Fourth, legal aid funding for asylum claims needs to be substantially increased. Existing funding levels are woefully inadequate. This means that most asylum applicants - gay and straight - are unable to prepare an adequate submission at their asylum hearing. Their solicitors don’t get paid enough to procure the necessary witness statements, medical reports and other vital corroborative evidence.

“Fifth, the Home Office needs to issue official instructions to asylum detention centre staff that they have a duty to stamp out anti-gay and anti-trans abuse, threats and violence. Many LGBT detainees report suffering homophobic victimisation, and say they fail to receive adequate protection and support from detention centre staff. These shortcomings need to be remedied by LGBT awareness training to ensure that detention centre staff take action against homophobic and transphobic perpetrators, and that they are committed to protect LGBT detainees who are being victimised.

“Labour’s claim to be a LGBT-friendly government rings hollow when it continues to fail genuine LGBT refugees. We must insist on an asylum system that is fair, just and compassionate – for LGBT refugees and for all refugees,” said Mr Tatchell.

Sample case histories of how the asylum system fails genuine LGBT refugees:

* Two years ago, Thando Dube embarked on a 33-day hunger strike in protest at being held in detention for six months. She was not a political dissident held by a brutal regime. She was a regular civilian who was incarcerated in a British asylum detention centre. Her crime? Thando is a lesbian who fled to the UK to escape the well-known persecution of LGBT people in Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe.

* At least two gay Iranian asylum seekers have committed suicide in UK in the last five years, after being ordered by the Home Office to return to Iran. Israfil Shiri, aged 29, burned himself alive. Hussein Nasseri shot himself in the head. Both chose suicide rather than suffer deportation and probable execution by Iran’s ayatollahs.

* The Home Office insists that Jamaica is a “safe” country. Many LGBT Jamaican asylum applications are rejected, despite evidence from Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch that anti-gay attacks are widespread. In the Home Office’s view, gay Jamaicans can seek police protection. But the reality is, according to Amnesty, that “protection is often denied by the police, who in many cases appear to tacitly or actively support such violence.”

* Isaac K, aged 17, fled to Britain from Uganda after he was caught with his boyfriend. A mob, which included local officials, tried to kill him. According to the Home Office, what happened to Isaac does not constitute persecution and therefore he does not qualify for asylum.

* The Home Office likewise denies the abuse of gay men in Algeria. RK was jailed for homosexuality. In prison, he was raped and beaten by inmates and guards. His teeth were knocked out and he suffers from severe post-traumatic stress disorder. The Home Office insists that it is safe for RK to return to Algeria.

* Many LGBT victims are forcibly - even violently - deported back to their homophobic home countries. This happened to gay Jamaican, EB. He alleges violent beatings by Home Office-contracted security guards who forced him onto the plane. When he arrived in Kingston, his family say that he could barely walk.

These abuses are happening under a Labour government - a government that claims to support LGBT human rights.

I will add to Peter's proposals that LGBT asylum and immigration groups should be used, as the Canadian immigration minister has proposed, to help filter out false claims.

Another Ministerial foot in mouth

Cross-posted from LGBT asylum news.



In an article about how the UK government 'challenges' the homophobic administration in Kingston Jamaica, UK foreign affairs (DFID) minister Gareth Thomas said the following about LGBT asylum seekers from that country.

"Every case has to be looked at on its own merits. You need to unpick the details of what was alleged to have happened." [Our emphasis]

The article in pinknews.co.uk points out that Thomas has directly challenged Jamaican homophobia, specifically and correctly citing it as an issue in fighting HIV.

But it also inadvertently cites the disconnect at the heart of the attitude to LGBT asylum seekers in the UK's government:

Asylum of course is a Home Office matter - DFID's work tends on the whole to be more positive.

In other words, as we have always said, the Home Office says one thing and the Foreign Office another.

gayasylumuk condemns "inhumane, anti-gay" Labour government

MEDIA RELEASE

23rd June, 2008

FOR IMMEDIATE USE

gayasylumuk condemns "inhumane, anti-gay" Labour government

The campaigning group gayaylumuk today called the comments of British Labour Home Secretary Jacqui Smith about retuning gays and lesbians to Iran "outrageous, shameful, inhumane and anti-gay".

In a letter to the LibDem MP Lord Roberts, Smith echoed government policy by claiming that it was safe to return people if they were "discreet".

Spokesperson, Paul Canning, said "we are calling for protest to be directed at Gordon Brown over the issue. Sign the petition."

"We hope that gay and lesbian Labour voters in particular will consider changing their vote if the policy isn't changed before the next election. This is one way to get the message through on their hypocrisy regarding lesbian and gay rights issues — when embassies in other countries are flying the rainbow flag they aren't doing this in Tehran, Kingston or Kampala."

Human Rights Watch (HRW), the respected international authority often quoted by the government, has documented the persecution and torture of gays and lesbians in Iran, where sex can attract the death penalty.

In March they issued an alert over the raiding of a private party in Ishfahan. In May the Home Office was added to their 'Hall of Shame'.

Scott Long of HRW said: "Torturing and killing gays is legal in Iran: you don't need to view the bodies to prove it. International law bars Britain from returning people to the risk of torture. Britain must give gay Iranians asylum."

"Human Rights Watch has shown how Britain tries to redefine its obligations on torture, so it can send people back to states where they face grave risk. Usually it happens in the context of counterterrorism. But with gay Iranians, too, the government aims to change the rules, denying that legal torture is "persecution"."

gayasylumuk believes that the number of such asylum seekers in the UK is small, maybe 30. Such small numbers is also the case in other countries.

"The Dutch experience shows that a proven, tested model exists of how to operate a humane asylum policy for gays and lesbians - and they haven't had a 'flood'", said Canning.

"Similar policy and practice exists in the United States, Canada and Sweden - why is the UK alone in being inhumane and disregarding international law?"

gayasylumuk countered the government's position, as restated in the Medhi Kazemi case in the House of Lords by the Home Office Minister, Lord West.

"We are extremely cautious about the way in which we treat these cases"
They have shown no evidence of caution. For a number of years they have consistently refused asylum to gays and lesbians and transgender people who would suffer persecution if returned, because that is their policy. Some of these people have committed suicide rather than be returned. There is a mass of evidence that Iran and other countries like Jamaica and Uganda are a 'deathzone'.

"We give detailed consideration to these cases"
This is not the experience of asylum seekers, and this is well documented. They do not consider the stated opinion of their own colleagues in the Foreign Office and never have. They misrepresent evidence of torture and systematic harassment by Human Rights Watch and other NGOs.

"They go through a rigorous appeals and court process"
As Smith has just reiterated, there is a Home Office policy that gays and lesbians can be returned if they are 'discreet'. Further, there is a history of the Home Office accepting bland assurances from the Iranian and other governments. Further, there is a lot of evidence of homophobic attitudes within the Appeals Court process.

"Obviously we have to follow and respect the integrity of that process"
Not if it is biased. Not if the outcome is guaranteed because of their (unstated) policy. There is no integrity to this process for gays and lesbians.

The group is calling on all British people outraged by government policy to sign the petition, established by Durham Methodist minister Walter Attwood, which says: 'we the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to stop deporting gays and lesbians to countries where they may be imprisoned, tortured or executed because of their sexuality'. to Gordon Brown (at http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/Stopdeportinggay/).

This petition says: 'we the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to stop deporting gays and lesbians to countries where they may be imprisoned, tortured or executed because of their sexuality'.

The petition has almost 3000 signatures but needs many more to achieve significance in the Number Ten petitions system, established by Downing Street to affect and inform policy.

gayasylumuk is a campaign group established by Omar Kuddas. It has supporters in the UK, USA, Europe and around the world.

• Further information on asylum seekers the Iranian lesbian threatened with deportation to torture and possible death by stoning, Pegah Emambakhsh, can be found on 'LGBT asylum news (formally Save Mehdi Kazemi)', the campaign's website
  http://www.medhikazemi.com
  
  
• Human Rights Watch: Iran: Private Homes Raided for 'Immorality'
  Authorities Escalate Arbitrary Arrests, Harassment
  http://hrw.org/english/docs/2008/03/28/iran18385.htm
  
  
• Human Rights Watch adds Home Office to 'Hall of Shame'
  http://madikazemi.blogspot.com/2008/05/human-rights-watch-adds-home-office-to.html
  
  
• Further information on Rev. Walter Attwood
  http://www.durhamdeernessmethodist.org.uk/ministers.shtml
  

A button promoting the petition to Gordon Brown, for use on websites and blogs, can also be found on our website.

~~~~~~

Independent: Iran is safe for 'discreet' gays, says Jacqui Smith

Iran killing more gay men

News about Mehdi Kazemi and other news about gay Iranians now at medhikazemi.com

The International Herald Tribune, amongst others, is quoting an Iranian Official proudly announcing "20 more men would be executed [which means paraded through the streets like we're back in the C17th at Tyburn] in the coming days on morality violations ... [such things as] rape, insulting religious sanctities and laws, and homosexuality."

Neither The Guardian or the BBC are mentioning gay people - Guardian: Iran to defy west by executing sex offenders. Rageh Omar's recent, otherwise excellent, documentary Rageh Inside Iran, again, ignored the executions.

Here's one story of A Gay Couple Who Have Been Tortured for Being Gay

• It's happening in Iraq as well, turning into a deathzone for gay men.
• Other countries on this list include Pakistan, Nigeria, Belarus, Russia, Jamaica, and Honduras.

London Mayor Ken Livingstone at last Saturday's London Gay Pride rally - he appeared on-stage with his two small children:

“This has become a good city for people of a different sexual orientation to live in.--we follow places like San Francisco and Copenhagen and Amsterdam -- but let's never forget these are just a few secure, isolated areas, in a world still awash with bigotry and hatred.”

"We used to see a situation a hundred years ago where gays and lesbians would be beaten to death and the police would turn a blind eye. That is still the situation for tens and millions of our comrades and sisters and brothers around the face of the planet,”

Livingstone met Iraqi gays in exile They have documented 350 death squad executions of lesbians, gays and transgender people and need money to maintain safe houses.