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23 Oct 2014 - NPWJ News Digest on LGBTI rights
Articles
Fake visa applications harming genuine LGBTI refugees
By Starobserver, 23 Oct 2014
THE actions of a Sydney migration agent who told a client to falsely claim he was gay in his application for a protection visa could lead genuine LGBTI asylum seekers to have their applications denied, an immigration expert has told the Star Observer. Earlier this month, the Federal Government’s Office of the Migration Agents Registration Authority (MARA) branded solicitor Issam Sam Issa “not a person of integrity” and barred him from acting as a migration agent for five years for failing to carry out his role “diligently and honestly”. According to the report by MARA, Issa advised two of his clients to change their religion on their residency application and another, known as “Mr E” to “apply for a protection visa based on fabricated claims of being homosexual”. “To support the claims for his visa application, Mr E claimed that the agent took him to Oxford Street, Kings Cross [sic],” the report said.
South Africa Progressive on LGBT Rights but Gays Still Battle for Social Reform
By International Business Times, 22 Oct 2014
In a continent that has seen an upsurge in anti-gay legislation lately, South Africa appears, on the surface of it anyway, to be a little oasis of progressiveness - as can be witnessed at this weekend's much-feted Joburg Pride festival (Saturday, 25 October). While some 38 of Africa's 55 countries now criminalise homosexuality, South Africa by way of contrast became the first country in the world to outlaw discrimination based on sexual orientation when introducing its new Constitution in 1996. Under the apartheid regime, homosexuality had been a crime punishable by up to seven years in prison for men, although not for women whose sexuality, in line with other former British colonies, was not even recognised. Laws protecting lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual, and intersex (LGBTI) citizens from employment discrimination followed in 1998, while legislation permitting same-sex marriage and civil unions entered the statue books eight years later - although it is still up to individual civil servants and members of the clergy to decide if they will conduct such ceremonies or not.
Uganda 'gay' trial dimissed for lack of evidence
By News24, 22 Oct 2014
Kampala - A Ugandan judge dismissed the case on Wednesday of two men accused of having homosexual sex, the first since tough laws were repealed, their lawyer said. Kim Mukisa and Jackson Mukasa, who had rejected all accusations since their arrest in January, celebrated as they left court, an AFP reporter said. "The case has been dismissed in favour of my clients... the prosecution has not been able to produce the witnesses," lawyer Fridah Mutesi told AFP. They were arrested just weeks before President Yoweri Museveni passed a law further criminalising homosexuality in the socially conservative east African nation, and accused of living "as husband and wife". Museveni's signing of new anti-gay laws drew international condemnation, with US Secretary of State John Kerry likening it to anti-Semitic legislation in Nazi Germany.
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Sri Lanka tells the United Nations that LGBTIs are protected in its constitution
By Gay Star News, 22 Oct 2014
The Sri Lankan Government of President Mahinda Rajapaksa has admitted for the first time this month that its constitution protects people from discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation or gender identity. Representatives of the government made the admission to the United Nations Human Rights Committee after being questioned on the issue. ‘Please indicate the measures taken to protect persons from stigmatization and discrimination on the basis of their sexual orientation and gender identity, and indicate whether they are protected by the constitutional provisions on non-discrimination,’ Sri Lanka was asked by the OHCHR Experts Committee. Representatives of the Sri Lankan Government responded that, ‘Article 12 of the Constitution [of Sri Lanka] recognizes non-discrimination based on the grounds of race, religion, language, caste, sex, political opinion, place of birth or any one of such grounds as a Fundamental Right.’
In Vatican and Rome alike, slow progress on gay rights
By The Guardian, 19 Oct 2014
Italy would not be Italy if it were not reflecting faithfully the divisions that have brought turmoil to the leadership of the Catholic church. While on Saturday the Vatican was revealing that conservative bishops had blocked even a distinctly guarded welcome to “men and women of homosexual tendencies”, 16 gay couples whose marriages abroad had just been formally registered by the mayor of Rome were being hustled out through a back exit of city hall to avoid a clash with protesters. Pope Francis and Italy’s centre-left prime minister, Matteo Renzi, are following remarkably similar paths. Just as the Argentinian pontiff is striving to close the gap between his church’s doctrine and the realities of modern life, so Renzi is striving to update the laws of a country where attitudes have changed rapidly. The issue of civil unions is still political dynamite. The Vatican’s opposition to a similar bill hastened the downfall of Romano Prodi’s centre-left government in 2008. And Renzi arguably is in a weaker position, dependent for his survival on the New Centre Right (NCD), led by Angelino Alfano, his interior minister. The protest outside Rome city hall was organised by the NCD. Alfano’s ministerial representative in Rome, the prefect, Giuseppe Pecoraro told the daily Il Messaggero that “the registration of those marriages must be cancelled. I shall be annulling everything on Monday.”