Biodun Iginla, BBC News

Biodun Iginla, BBC News
Showing posts with label LGBT community. Show all posts
Showing posts with label LGBT community. Show all posts

Saturday, June 8, 2019

BREAKING: UK police bail 5 teens arrested over bus attack on lesbian couple


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A lesbian couple were robbed and left covered in blood after the incident on a bus in the north of London
A lesbian couple were robbed and left covered in blood after the incident on a bus in the north of London AFP/File
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London 
by Emily Straton and Biodun Iginla, France24
British police on Saturday released on bail five teenagers arrested following a homophobic attack on a lesbian couple who refused to kiss for a gang of youths on a London night bus.
Melania Geymonat, 28, said she and her girlfriend Chris were robbed and left covered in blood after the incident on a bus in the north of the British capital last week.
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London's Metropolitan Police on Friday arrested four teens aged between 15 and 18 on suspicion of involvement in what a senior officer called the "disgusting attack".
Officers then detained another 16-year-old male Saturday on suspicion of robbery.
"(The) five arrested have been bailed to a date in early July," the Met said in a statement.
"Officers are not currently looking for any other parties in connection with the incident."
Geymonat told us at the BBC on Friday that the gang surrounded the couple while aboard the top deck of the bus.
"They started saying really aggressive stuff, things about sexual positions, lesbians and claiming we could kiss so they could watch us," she said.
"They started throwing coins. The next thing I know Chris is in the middle of the bus and they are punching her.
"So I immediately went there by impulse and tried to pull her out of there and they started punching me. I was really bleeding."
Police said the incident happened in the early hours of May 30 after the two women got on the bus in north London headed to the Camden Town neighbourhood.
The women were punched several times before the males ran off the bus after also stealing a phone and bag, the Met added.
Both women were taken to hospital for treatment to facial injuries.
"This was a disgusting attack on two women," said Detective Superintendent Andy Cox.
"CCTV footage from the attack is being reviewed by detectives.
"We continue to appeal for information from the public," he added.
Geymonat is from Uruguay while British newspapers reported that her girlfriend is from the US.
She told us at the BBC that she has previously experienced "a lot of verbal violence" but had never been assaulted before because of her sexuality.
"I was and still am angry," she said.
"It was scary, but this is not a novel situation."
British Prime Minister Theresa May on Friday condemned the incident.
"This was a sickening attack and my thoughts are with the couple affected," she said.
"Nobody should ever have to hide who they are or who they love and we must work together to eradicate unacceptable violence towards the LGBT community."

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Saturday, July 21, 2018

Cuba's new constitution would allow same-sex marriages


by Renee Celeste and Biodun Iginla, France24, Havana


    © AFP/File | Mariela Castro, daughter of former Cuban president Raul Castro, has long advocated for the right to same-sex marriage, a right included in the island's proposed new constitution

    HAVANA  - 
    The new constitution being debated this weekend by Cuban legislators would provide a legal path for same-sex marriage, an important demand of the socialist island's LGBT community.
    The document's Article 68 would define marriage as the "voluntary and consensual union between two people" without specifying their biological sex, the official newspaper Granma said Saturday, reporting on National Assembly debates over the proposed changes in Cuba's basic law.
    The current constitution, dating from 1976, limits marriage to the "voluntary union of a man and a woman."
    The change would "open the door to legalizing homosexual couples for all posterity," Francisco Rodriguez, a journalist and well-known gay activist who is also a member of the governing Communist Party, wrote in his blog.
    By incorporating "the principle of non-discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity," the new wording could facilitate other legal and policy changes to protect the island's LGBT community, he said.
    Still, Rodriguez warned that "the fight ahead will not be easy." Certain political and ideological forces will "do everything possible to wreck these dreams," he said.
    For more than a decade, the lawmaker Mariela Castro, daughter of former president Raul Castro, has promoted LGBT rights.
    In the early days of the 1959 revolution, gays were persecuted in Cuba, even sent to forced labor "re-education" camps.
    Mariela Castro, as director of the Cuban National Center for Sex Education, has long advocated for same-sex marriages.
    "Giving rights to those who lack them does not imply taking them from those who already have them," she said in a parliamentary debate broadcast on local television on Friday.
    But another lawmaker, while applauding the move to same-sex marriage rights, expressed concerns about gay couples adopting children.
    The proposed changes do not specifically address that issue.
    The National Assembly is to vote on the new constitution, prepared by a parliamentary commission under Raul Castro and President Miguel Diaz-Canel, between now and Monday. It will then be submitted to a popular referendum for final approval.
    The document has also drawn attention for recognizing the free market and private property, while encouraging foreign investment.

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    Wednesday, January 31, 2018

    Google yanks gay dating app from Indonesia online store


    by Wang Yang and Biodun Iginla, France24 Technology News Analysts, Jakarta


      © AFP | The government's gay apps ban comes against a backdrop of growing hostility towards Indonesia's lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community

      JAKARTA - 
      Google has pulled one of the world?s largest gay dating apps from the Indonesian version of its online store in response to government demands, Jakarta said Wednesday, amid a crackdown on the LGBT community.
      Officials had called for the tech giant to remove 73 LGBT-related applications, including dating services, from its Play Store, and urged people to shun apps that broke with cultural norms in the world's biggest Muslim-majority nation.
      Communications ministry spokesman Noor Iza confirmed Wednesday that gay dating application Blued -- which boasts more than 27 million users globally -- no longer appeared in the Google Play Store available to Indonesian users.
      "There was some negative content related to pornography inside the application," Iza told AFP.
      "Probably one or some members of the application put the pornographic content inside."
      As of Wednesday, Apple's online store still had Blued available.
      Google declined to say whether it would comply with the government demand to remove dozens of LGBT-related apps.
      Homosexuality and gay sex are legal in Indonesia -- except in conservative Aceh province, which is ruled by Islamic law -- but same-sex relationships are widely frowned upon and public displays of affection between gay couples almost unheard of.
      In Aceh at the weekend, police forcibly cut the hair of a group of transgender women and made them wear male clothing, sparking protests from rights groups.
      Elsewhere in Indonesia, police have often used a tough anti-pornography law to criminalise members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community, and the government's gay apps ban comes against a backdrop of growing hostility towards the embattled minority.
      Government officials, religious hardliners and influential Islamic groups have lined up to make anti-LGBT statements in public recently.
      Indonesia's parliament is reported to be debating an amendment to the criminal code that could make same-sex relationships and sex outside marriage illegal.
      The community has also been targeted in a number of raids on "gay sex" parties in the country?s two largest cities Jakarta and Surabaya.
      A survey released last week has added to fears that a wave of homophobia is sweeping the nation of more than 250 million, which has traditionally been regarded as a bastion of tolerant Islam.
      The survey conducted by respected pollster Saiful Mujani Research and Consulting found that 87.6 percent of 1,220 respondents "felt threatened" by LGBT people and believe Islam bans same-sex relations.
      But the poll also found that the majority of Indonesians who were familiar with the term LGBT thought individuals had a right to live in the country.

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