mdmd

زود بالجند

Gay in the middle east and the world view.

This part of the world is an exiting place with strong feelings, rich culture, foundations of our religions and beautiful passionate people and the world around it.

Many parts of this region is deeply rooted in old tradition and primitve times, wars and powerty as well as unimaginable riches.

People in the middle east have the same human make up, feelings, needs, desires and qualities like people in the western world, yet are not priviledged to have the same rights. There are the same proportion of Gays in this region but they are in most places so opressed even talking about being gay can mean the death penalty, yet the desires are very strong.

Many Gay men who want to fulfil their human right to be with another man escape to a country where their lifestyle is allowed whilst others meet in secret. Some get caught in places like Iran which currently holds the worlds worst human rights record for gays with the recent executions of young gay men.

To make the executions as publicly acceptable as possible (the executions are public in Iran) the men who are imprisoned and murdered for simply being gay are being portraid as perverts as part of further punishment and humiliaton.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/middle_east/4725959.stm

I choose to start this Blog with this warning and to remind visitors that the openess of western society towards gay people does not follow us to the middle east if we visit.

I will list the countries in order from most dangeours to least, altough the list can change and may not be fully inclusive. Countries in red means that just being gay means the death penalty is in red countries where being gay means long prison and torture and possible death, gray represents countriers where gay people face jail and the law strongly states its illegal to conduct in gay activity. Yellow is taboo and some gay lifestyles are illegal. Blue are countries where being gay and having gay sex is legal. This list only shows the middle east, not other countries in the world.

Iran, Saudi-arabia, Syria, Sudan, Quatar, Yemen, Ethiopia, Oman, Palestinian autority, Pakistan, UAE, Tunisia, Afganistan, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Dubai, Egypt, Turkey, Jordan, Iraq, Israel

 Bagdhad reportedly had atleast one big cruising area where guys met during the Saddam-era. Few people had internet access and the media heavily censored. In fundamentalist areas of Iraq and Turkey gays are not tolerated and danger is increasing with the current violence in Iraq.

On the other side of the coin, Israeli parliament recently passed laws to give gay couples same sex rights in respect of insurance, pensions and work. Being gay is widely tolerated altough like in Europe and America some conservative groups dislike public parades and affection in public areas. Unlike Europe and America though, gay-bashing doesnt happen as any violence towards anyone has harsh penalties. The cities have a large gay club scene. Gay tour companies in Holland, UK and germany organise package trips to Israel some links are found in the forum.   

Okay, so red places are just no go and no crusing or online meets for people who live there. Athorities have started monotoring people online too and even pose as gays and use chat transcripts in a court to convict. This online policing is reported all over the arab world. In the brown and grey countries, atleast in theory chatting, making friends and talking about gay lifestyle would not be an offence. Any form of pornographic images or text is illegal however. The only places where it would be totally safe to download pics, videos and explicit material is Israel and Iraq at this moment.

So as there are similar strong passions for in places like Iran and Israel, what makes gay hangings in the first and gay pride and gay sex tolerated in the latter ? Both places stems from the same religion (Christians, Jews and Muslims are all sons of Abraham and the people of God) dont eat bacon and respect the holy day to the max. In my mind its part of tolerance and humanity. A few years ago the Israeli parilament "Knesset" decided that homosexual relationships should have the same legal rights to things like pension, insurance and benefits as hetrosexual. Gay pride is held in places like Jerusalem, although not entirely without protest. The consituion, law, allows it but both some hardline Jews and Muslims want to prohibit the events and have tried to stop the pride celebrations. The Pride organisers have further caused anger by allowing gay Israelis and gay Palestinians to take part in the gay events as some Israelis see this as a possible security problem whilst palestinian side see their gays going to Israel as allowing infidels to escape to the other side of tolerance.

The repression of gay expressions in the arab world leads to increased levels of cruising, which is a dangrous practise but worth the risk for some desperate gays. In places like Egypt where its not generally a capital offence, gay men have their cruising areas and even circles of friends.

Gay men from these cultures who migrate to the west still fear the wrath of their country men and recent debates in Sweden for instance which holds a large arabic cumminity, what response to take against "honor reprisals" where immigrants are beaten or even killed by their fellow contrymen to take. This is not just a case for gays but also women who perhaps marry a white man.

The Swedish parliament decided that swedish law must be upheld and that womens and gay rights must be honored despite it being illegal under the sharia laws. A similar discussion in Canada took a different direction where the parliament recommended to allow sharia law which could mean that parents of a gay son could apply whatever pusishment they like.

Ofcourse anyone escaping to a country of democacy and gay rights must be protected and people have a right to religion but not to hold their laws above that of the country and its individuals.

On the note of gay asylum seekers being sent back to places like Iran, only after the recent executions did the Swedish goverment retract their policy of sending gay asylum seekers back to their death. The Danish and Dutch governments went further and at a much earlier stage publicly critizied Iran and granted asylum at an early stage unlike the swedish goverment which is plaged by apathy and with a former minister saying at a press conference "Lets stop the faggot questions". 

Swedish goverment cited their embassy in Iran stating that "Gay people has no problems living in Iran" which ofcourse is a complete lie and gay people have been persecuted in this manner for decades.(citing a top EU official) When Indeed the EU has many published reports and concerns over Iran, this one from 2003 long before the recent cases:

http://europa.eu.int/comm/external_relations/human_rights/gac.htm#hr131003b

"Someone said during the debate that we should talk to the judges and others: I have. I felt that, in talking to some, I had been transported back several centuries, in order to take part in the discussions. However, it is important that we have these discussions and have them on a frank basis." from http://europa.eu.int/comm/external_relations/news/patten/speech04_75.htm

The EU voiced stronger criticism see http://www.advocate.com/news_detail_ektid19167.asp than the Bush administration along with alot of gay lobbying groups where amazingly quiet in their reponse to the gay hangings in Iran and the gay issues for Saudis. Its clear gay rights in the middle east are not on the agenda and perhaps the bush adminsitration is scared it will be seen as american interference. Its sad becuase american pressure would have played an important part. Not that Rice or Bush talking to the Iranian hangmen would help immediately but a world condemnation and boycot would and much earlier, infact Iran was the country really to invade and they rightly pointed so out after sept 11 "axies of evil". The present way of goverment and rule in Iran is that of a terrorist coup in 1980 now more than ever supporting terror network and fuling anti americanism. The country has the worst record for womens right and zero tolerance towards other religions.

The current Bush administrations cosieness with the Saudis comes a very long way before gay rights and it seems as if Bush and his cronies would not even whisper gay rights for risk upsetting their friends in the sand.

Then spurred by the madness of Great Britains "I-never-make-a-mistake"-PM the wrong country, at the time, was invaded. Delirious on inaccurate reports, the centerpiece even hoovered up from the internet, Blair added to give Bush and his government green light to commence the invasion which began amongst strange play with a dead weapon expert and spin. The danger with Saddam removed even though he was a bad guy, is that Irans and fellow neighbouring states preverse religious views can be inflicted on the Iraqis now that there is no arab leader there to stop them. You need a gangstger to hold a gangster back. 

Gay peoples rights were not seen in the calculations. There will be democracy and freedom Bush and Blair says. But any lessions from middle eastern countries in trouble is that personal freedom like gay rights are allways moved backwards. Lets hope tolerance prevails in the new Iraq and that they have the sense to put fundamentalism back and be a modern nation. Make no mistake the worst guys are the insurgants in Iraq, they have the same views on gay people as the iranians. Bush made a bad choice but its the insurgents that are 100% responsbile for the current violence.

Bush administration rather cunningly tries to push their clever synonymity that being against them is also anti-antiamerican. 

You can be a patriotic american, even republican without symphatisizing with the current Bush-administration. America is an amazing beautiful country with good people which was founded on on most rightly and honorable principles of freedom, individual rights, enterprise and the good for all humantiy. These ideas prevailed when darker ideas that supported slavery emerged from the south and the rightfulness of the north prevailed. The best of our peoples in free world honor the principles of freedom, racial equality and human rights when the most wicked of our peoples fail to do so and some allways fail to understand, the struggle aint over.

Allright I hope that was some background and from my view, if you live in the region or have comments I wellcome them.

Since its my blog I reserve the right to remove any comments that are inflamatory or racist.

I hope that gay people from the middle east can make new friends amongst themselves and with people from outside. Share their expereinces, good ones too. Post your own blog. Maybe someone can teach us westerns the beautful and rich culture there Arabic and hebrew. The food which I know is amazing, the architechture and landscaping which prooves that some of the worlds most talented people live in the middle east. The regions religion when interpreted right is peaceful and full of points to make us find a good life.

This is what this blog is for.

JONAS

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