|
|
|---|
Hundreds of Islamists rallied outside the U.S. embassy in London today in a mock funeral for Osama Bin Laden. Riot police had to step in and separate the group from counter-protesters from the neo-Nazi English Defence League. Many more photos at the link.
As the entire world becomes enveloped in royal wedding fever, tomorrow LGBT activists led by Peter Tatchell will stage a marriage equality protest at Buckingham Palace. Tatchell:
We plan to deliver a giant wedding card to William and Kate. As well as wishing the royal couple every happiness, we will highlight the fact that William and Kate can marry, but same-sex couples can’t. Our event will urge the royal couple to support moves to end the ban on gay marriage. We want equal marriage rights for all couples, regardless of sexual orientation. Kate and William had a choice. They could get married, or not. Same-sex couples don’t have this choice. We are banned from marriage by law. All welcome. Bring your friends for a party in front of Buckingham Palace. Come with flowers, rainbow flags and pink jack flags.Facebook event page here.
London police have made an arrest in connection with the anti-gay "Fear Allah" stickers that appeared around the city earlier this year. The stickers prompted the formation of East London Pride, a group that was later revealed to have been organized by one of the co-founders of the violent far-right English Defence League.
An 18-year-old man has been arrested in connection with homophobic stickers plastered around London’s east end. The teenager, from Leamouth, was arrested on suspicion of a public order offence yesterday, police said. He has been bailed to return to police on Sunday May 8th pending further enquiries. The stickers, which have been found in Brick Lane, Poplar, Bow and Canary Wharf, show a red line through a rainbow flag and the words ‘gay-free zone’. They say: “Arise and warn. Gay free zone. Verily Allah is severe in punishment.” At least 70 have been reported.Another 18 year-old was detained and released without charges last month after being found in possession of the stickers. The name of the man arrested yesterday has not been disclosed. Some local LGBT activists have long suspected that the stickers were planted by non-Muslim agitators intent on sowing violence between the gay and Muslim communities.
Although London's John Snow Pub locked their doors rather than allow gay protesters inside, the planned "snog-a-thon" went on in the street outside.
The Soho pub that was to be the location of a "massive snog-a-thon" this afternoon has locked their doors rather than allow gay protesters inside. On Wednesday night two gay men were ejected from the pub after its landlady objected to their kissing. Hundreds of would-be snoggers had responded to a Facebook call for action. From the Guardian's live-blog of the protest:
It's become clear that the John Snow pub has closed its doors, presumably fearful of the avalanche of snogging that was about to descend upon it. One Twitter user, who works opposite, reports that a TV crew has arrived and is "filming the locked door whilst bar staff peer from upstairs window". The Press Association has managed to get a few words with Thomas Paget, the licence holder of the pub. He again refused to comment on the row. Asked whether the pub had been the victim of a "misunderstanding", he told PA: "I don't have anything to say."(Via - Towleroad)
The UK's Guardian reports that two gay men were ejected by the landlady of a Soho pub after she complained that they had kissed.
Jonathan Williams, a journalist for a financial trade magazine, and James Bull, a charity volunteer, say they were ejected from the John Snow on Broadwick Street, Soho, by a woman who claimed to be the landlady and said they were being "obscene". Bull said he was physically sick after the incident, which happened at about 10.45pm on Wednesday, after the couple had earlier been for dinner on their first date together in Covent Garden. Bull said: "I felt so belittled, and to be made to feel so dirty and cheap over something like that – it's just wrong." The pair say that objections were first raised to their displays of affection shortly after they arrived at 8.30pm by a fellow drinker claiming to be the landlord, who was off duty. They refused what they described as his "polite request" to stop kissing. Williams, 26, and Bull, 23, insist they were not indulging in a "huge display of affection", but were merely kissing on the lips.This Friday night local activists plan to stage a "massive same-sex snog-a-thon" at the pub, which is not a gay bar but is located in Soho's popular gay village.
(Tipped by JMG reader Oliver)
"In 1989, thousands of gay activists, angry at the Vatican for preaching abstinence instead of safe sex, rallied outside a church in New York, some of them actually going inside and disrupting a worship service. In 2011, faced with far worse provocations by a faith that, unlike Roman Catholicism, poses a mortal threat to gays, gay-rights groups in London not only decided to remain silent lest they 'offend' Muslims, but in addition chose to turn on their own, denouncing fellow gays as 'racists' and 'Islamophobes' for feeling obliged to stand up — even if in the meekest of ways — to people who would, without question, murder them if they had the power to do so.
"No, the officers of London’s gay-rights organizations, and the commenters at Pink News, aren’t the only people in West who have responded to Muslim bullying with cowardly toadying. But British gays should damn well understand, at this point, that there’s no place for them in the sharia-run Britain to which millions of British Muslims openly aspire and that the Archbishop of Canterbury has already accepted as inevitable. If they’re so desperate not to offend Muslims, they’d better kill themselves pronto — for, as they still somehow fail to grasp, their very existence is an offense to these people." - Bruce Bawer, writing for the right-wing Pajamas Media about London's "Gay-Free Zone" controversy.
Raymond Berry, one of the organizers of London's coming and first-ever East End Pride parade has resigned after being exposed as one of the founders of the English Defence League, a radical anti-Islamic skinhead group renowned for violent street clashes at its protest marches. East End Pride formed last month ostensibly in response to stickers which warned gays to "fear Allah" because the East End was now a "gay-free zone." Some local activists suspected at the time that the stickers had been planted by a group like the EDL in order to inflame tensions between gays and Muslims, although whether that is indeed the case has not yet been proven.
The remaining organizers of East End Pride have issued a statement to Pink News:
"It has come to light that Raymond has previously had dealings with the English Defence League, however he has assured us that he is no longer any part of the EDL group. [Mr Berry] stated that he has previously attended march’s [sic] organised by the EDL and UAF [Unite Against Fascism], however he found both organisations too extreme for his beliefs. None of this information was previously disclosed to the rest of the East End Gay Pride team, until it came to light late yesterday evening. The remaining members of the East End Gay Pride would like to state for the record that we do not support or condone anything that the EDL stand for."Pride London, the city's main and long-running event, says that it continues to support East End Pride, which still intends to hold next month's planned parade.
"We have evidently been misled. Pride London remains committed to assisting any such event, and while we continue to accept that Raymond was not fronting the event for the EDL, and that the EDL remains unlinked to the event itself, we believe that his continued involvement would be inflammatory. East End Gay Pride asked our assistance to steward the event to ensure that the event remained only a pro-gay and not an anti-anything event."What a fucking mess.
UPDATE: East End Pride has now been canceled. And noted activist Peter Tatchell has withdrawn his support for the group.
“We fear the march will be exploited and hijacked by the far right to create divisions and stir up intolerance against Muslim people. OutRage! opposes both homophobia and anti-Muslim bigotry. All forms of intolerance are wrong. The gay, Muslim, Jewish, Asian and black communities know the pain of prejudice and discrimination. We should stand together, united against hate. Let’s celebrate East London’s multicultural diversity. Don’t let bigotry divide us. Together, we can defeat the hate-mongers.”
Some British gay activists are calling for the cancellation of next month's Pride parade in London's East End because it might inflame anti-gay sentiments among the Muslim community. The parade was organized in response to "Fear Allah. Gay-free zone" stickers that began appearing around the East End earlier this year. Critics of the parade accuse its organizers of having ties to skinhead groups which were thought by some to have planted the stickers to create tension between Muslims and gays.
An open letter signed by Out East chair Thierry Schaffauser and Terry Stewart of the Hackney Community Engagement Board claims that the Pride march may “divide our communities” or be used “to oppress other marginalised groups”. Out East organises Hackney Pride and the letter has also been signed by Denis Fernando of Unite Against Fascism and the Greater London Association of Trade Union Councils. It says: “We believe that the most appropriate response to the stickers is to liaise with Muslim communities and others to create bridges and communicate with each other. We want both homophobia and Islamophobia addressed as a collective problem and not feed one against the other, we do not recognise these as distinct categories. We will refuse any attempt to divide our communities or take the risk that an LGBTQ event is used to oppress other marginalised groups, in particular LGBTQ Muslims who will be the most affected by this rising antagonism.” In response, the organisers of East End Gay Pride said in a statement: “We can 100 per cent confirm that the EDL [English Defence League] or the SWP [Socialist Workers Party] have absolutely nothing to do with this event in any way, shape or form.Pink News reports that an 18-year old man was arrested last month with some of the stickers in his possession, but he was released without charges because it was unclear whether the stickers violated the Public Order Act on hate speech. The Muslim Council of Britain and local Muslim groups have denounced the stickers.
Iran says that the logo for the 2012 London Olympics secretly spells out the word "Zion." And if the Brits don't change it, they're going to boycott.
The logo, a jagged representation of the year 2012, has been said by its critics to resemble many things, from a swastika to a sexual act, but the Iranian government argues it represents a veiled pro-Israeli conspiracy. In a formal complaint to the International Olympic Committee, Tehran has called for the graphic to be replaced and its designers "confronted", warning that Iranian athletes might otherwise be ordered to stay away from the London Games. According to the state-backed Iranian Students News Agency, which is frequently used to convey official pronouncements, the letter says: "As internet documents have proved, using the word Zion in the logo of the 2012 Olympic Games is a disgracing action and against the Olympics' valuable mottos. "There is no doubt that negligence of the issue from your side may affect the presence of some countries in the Games, especially Iran which abides by commitment to the values and principles."Nobody knows what "internal document" Iran is talking about. The logo conspiracy theory has been floating around on YouTube for months.
An anti-gay Islamist group is accused of peppering East London with stickers declaring the area to be a "gay-free zone." The stickers include the warning: "Fear Allah."
Pictures of the stickers were sent in by a local resident, who said he tried to remove them. He told PinkNews.co.uk: “Tower Hamlets council won praise from Stonewall for its LGBT friendliness, but these stickers are a warning that Islamist extremists in Tower Hamlets have not gone away from London’s streets. “According to police figures, a homophobic crime is committed in Tower Hamlets at the rate of more than five a month.” The resident suggested that they may have been posted by members of Islam4UK, which has been accused of being a front for the banned Al Mahajaroun Group. Gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchell said: “There have been a series of homophobic threats and assaults by Asian youths on LGBT people in the East End over recent years. “I’ve been attacked by Muslim youths three times in and around Brick Lane. In all three attacks, the assailants shouted religious slogans. My LGBT Muslim friends who live in the area are nervous and anxious. They fear attack and dare not reveal their sexuality.”One local LGBT activist believes the stickers are actually the work of a far-right anti-Islamic group such as the English Defence League, who may be seeking to inflame tensions between gays and Muslims.
If all the people in the world had to live in one city, here's how big that city would be based on the population densities of six examples.
LGBT activists staged a vigil for David Kato outside of London's Uganda High Commission today, after which they delivered a 40,000-name petition to UK Home Secretary Theresa May, demanding that Britain not send lesbian asylum-seeker Brenda Namigadde back to Uganda. Namigadde says she fears that she too will be murdered if forced to return. Add your name to the petition here.
