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Gay Chile
News & Reports
1 Bill to support same-sex couples advances in Chile 6/03
2 Judge scandal is step back for homosexuals in Chile 11/03
3 Anti-AIDS commercials in Chile spark media backlash 12/03
4 Ruling in Chile forces gay parents to choose between the closet,
parenting rights
7/04
5 September
14-17: 3rd Latin American and Caribbean Regional Conference
8/04
6 Chiles's Supreme Court Accused of Infringing Human Rights--Under
Scrutiny For Homophobic Rulings 5/05
7 Conservative
Chile More Tolerant of Gays 7/06
8 Chile
Gay Group Claims Web Site Hacked 6/07
9 Chilean court delivers controversial sodomy conviction 8/07
10 Lesbian denied teaching permit in Chile 12/07
11 Iranian and Chilean LGBT activists honoured 3/08
Reuters
June
11, 2003
1
Bill
to support same-sex couples advances in Chile
Santiago,
Chile - Chilean
lawmakers sent a bill to Congress Wednesday to grant legal status
to gay and lesbian couples in a bid to liberalize the country's
conservative family laws.
In Chile,
a Catholic nation where divorce is illegal, gays suffer discrimination,
as in much of Latin America where a macho culture dominates. The law
would allow same-sex couples who have lived together for at least
two years to legalize their union through a civil contract granting
them rights to pensions and inheritances. Lawmakers estimate the law
will benefit some 300,000 Chileans.
But the
right-wing opposition has vowed to defeat the bill. But the law would
not permit same-sex marriages or the adoption of children. It would
allow couples to split on the grounds of family violence or mutual
agreement. "Our society is not that conservative. A small
powerful group is holding Chilean society hostage because they don't
want to reform the laws so that citizens have the option of choosing
their own lifestyle," said deputy Maria Antonieta Saa, one
of the backers of the bill.
"With
this bill, we are changing the human rights record of segregation,
violence and discrimination that is part of our national culture with
regards to sexual minorities," said Roland Jimenez, spokesman
for gay rights group Movilh. Legislators in Argentina's capital, Buenos
Aires, passed a similar law last December in a move hailed as the
first in Latin America.
Reuters
November
14, 2003
2
Judge
scandal is step back for homosexuals in Chile
by Fiona
Ortiz
Santiago, Chile - Homosexuals
in Chile got a rude reminder of the limits of social tolerance
in their
country when a respected judge lost an assignment after a
television station exposed his visits to a gay bathhouse.
Many
homosexuals
in Chile believed they had won a breakthrough this year
when a popular
evening soap opera took a risk and included a gay character,
Ariel. But that optimism was dampened when a prominent judge
- who says
he is not gay - suffered a major career setback
over his association with a homosexual establishment. "In one week we lost everything
we had gained in nine months with the Ariel character," said
Juan Cristobal, a 31-year-old journalist who is open about his sexual
preference, something rare among gays and lesbians in Chile.
The
curfews and censorship of Chile's long, repressive military
regime ended in 1990 and a center-left government has run the country
for
13 years. But this South American strip of vineyards
and copper mines is still socially conservative and one of the
only countries in the
world where divorce is illegal.
The
homosexual movement here is taking its first steps, while in
Argentina same-sex civil
unions are legal
in the capital and in Mexico a lesbian won a seat in
Congress. Periodic polls by the University of Chile show that
Chile's 15 million people
are increasingly accepting of homosexuality but the
majority of homosexuals fear they could lose their jobs if they
came out
in the workplace,
said Rolando Jimenez, president of the homosexual rights
group Movilh.
That
fear was reinforced last week in the case of Judge Daniel Calvo,
a married father of five. Calvo, who is respected
for
his human rights work, became a very public figure in October,
when the Supreme Court
assigned him to head the criminal investigation into
a suspected pedophile ring that had been making headlines for
days.
Bathhouse
Tattler
A few
weeks into Calvo's investigation, the former owner of a gay bathhouse
told local television reporters
Calvo
had been
his client. He said he believed someone who led
a
double life was not qualified to handle the pedophilia accusations.
The reporters
set up the informant with a hidden camera and
he met
Calvo and drew him into a conversation about the visits
to the bathhouse, a place
where men met for casual sex. When Calvo found
out the television station was about to air the conversation,
he made a
public statement
that he had gone to the bathhouse but said he
was not gay.
The
Supreme Court removed Calvo from the case, citing the
damaging media storm
over his private life and saying the judge
was vulnerable
to extortion attempts. "The Calvo case is a setback for homosexuals," said
Fernando Mata, a sociologist who works for a government anti-discrimination
program. Carolina Toha, a member of Congress for the Liberal Party
for Democracy, criticized the court's decision. "If we are going
to be so strict about people's double lives, we should punish with
the same energy those who have lovers," Toha wrote in a newspaper
column Thursday. "What homosexual who has a public position
doesn't lead a double life in Chile? There is no state authority
in this country that has come out as a gay."
Reuters
December 3, 2003
3
Anti-AIDS commercials
in Chile spark media backlash
by Ignacio Badal
Santiago, Chile - The Chilean
government's media campaign against AIDS hit a roadblock
this week when three leading television channels refused
to air commercials,
including one showing a gay couple in bed. The channels said
the
commercials, which promote condom use, violated their editorial
policies. "The
ads fail to address the negative consequences of promiscuous
sexual conduct to people and their families. On the contrary,
they suggest
that such conduct is an option or a model for personal fulfillment," said
Channel 13, which is owned by Chile's Catholic University.
Two other channels showed the series of four
commercials,
which the government
launched Monday for World AIDS Day along with radio jingles,
pamphlets and bus-stop posters. The commercials feature
a married man who has
a lover, a teen-ager having unprotected sex, a housewife
whose husband is cheating on her and a gay couple. Chile, where
divorce
is illegal,
is considered one of the most socially conservative nations
in Latin America. Throughout Latin America and the Caribbean,
homophobia is
one of the biggest obstacles to proper treatment of an
estimated 2 million people with AIDS-HIV in the region, according
to
a study by the Pan-American Health Organization. Chile's
Roman Catholic Church,
like the Vatican, has spoken out against the government's
emphasis on condoms to stop the spread of AIDS. The government
expressed
disappointment at the backlash.
"We're talking about people
dying here," said
government spokesman Francisco Vidal. "I have my own opinion
about infidelity and homosexuality, but they exist. So how
do we deal with a problem like this? Looking at the ceiling
or dealing
with it?" Some 4,000 Chileans have died of AIDS and 28,000
are infected with the HIV virus, according to the government,
which has
promised free anti-retroviral treatment for them through donations
from international organizations. The commercials show people
looking in the mirror and asking themselves why they are not
taking precautions
against HIV-AIDS. They are based on studies showing Chileans
are well-informed about the causes of AIDS but do little to
prevent it.
Knight
Ridder Newspapers,
http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/world/9058910.htm
July
1, 2004
4
Ruling in Chile forces gay parents to choose between the closet,
parenting rights
by Kevin G. Hall
Santiago, Chile - Judge
Karen Atala had the love of her three daughters and commanded the
respect of Chilean lawyers arguing cases
in her courtroom.
Now, all across the deeply conservative Andean nation, she's known simply
as "the
lesbian judge." Atala became an unwitting public figure and
international gay-rights symbol when Chile's Supreme Court, in a controversial
3-2 decision May 31, overruled
two
lower courts and awarded custody of her children to her ex-husband, Jaime
Lopez.
The small-town judge wasn't an alcoholic, promiscuous or a negligent mother – reasons
Chilean courts usually place children in the custody of their fathers.
Atala's "grave" mothering
mistake was admitting she's a lesbian who took a partner. In South
America's most conservative nation, the court ruling sought to bolster the Roman
Catholic Church's definition of traditional families.
Monsignor
Cristian Contreras, an auxiliary bishop in Santiago, praised the "commonsense" approach
of the judges.
Gay rights groups have been galvanized by the decision, and Chile is seeing
a debate like the one under way in the United States over state-sanctioned
marriage
and the inheritance rights of same-sex couples. How it plays out in Chile
might affect gay rights throughout Latin America.
Three judges on the Chilean high court ruled that Atala, 39, "imposed her
own interests, deferring those of her children" by living with art historian
Emma de Ramon, the daughter of a famed
Atala had taken the kids to family therapy, anticipating the need for counseling
to deal with the complex change in family structure. The two judges who
voted in favor of Atala blasted the decision as discriminatory. "This is a ruling based on a public morals standard that contradicts essential
elements of democratic society," Juan Pablo Olmedo, Atala's attorney, said
in an interview.
Atala, who lived in the central town of Villarrica, didn't disclose her
sexuality openly and belonged to no gay rights groups. The limelight was
thrust on
her when her former husband – who originally accepted her being lesbian when
they split in February 2002 – sued for custody. By that time, Atala and
de Ramon were living together in Villarrica. They've since moved to Los Andes,
an hour from Santiago and 500 miles from Atala's children.
"It fell on us, and the violence that they have brought with all of this," de
Ramon, 44, said in an interview.
Atala, a federally appointed local judge, is on a voluntary leave
of absence and isn't granting interviews. De Ramon said her partner
was seeking treatment for a deep depression that followed the loss of her
daughters. Atala's
girls – aged
9, 5 and 4 – now are living with Lopez. Lopez, a lawyer, has since
had his new girlfriend move in. Lopez's attorney didn't respond to requests
for an interview. In an interview
with Chile's El Sabado magazine, Lopez said he didn't think an "alternative" family
was good for his daughters.
"Nobody asked them whether they wanted to be 'alternative' girls. I don't
want my kids to be the rallying flag or icons for the homosexual movement," Lopez
said. Atala, he said, could be a lesbian in private, just not in the context
of being a mother.
The ruling struck widespread fear into Chile's sizable gay population. "We
are very afraid," said Alejandra Arevana, whose lesbian partner
has children. The Supreme Court's ruling, she said, tells lesbians "you
cannot be one publicly, say you are or live with your partner if you have
kids." Arevana said she knew of five cases in which lesbian mothers
lied in court to avoid the decision Atala was handed. As a judge, Arevana
reasoned, Atala
could
hardly lie to the court.
Soledad Larrain, a family therapist in Santiago and a pioneer in Chilean
women's-rights issues, said the country's lesbian mothers were forced to
choose between sexuality
and motherhood rights. "Many lesbians who live with their children are now afraid to go public," she
said.
Chileans appear divided on the ruling. An opinion poll published
June 7 in the daily newspaper La Tercera said 46 percent opposed the court
ruling
and
50 percent
supported it. The support for Atala was surprising for a country generally
guided by strong Catholic values and the legacy of right-wing dictator
Augusto Pinochet,
who
ruled from 1973 to 1990. Many of today's highest judges came up through
the regime,
and Pinochet left Chile with a constitution that even today remains difficult
to amend.
Conservative Chile didn't have a divorce law on the books until
just this year, and there's still no legal recognition
of common-law marriages, meaning
that
opposite-sex partners who share a life without getting married have no
inheritance rights. The court decision virtually ensures that same-sex
couples will demand
a seat at the table when Chile tries to legally recognize what U.S. courts
define as common-law marriage. "We are still in diapers when it comes to civil recognition of gay marriages," said
Marco Ruiz, who heads the United Sexual Minorities Movement in Santiago. Gay
rights groups also want clearer legal and constitutional prohibitions on discrimination
due to homosexuality, he said, and tougher criminal penalties for gay bashing.
As in many Latin countries, social life in Chile is more liberal
than its laws. Santiago, the biggest city, offers dozens of gay and lesbian bars,
and their
patrons aren't shy about their sexuality.
"I have a hard time figuring out what made people shift. I think globalization
is part of it – that elsewhere in the developed world it is 'normal'
to be gay," said Tim Frasca, a gay journalist from Galion, Ohio, who
settled in Chile 21 years ago. "You now have a sort of pre-1960s level
of well-meaning tolerance – which is not the same thing as rights." Chilean
families, he said, tolerate gays and lesbians providing "they don't
lose respect," a euphemism for public displays of homosexuality.
• Knight Ridder special correspondent Martin Noboa contributed to this report.
IGLA,
Latin America and Caribbean
August
8, 2004
5
September
14-17: 3rd Latin American and Caribbean Regional Conference
Santiago
de Chile - Homosexualities, globalization and social movements in Latin
America, are the topics that will open the conference of the
International
Lesbian and Gays Association (ILGALAC) in September.
This third ILGALAC Conference will take place during the celebration
of Pride Week and Chile’s National Independence, between September
14th and 17th.
The weeks begins with the Social Forum for Sexual Diversity, an
activity that opens the participation of social and political Chilean
organizations
in the Chilean Social Forum that will take place this upcoming
November.
The topics that are in the agenda will be centered on legal and
regulative advances that have been made in previous years. This
evaluation will
focus on the context of the economic, political and cultural globalization
that the region is experiencing, in order to start a debate about
the role of GLBTTI organization in this context.
During the three days of session an Action Plans is expected to
be developed for the next two years as well as the election of
new Regional
Chairs, who are currently held by Rosangela Castro and Carlos Sánchez,
former Director of Movimiento Unificado de Minorías Sexuales
Chile (Chile Unified Movement of Sexual Minorities) and current President
of the Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores y Trabajadoras Luis Gauthier
(Luis Gauthier National Workers Union).
Translation: Proyecto Agenda LGBT
The Santiago Times
www.santiagotimes.cl
May
13, 2005
6
Chiles's
Supreme Court Accused of Infringing Human Rights--Judiciary
Under Scrutiny For Homophobic Rulings
by Emily Byrne
Chile’s Supreme Court sent a report Thursday
to The Inter-American Commission of Human Rights (IACHR) about
its ruling that denied former Judge
Karen Atala custody of her children. Atala, who lives with her lesbian partner,
alleges that the Supreme Court did not grant her custody of
her three daughters because of her sexual
orientation. Atala appealed the Supreme Court ruling to the IACHR (ST,
Nov. 29, 2004), claiming that it infringes her basic rights and the American
Convention
on Human Rights,
ratified by Chile in 1990.
Atala said the Supreme Court didn’t respect Article 1 of the
Convention, according to which member states are committed to ensure that
all citizens have
free and full exercise of rights and freedoms, “without any discrimination
for reasons of race, color, sex, language, religion, political or other
opinion, national or social origin, economic status, birth or any other
social condition.”
The IACHR ordered the Supreme Court to produce a full report on the case
last November. In the seven-page report sent Thursday, the Supreme Court
reasserts that its decision to give custody to the children’s father
was to protect the children, and it did not have anything to do with Atala’s
sexual orientation. The Supreme Court sustains that Atala was never questioned
about being
a lesbian.
“There is no discrimination. The sentence has been clearly passed … The
sentence was imposed to protect the children who were in an environment that
didn’t seem adequate for their upbringing,” said Hernán Álvarez,
deputy president of the Supreme Court.
But many believe that Atala’s live-in relationship with her lesbian
partner was key to the Supreme Court ruling. On May 31, 2004, the Supreme
Court decided that forcing the children to live with Atala and her lesbian
partner could put “the psychological and emotional
well-being of the children” at risk.
The court also stated that the children “could be subject to discrimination” and
could be confused that “the father-figure is replaced by someone else.” “It is not possible to ignore that (Atala), when she took the decision to
display her homosexuality, as any person is entitled to do according to their
rights … she put her own interests first, over those of her children, especially
by choosing to live with her lesbian partner in the home where she brings up
her children,” the official ruling said.
The court heard that parents of the children’s friends would forbid them
from coming to the house because Atala was living with Emma de Ramón,
a history professor.
The Fourth Chamber of the Supreme Court passed the ruling by six votes
to two. The two justices not in favor said that psychological tests
on children have
proved that living in a household with a lesbian couple does not put the
children’s
development at risk.
Atala now only has the right to see her three daughters on weekends and
for a month during the children’s school vacation. Atala’s ex-husband, public defense lawyer Jaime López, appealed
to the Supreme Court after the Appeals Court in Temuco granted custody
to Atala, saying that her sexual orientation would not impede her role
as a mother (ST,
April 6, 2004). Supreme Court Justices Jorge Medina, José Luis Pérez and Urbano
Marín supported López’s appeal from the outset. They believed
the judges in Temuco hadn’t considered “the overriding right
of the children to live and develop at the heart of a normally structured
family.”
The Supreme Court’s ruling is extremely unusual, given that in 99
percent of child custody cases, the mother wins. But the Supreme Court was recently found to be the most homophobic Chilean
institution, according to the “Third Annual Report on the Human Rights of Chilean Sexual
Minorities” by the Movement for Homosexual Integration and Liberation. In recent years there have been more than 40 cases involving the violation
of the human rights of lesbians and homosexuals in Chile. Another high
profile case
is that of Judge Daniel Calvo, who was removed from the Spiniak pedophilia
investigation after admitting he visited a gay sauna (ST, Nov. 10, 2003).
Atala’s case and others have generated an intense moral debate about
homosexuality in Chile. One of those debates is to what extent homosexual teenagers should be able
to express their sexuality at school. Education Minister Sergio Bitar recently said that schools should not let
student’s
beliefs or behavior get in the way of the curriculum or the freedom to
teach.
Bitar’s comments are in response to a group of gay students who will
hold a public protest on May 21 in Santiago to encourage people to recognize
their
civil rights. Bitar admitted Chilean society has a tendency to
discriminate against young homosexuals, who are defining their identity, and said homosexual
students
have the right
to express themselves in a public place, but they should keep the protests
out of the classroom.
Bitar explained that the role of schools in this matter is to fulfill legal
regulations with regard to tolerance and respect, without allowing the
school premises to
become a site for social protest. There have been two recent incidents
of sexual discrimination in the educational system, including the expulsion
of two boys from Santiago’s Liceo Metropolitano
for “immoral acts,” and the expulsion of a girl from Santiago’s
Centro Politécnico San Ramón for “openly lesbian conduct,”
By Emily Byrne (editor@santiagotimes.cl)
www.courant.com
http://www.courant.com/news/nationworld/wire/sns-ap-chile-gay-rights,0,644349.story
July
11, 2006
7
Conservative Chile More Tolerant of Gays
by Lugia Navarro
Santiago, Chile -- Gay rights activists say they are finding greater public tolerance in one of Latin America's socially conservative strongholds and hope Chilean lawmakers will approve anti-discrimination legislation. Chile's Congress is debating striking
down regulations against "offenses to morals and good customs" that
police have used to harass gays, even for behavior such as holding
hands in public. Activists say such treatment remains common. It was only in 1998 that Chile repealed a prohibition on sex between consenting, same-sex adults.
The issue of gay rights captured the country's attention in 2004 when the Supreme Court denied a lesbian mother and judge, Karen Atala, custody of her three daughters in favor of her ex-husband.
Emma de Ramon, Atala's partner and director of a gay parents advocacy group, said she believes there can be progress for gays under new socialist President Michelle Bachelet. Bachelet stated her intentions to
do away with discrimination against gays and others in a speech
in May, saying she wanted "a Chile for everyone" which "doesn't
discriminate and which doesn't forget those who have been left
behind." Lawmakers have been debating a clause that would give people reporting acts of bias special legal protection as victims of discrimination, said congresswoman Maria Antonieta Saa, who has long been active on gay rights issues.
Gays are hopeful about the legislation, in part because shifting cultural attitudes have made it politically incorrect in most Chilean circles to be publicly anti-gay, said Rolando Jimenez, president of the Homosexual Integration and Liberation Movement. "There are few people or institutions who would dare to say that homosexuality is perverse, pathological, and that we need to round up the homosexuals and take them to an island. They said these things easily five or 10 years ago," said
Jimenez. "Chile is in the process of a profound transition in terms of ethics and values," he
said.
But coming out of the closet remains
a daring act, said Jorge Pujado, author of "The Kings of Santa Lucia Hill," a
study of gay men in the Chilean capital of Santiago. "In Chile the transgression isn't that you are a certain way, but that you are public about it," he
said. Leading an openly gay life remains daunting in heavily Roman Catholic, socially conservative Chile, agrees Elias Valenzuela, 31, a marketing surveyor who recently told his family and co-workers he is gay.
"I have always said that I don't feel less worthy than others," he said. "I
never let them put me down or make negative comments."
The Washington Times
http://www.washtimes.com/upi/20070606-091631-6023
June 6, 2007
8
Chile: Gay group claims Web site hacked
Santiago, Chile, June 6 (UPI) - A Chilean gay rights group claims its Web site was hacked by a Chilean skinhead group.
Calling itself the "Skinheads from Pitana," the supremacy group allegedly
removed from the gay right's Web site a banner featuring actors supporting
the group known as the Movement for Homosexual Integration and Freedom, or
MOVILH, the Santiago Times reported Wednesday. In its place, the hackers pasted
a large picture of skinheads.
"In addition, they altered the site's monthly survey to include rude, sexual questions," said MOVLIH activist Juan Hernandez. "In
a lot of areas they also wrote things about how MOVILH defends
'sexual aberrations' and supports people who are 'disgustingly'
homosexual."
This wasn't the first time the gay
rights group was attacked in cyberspace, having suffered two previous
hacking defacements, according to MOVLIH head Rolando Jimenez. "We constantly receive threats via the Internet, phone calls, things that are now part of our daily lives. There have been flyers with my name on them ... I get mails saying things like 'I've got a bullet with your name on it.' Things like that," Jimenez
told the Times.
pinknews.co.uk
http://www.pinknews.co.uk/news/articles/2005-5229.html
21st August 2007
9
Chilean court delivers controversial sodomy conviction
by Gemma Pritchard
Chilean court delivers controversial sodomy conviction Gay rights activists in Santiago, northern Chile are outraged by a recent sodomy conviction in a Chilean court, stating that it is evidence of a bias against homosexuals in Chilean law. The Santiago Times reported last week that a panel of judges in Antofagasta, Region II, had found a 47-year-old labourer guilty of sodomising a 17-year-old male. Because the accused had no previous criminal record, the court sentenced him to 41 days in jail – far less than the 541-day jail term prosecutors had recommended.
The case began when police discovered the two males having sex in a pickup truck. Although the young man in question – just 12 days shy of his 18th birthday at the time of the incident – testified that the sex was consensual, prosecutors nevertheless pursued the case, arguing that the accused "corrupted the child's sexual morality." The ruling was the first sodomy conviction to be issued in Region II since the country's criminal law procedures were overhauled in 2001.
The Movement for Homosexual Integration and Freedom (MOVILH), Chile's leading gay rights organisation told the Santiago Times : "It reflects one of the most serious and atrocious legal imbalances we, Chile's sexual minorities, face." One problem, according to MOVILH, is a major discrepancy regarding the legal age of sexual consent: 12, for heterosexuals, 18 for homosexuals.
MOVILH describes the difference as "arbitrary, unjust and hypocritical."
Another problem, according to the group, is that the Code's Article 365, which deals specifically with sodomy, can be used too easily to target homosexual men. In direct response to the Antofagasta case, MOVILH this week sent a letter to the U.N.'s Committee on the Rights of the Child. It stated: "We object to the fact that young people and couples are being qualified as criminals solely because of their sexual orientation. #
"That is a serious human rights violation."
pinknews.co.uk
http://pinknews.co.uk/news/articles/2005-6333.html
13th December 2007
10
Lesbian denied teaching permit in Chile
by PinkNews.co.uk staff writer
Gay rights leaders in Chile have said they are disappointed at the government's stance regarding a lesbian teacher who is being denied re-certification. Sandra Pavez taught religious education at a state elementary school in Santiago for 21 years. The Roman Catholic church revoked her permission to teach religion after finding out she is a lesbian. In Chile religious education teachers legally have to be certified by a religious authority in order to teach. Last month an appeals court rejected Ms Pavez' claim that her constitutional rights had been violated by the actions of the church.
The Movement for Homosexual Integration and Freedom (MOVILH) met with ministry of education officials earlier this week, but said they were disappointed with the outcome. The education minister pulled out of the meeting, which MOVILH said was the biggest confrontation they have had with the government. MOVILH president Rolando Jiménez told The Santiago Times that despite the publicity surrounding the case, the education ministry did not take a clear stance on Ms Pavez's case.
"When it comes to issues that have to do with sexual orientation, with discrimination, the minister looks away, looks at the ceiling, and there’s no response, no initiative on the part of the ministry," Mr Jiménez said. "Here, the ministry of education and President Michelle Bachelet are rowing in different directions. While the Ministry doesn't want to clarify whether or not it rejects discrimination based on sexual orientation, the President has rejected homophobia in various speeches. This is unbelievable."
pinknews.co.uk
http://pinknews.co.uk/news/articles/2005-7034.html
5th March 2008
11
Iranian and Chilean LGBT activists honoured
by Tony Grew
A trans activist and an Iranian queer organisation will be honoured by the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) at a special ceremony next month. Andres Ignacio Rivera Duarte of Chile's Organización de Transexuales por la Dignidad de la Diversidad and the Canada-based Iranian Queer Organisation (IRQO) will be awarded the 2008 Felipa de Souza Award. Each award winner will receive a $5,000 (£2,516) stipend. The awards will be presented at a ceremony in New York on April 28th, 2008.
IGLHRC's Felipa Award "recognises the courage and effectiveness of groups or leaders dedicated to improving the human rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex (LGBTI) and other individuals stigmatised and abused because of their sexuality or HIV status." Previous winners include the Jamaica Forum for Lesbians, All-Sexuals and Gays, whose leader Brian Williamson was murdered in 2004 and the Blue Diamond Society (BDS) of Nepal.
"We are so honoured this year to be able present this award to two extraordinarily powerful voices for LGBTI human rights," said Paula Ettelbrick, IGLHRC's executive director. IRQO provides absolutely vital assistance for lesbian and gay Iranians fleeing the threat of death in their home country, literally helping to save and rebuild countless lives. Andres Rivera has been an enormously courageous pioneer for the rights of trans people in Chile. It is truly our pleasure to honour all that these remarkable activists have done to promote human rights and dignity for LGBTI people."
In 2005 Andres Rivera, a trans man, founded Organizacion de Transexuales por la Dignidad de la Diversidad, the only NGO in Chile dedicated to fighting for trans people's rights, which he currently heads. He has worked with government and the local health system to facilitate the evaluation, treatment and surgery of trans people, and organised the first Rancagua debate on the Civil Union Pact. Himself the victim of employment discrimination, he fought a landmark lawsuit, bringing issues of gender identity into the public view, finally winning the right for trans people to legally change their name and sex in 2007.
"I receive this award with humility and honour," said Andres Rivera. "On behalf of murdered trans people, of those who fight to build a more egalitarian and fair world, and of those trans people who day-by-day live with the pain of not being considered human beings."
IRQO serves as the representative of thousands of Iranian queers, giving visibility to a population the Iranian government is aggressively trying to silence. Based in Toronto, Canada, with members working out of Europe and Iran, IRQO has played a key role in documenting LGBT rights violations in Iran and in mobilizing public opinion to pressure Iranian authorities to end the inhumane treatment of sexual minorities. The organisation also helps gay and lesbian refugees around the world to fight deportation orders that would return them to Iran, where they could face torture or the death penalty-and helps them obtain asylum in friendly countries. IRQO strives to increase the self-esteem of Iranian queers by offering phone counseling inside Iran and raising awareness of homosexuality in the Persian-speaking media.
Arsham Parsi, IRQO's executive director, said: "We are thrilled that the international community has come to acknowledge the LGBT rights struggle in Iran." We can no longer claim that no one cares about our plight. This is not an award just for IRQO. We accept this award on behalf of all Iranian queers who have been long fighting for their basic human rights. The stipend will allow IRQO to continue its campaign for human rights and to challenge homophobia in Iran."
Nominations for the Felipa Award are solicited each year from activists around the world. Nominees go through a rigorous review by the staff, board and the International Advisory Committee of IGLHRC. The award embodies the spirit of Felipa de Souza, who endured persecution and brutality after proudly declaring her intimacy with a woman during a 16th Century inquisition trial in Brazil.
