Reuters reports that the head of the Syrian Red Crescent, Abdulrazak Jbero, was shot while traveling from Damascus to Idlib. Though too early to speculate over whether or not this was an assassination, circumstance remain unclear.

Iraq’s Unwanted People: A documentary about being LGBT in Iraq

Bradley Secker, a U.K based photojournalist, spent two months living in Damascus, Syria in autumn 2010. He spent his time locating LGBT individuals that had fled Iraq in fear of being persecuted because of their sexuality. Gaining the trust of these individuals meant Bradley could see inside the closed diaspora of Iraqi LGBT refugees first hand. His primary aim was to create a photo essay with written, first hand testimonies.

On return to the U.K, Bradley started work on ‘Iraq’s unwanted people’, a short documentary highlighting the problems faced by Iraqi LGBT individuals. The film shows two personal accounts of men living in fear as refugees in Syria. Through photos, interviews and moving image, the film hopes to pose the question as to how, and why, such acts of violence and brutality can be overlooked in a new ‘free’ Iraq.

Contact GRN for more information.

[via:equalitopia:Peter Galazka on Google+]

Chris Hedges, former foreign correspondent for The New York Times for nearly 20 years, wrote a cautionary response last night to the news of Osama Bin Laden’s assassination at TruthDig.com. I want to highlight his concluding section below which Hedges hones in on a core dysfunction in US presence in the Middle East—how the tactic of terrorism is a response to the “collective humiliation that we have imposed on the Muslim world,” which in return begets ever violence as a “solution” to end terrorism:

We responded exactly as these terrorist organizations wanted us to respond. They wanted us to speak the language of violence. What were the explosions that hit the World Trade Center, huge explosions and death above a city skyline? It was straight out of Hollywood. When Robert McNamara in 1965 began the massive bombing campaign of North Vietnam, he did it because he said he wanted to “send a message” to the North Vietnamese—a message that left hundreds of thousands of civilians dead.

These groups learned to speak the language we taught them. And our response was to speak in kind. The language of violence, the language of occupation—the occupation of the Middle East, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan—has been the best recruiting tool al-Qaida has been handed. If it is correct that Osama bin Laden is dead, then it will spiral upwards with acts of suicidal vengeance. And I expect most probably on American soil. The tragedy of the Middle East is one where we proved incapable of communicating in any other language than the brute and brutal force of empire.

And empire finally, as Thucydides understood, is a disease. As Thucydides wrote, the tyranny that the Athenian empire imposed on others it finally imposed on itself. The disease of empire, according to Thucydides, would finally kill Athenian democracy. And the disease of empire, the disease of nationalism … these of course are mirrored in the anarchic violence of these groups, but one that locks us in a kind of frightening death spiral. So while I certainly fear al-Qaida, I know its intentions. I know how it works. I spent months of my life reconstructing every step Mohamed Atta took. While I don’t in any way minimize their danger, I despair. I despair that we as a country, as Nietzsche understood, have become the monster that we are attempting to fight.

Yemen: Months of unrest and turmoil

A Yemeni girl prays with female anti-government protestors during a demonstration demanding the resignation of Yemeni president, in Sanaa, Yemen, Wednesday, April 13, 2011. Yemeni security forces clashed with thousands of protesters who hurled rocks and burned tires in the southern port city of Aden, killing at least one person as demonstrations swelled in the capital. (Muhammed Muheisen/Associated Press)

+ images here

It’s tax season…and here’s an unfriendly reminder that we all pay for imperialism—UN-sanctioned or not.

(via political-cartoons)

An 18-year-old woman who reported to authorities that she had been raped by six men was charged with having “sex outside wedlock” reports The National newspaper of the United Arab Emirates. The paper writes:

The woman and one of her male Emirati friends, HA [the initials of one of the defendants], went for a drive in his vehicle on May 2, prosecutors said. The charges allege that because she had agreed to be in the car, the two had, therefore, met to have sex. According to court records, HA, 19, called five of his friends – four Emiratis and one Iraqi – and invited them to join him.

Some important details of the case are still unknown like whether or not the young woman (whose identity has not been release except for the initials L.H.) had been examined for evidence of rape.

All parties have pleaded not guilty to their charges, though the woman did not have any legal representation and no members of her family were seen in court with her.

In an unprecedented act of defiance against Saudi Arabia’s Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, a woman allegedly attacked a member of the religious police, known locally as the Hai’a, leaving bruises all about his face body, reports The Media Line. The police member apparently approached a 20-something-year-old couple in an amusement park in the eastern city of Al-Mubarraz for questioning for illegal socializing of unmarried couples when suddenly the young male collapsed. Then the woman, whose name has not been released (nor the man’s name for that matter), opened her can of whoop-ass.

Though not quite the act of non-violence that Rosa Parks committed, it still remains a remarkable show of public resistance in ultra-conservative Saudi Arabia. Women’s rights activist Wajiha Al-Huwaidar told the new agency, “To see resistance from a woman means a lot. People are fed up with these religious police, and now they have to pay the price for the humiliation they put people through for years and years. This is just the beginning and there will be more resistance.”

The incident comes at a time of shifting attitudes or change. When Saudi King Abdullah recently opened the kingdom’s co-ed university without religious police on campus, it caused a “national crises for Saudi Arabia’s conservative religious authorities, with the new university becoming a cultural proxy war for whether or not women and men should be allowed to mix publicly.”

However, the fate of this un-named pioneering woman is still unknown. She could still be charged, jailed, or lashed. But it always takes one brave person to do something different, to make a difference. Yes, it’s just the beginning.

Spilling The Wine - Detail of a miniature from a 19th century book known as Sawaqub al-Manaquib, copies of which can be found in the Topkapi Palace, Istanbul, the Morgan Library, NYC, and other locations. The man and the wine boy are engaging in penetrative sex, a form of male eroticism condemned in Islam. Known as “liwat” (from “Luti” or Lot, the man of Sodom in the biblical tale), it was the target of barbaric punishments which continue to the present day in some of the more atavistic regions of the world. (source) 

(via queerwatch)