(USA) - For teens living in a shelter for abused and neglected children, school can provide a daily dose of normalcy, a place to fit in, a chance to be just another kid. It didn't turn out that way for Lawrence King. The anti-Gay taunts and slurs that Larry endured from his male peers apparently had been constant, as routine for him as math lessons and recess bells. The stinging words were isolating. His friends say the verbal cruelty persisted for months, and grew worse after the slightly built Larry pushed back by "flirting" with some of his mockers.
Note: Read more on LA Times
(Australia) - A new report reveals a steady undercurrent of hostility during and after large-scale Gay and Lesbian events. The University of Newcastle's Cultural Institutions and Practices Research Centre report titled "When the Glitter Settles: safety and hostility at and around gay and lesbian public events", shows 40 per cent of people attending these events had witnessed abusive or violent behaviour. Read more...
(USA) - Lawrence King, 15, was shot at a junior high school Tuesday. A classmate faces murder charge. Lawrence King, 15, was declared brain dead by two neurosurgeons about 2 p.m. at St. John's Regional Medical Center in Oxnard, said Craig Stevens, senior deputy Ventura County medical examiner. King's body remains on a ventilator for possible organ donation, he said. He was shot early Tuesday in a classroom at E.O. Green Junior High School. Bullying in schools has long been a problem. But recent studies show that a student who comes "out" as gay or lesbian is far more likely to suffer abuse than others, said Kevin Jennings, executive director of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network based in New York. A student thought to be gay was five times as likely to be threatened or injured by a weapon, a 2002 California Department of Education study said. Jennings said other studies have found similar results.
Note: Read more on LA Times
(Brazil) - The President of Sao Paulo's Gay Pride Association was hospitalised after he was attacked at their offices yesterday. Alexandre Peixe dos Santos was gagged, hooded and beaten by an unknown number of attackers. The association organises one of the largest Gay rights parades in the world. Last year three million revellers packed the streets of the Brazilian city in what officials have called the largest party in the world. Mr Peixe dos Santos was beaten unconscious in the attack and called police when he regained consciousness. In September LGBT activists in Brazil spoke about the high levels of homophobia in their society in the wake of the brutal sexual assault and murder of a Gay teenager who was attacked in a street near a bar where he had just won the local "Miss Gay" competition.
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(UK) - The home of a Gay couple in Greggan, Northern Ireland, has been attacked for the second time in a week. The attacks are said to be part of a homophobic hate campaign that has been ongoing for three years. The couple, one of whom is registered disabled, had their window broken last Friday – and then on Monday night their door was kicked in. Now the pair, who live in fear after being verbally abused, are considering leaving the home they have shared of 17 years. The verbal abuse, the Derry Gay support group, Rainbow Project says, include threats to burn them out. Both men have said they have been very happy living in Creggan and have had good neighbours all the time they have lived there. But now they say they have to really consider leaving for their own safety and mental health.
Note: Read more on UK Gay News
(Jamaica) - A homophobic mob attack in Jamaica that left one man severely injured and another missing and feared dead shows yet again that authorities must take urgent action against violence and hatred, Human Rights Watch said today. This incident is the latest in a string of homophobic mob violence over the last year, including an attack on mourners in a church. Read more...
(Jamaica) - The Jamaican government is being urged to tackle mob violence against Gay people in the country after an attack on a group of men alleged to be homosexual. The Jamaica Forum for Lesbians All-Sexuals and Gays, JFLAG, is urging the Jamaican government to action. "This has become a blot on Jamaica’s human rights record," said a JFLAG spokesperson. "No modern democracy can afford to revert to jungle justice. "We must give real meaning to the rule of law through our constituted authorities and institutions." "We must give real meaning to the rule of law through our constituted authorities and institutions." The attack took place on Tuesday in the town of Mandeville. Two men were hospitalised, one with serious injuries, while another man is still missing.
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(Iraq) - Seven Gay and three transgendered Iraqis have disappeared in the past month and a half and are presumed to be the latest victims of the lethal campaign of sexual cleansing by anti-Gay Shiite death squads, according to the London-based group Iraqi LGBT. Ali Hili, the 33-year-old Gay Iraqi exile who is the founder and coordinator of Iraqi LGBT, which has members, supporters, and informants throughout Iraq, told Gay City News this week by telephone from London, "New reports tell us that the seven Gay men were arrested by the police in the cities of Karbala, Najaf, Basra, and Ammara, and no one has been able to obtain any news of them since December 2."
Note: Read more on Gay City News
(USA) - Daniel Yakovleff, 20, was found early Thursday with a fatal stab wound in a multifamily house in Boston's Dorchester neighborhood. He was pronounced dead at the scene, and now Boston homicide detectives are investigating. In Ashford, Yakovleff's distraught family is struggling to understand what happened, while also planning a memorial service to remember the outgoing, trusting and talented young man they loved. The brother of the victim said his parents have expressed concern to him that police will not take the crime seriously because Daniel was Gay. The family also has heard talk from some of Daniel Yakovleff's friends of predators targeting Gay people in Boston.
Note: Read more on Courant
(South Africa) - Even by South African standards, the Sizzlers massacre on January 20, 2003 was shocking. Nine men were slaughtered in one night. They were bound, their throats slit and then shot in the head before being left in pools of blood in the white Sea Point house with matching picket fence. There was a definite increase in attacks on black lesbians and effeminate men. Marlow Valentine, manager of community engagement and empowerment programmes at the Triangle Project, says: "People are being stalked and harassed and often end up the victims of brutal murders."
Note: Read more on IOL
(Latvia) - An assistant to one of the members of the Latvian Saeima (Parliament) was found guilty today in a criminal case of “hooliganism” during the Riga Gay Pride in 2006 when participants had excrement thrown at them. Janis Dzelme, a 32-years old married man with two young children, was sentenced to 100 hours of “compulsory labour” by the Vidzeme District Court of the city of Riga for “gross public disorderliness as manifested in an obvious lack of respect toward the public by ignoring universally accepted norms of behaviour”. He works in the Saeima for Dainis Turlais of the Latvia First Party (LLP) and is a member of the New Generation Church, a homophobic Christian sect based in Riga with branches world-wide.
Note: Read more on UK Gay News
(UK) - A 43-year-old man who attacked a Gay man in a park as he was walking his dogs was jailed for two-and-a-half years. Tony Hoare, 49, died after the attack in Charlton Park, Charlton, where he was punched to the ground by Lesley Kingshott. The blow to his face on the evening of September 11 last year tore an artery at the base of Mr Hoare's brain which caused a fatal swelling. On the night of the fatal attack Mr Hoare, a market researcher, had been drinking in the White Swan pub in Charlton village where he had suffered homophobic abuse. He was later found unconscious in the park and died shortly after being taken to Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Woolwich.
Note: Read more on Newsshopper
(Ireland) - A teenager attacked a woman he mistook for a Gay man because of her hairstyle, a court has heard. The State was given more time to complete a book of evidence in the case against the man who launched a serious attack on the woman, and a man. He mistook both for two Gay men. Thinking the couple were men because of the woman's hairstyle, he attacked them on one of Dublin's busiest streets, calling them "f***ing Gay bastards". "He asked 'are you two Gay guys?'. He then hit the man on his face and knocked him to the ground. He attacked the woman, threw her to the ground and kicked her in the back and stomach. He then jumped on the man's back." When the woman, who had been repeatedly kicked, got to her feet, her face was punched.
Note: Read more on Independent
(New Zealand) - Convicted fraudster Martin van der Reit stood expressionless in the Auckland District Court this morning as Judge Josephine Bouchier sentenced him to two and a half years in prison for taking $35,000 from the Auckland Pride Centre in 2003-4. Van der Reit's defence lawyer told the court that her client wanted to work and pay off his debt to the Pride Centre, but was unable to do so as his most recent work permit had expired. "He accepts the Pride Centre has been harmed through his actions, and is keen to make amends," the court heard.
Note: Read more on Gay NZ
(Brazil) - Three suspects in the beating of a Gay teen in Rio De Janeiro have been identified through phone calls, according to local media reports. Police are also reviewing surveillance video footage from the Niterói neighborhood where the teen was attacked. Student Ferrucio Silvestro was leaving a Gay club in Niterói on Nov. 30 when three youths between 18 and 25 years old chased him shouting, "We do not want 'viados' around here." "Viados" is an anti-Gay slur much like "faggot" in English. Ferrucio ran 400 meters and hid in a gas station bathroom but was found and beaten by the three attackers.
Note: Read more on Gay News Watch
(Sweden) - Centre Party member of parliament Fredrick Federley was the victim of a homophobic attack in central Stockholm on Saturday night. The assault took place at the Klara Grillen hot dog stand on Drottninggatan, where Federley went with two acquaintances after leaving the Pigalle nightclub. But as they approached their destination, six or seven men in their twenties began shouting "here come the fags". "Then they screamed that we were disgusting and a threat to Sweden and that they were going to beat us up," said Federley. Just as he tried to convince his assailants that fighting was a bad idea, he was struck with a punch to the left jaw.
Note: The Local
(USA) - Somerville police last week were investigating an alleged hate crime and possible police error after outcry from a Gay-rights group. Don Gorton, chairman of the Gay and Lesbian Anti-Violence Project, said Lisa Daloia of northeastern Massachusetts and two other women were beaten up in the early hours of Nov. 18 while leaving a friend's house. A man started taunting Daloia and her group of six friends earlier in the evening at the On the Hill Tavern in Magoun Square. Daloia was knocked unconscious, Gorton said; her friends, he added, received "bruises all over their faces and parts of their bodies." Daloia has been experiencing post-traumatic stress since the incident.
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Hate drove Terry and Ryan Hamilton out of Bothwell.
Not because of what they did, but because of who they are.
"Die fags," was spray painted on the couple's home at 341 Main St., sending a clear message they weren't welcome.
"There was no way we could stay, we were suffering such tremendous hate crimes," Ryan Hamilton said.
"They were doing everything they could to make our lives a living hell."
The couple made more than 30 complaints to the Chatham-Kent Police Service after incidents including mischief, vandalism and threats.
Note: Read more on London Free Press
(UK) - A Lesbian couple were subjected to such an intimidating tirade of homophobic abuse that they dreaded stepping outside their front door, a court heard. Fireworks were hurled at Carol Cashmore and Nina Meffen's house and into their garden and youths regularly gathered outside to shout anti-Gay insults. The catalogue of abuse took place last year, starting with a vicious attack in July in which a 20-year-old man and two teenage girls armed themselves with wooden chair legs and rained blows on the two women until they were barely conscious. Miss Cashmore, 42, told the court the two girls had hung around outside the couple's garden fence and shouted homophobic abuse. On two occasions, fireworks were thrown into their garden, one of which struck a bedroom window.
Note: Read more on Daily Echo
(Barbados) - The founder of the United Gays And Lesbians Against AIDS In Barbados feels he is being targeted. Darcy Dear was the victim of a recent stone-throwing incident that left two windows in the upper level of his home broken. The Gay rights activist, who is on break from his restaurant in New York, said it would cost $900 to replace the sash windows and pay for labour. Dear, who is in the process of completing his apartment complex and home, said he was in his room on Wednesday night watching television when he had to dodge two large stones thrown through his windows. As he pointed to the shattered glass in the room, he told the SUNDAY SUN team that was the second time in a week his home had been attacked.
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