Europerspectives

Recently, I returned from Europe where I had spent a month traveling around the continent as an envoy of Amnesty International Members for Lesbian and Gay Concerns, U.S.A. We are planning our first-ever meeting of all the A.I.M.L.G.C. groups from around the world for this November in London, and I was doing some of the preliminary leg work. In the process, I met with representatives of GLBT organizations in Finland, Sweden, Germany, Switzerland, Spain and The Netherlands.

One of the high points of this trip took place in Spain. Amnesty International, España has developed a good working relationship with Fundación Triángulo, a GLBT human rights organization that is not directly associated with A.I. Our latest campaign at Amnesty is called Defending the Defenders. It is a general action to protest the mistreatment of human rights workers within their home countries. Fundación Triángulo has joined A.I. wholeheartedly in this effort.

Among the numerous situations targeted by this campaign are those of Pedro Montenegro and Marcelo Nascimento, two gay activists in Brazil, and Tsitsi Tiripano, a lesbian from Zimbabwe.

Montenegro and Nascimento received death threats in Brazil after calling for police to investigate the murders of two gay men and one transvestite. The activists were protesting widespread ill-treatment and police killings of people considered to be "sexual minorities." Tsitsi Tiripano was arrested in Zimbabwe in connection with the banning of the information table of Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe (G.A.L.Z.) at an international human rights book fair in 1996. The G.A.L.Z. table was destroyed by homophobic attendees at the fair who were led by a government official. This incident directly preceded President Robert Mugabe's infamous statement about gays and lesbians being "lower than dog and pigs."

During my visit to Madrid in May, Fundación Triángulo organized a press conference to which members of the local and international press were invited. Representatives from all political factions of the Spanish parliament also made appearances at this press conference to demonstrate their solidarity in condemning violence against gay and lesbian people the world over. Everyone signed postal cards, addressed to the governments of Brazil and Zimbabwe, protesting the treatment of Montenegro, Nascimento, and Tiripano. In a symbolic gesture, we then all marched together to a nearby street corner and deposited our cards in a mailbox as the cameras of news photographers flashed away.

Two days later a very positive story, about Amnesty International and Fundácion Triángulo, appeared in El Pais, the largest circulating daily newspaper in the Spanish-speaking world!

Our final destination was Amsterdam, gay capital of Europe. There I met with one of the organizers of Gay Games '98, an event that will be hosted by Amsterdam this August. The theme of the games this year is Human Rights. Amnesty, Holland has produced a video version of the book "Breaking the Silence" (a report, first published by Amnesty, U.S.A., about the state of human rights abuses against lesbians and gays around the world). The video will be distributed during the games, and is available in Dutch, German, English and Spanish. The organizers of Gay Games `98 expect some fifty thousand gay and lesbian spectators to visit the city in addition to seven thousand participants. Needless to say, the event promises to be festive.