New Mardi Gras organisers called police to Community Action Against Homophobias (CAAH) peaceful banner action at Fair Day on February 18. Fair Day is the annual lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) picnic in Sydneys massive Mardi Gras calendar.
Rachel Evans
On February 3, the Melbourne Age reported that the Howard government plans to introduce the Family Law (Same Sex Adoption) Bill to “amend the Family Law Act 1975 to indicate that adoptions by same-sex couples of children from overseas under either bilateral or multilateral arrangements will not be recognised in Australia”.
On February 2, former Guantanamo Bay detainee Mamdouh Habib launched his NSW state election campaign in the western Sydney seat of Auburn. The seat is currently held by the ALPs Barbara Perry.
On January 11, SX News reported that the gay magazine had been barred from being provided to detainees at Sydneys Villawood immigration detention centre.
On November 20, a meeting initiated by the NSW Greens marked Transgender Remembrance Day. Below is an abridged presentation by Rachel Evans, co-convener of Community Action Against Homophobia, National Union of Students female queer officer and NSW Socialist Alliance upper-house candidate.
On November 23, the SX News websire reported that Penrith City Library, in far western Sydney, had tentatively rejected a DVD promoting the ex-gat movement donated to its collection by the right-wing Christian Democratic Party.
Cuban Consul-General Nelida Hernandez told supporters on October 24 that Cuba will again ask the United Nations General Assembly on November 8 to support a motion to lift the 45-year-long economic embargo imposed by the US government on Cuba.
The last issue of Green Left Weekly published the story of gay asylum seeker Mohatar Hussein. Hussein fled homophobic persecution in Bangladesh to seek refugee status in Australia, only to be locked up in Villawood detention centre for the last two years. The Refugee Review Tribunal twice knocked back Husseins applications, despite having ample evidence that he had suffered persecution as an openly gay man.
Motahar Hussein is a Bangladeshi man seeking asylum in Australia. He has been languishing in the Villawood refugee detention centre for two years because the Refugee Review Tribunal (RRT) has twice refused to accept that he will face homophobic persecution if he is forced back to Bangladesh. Green Left Weeklys Rachel Evans spoke to Hussein in Villawood.
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