Africa

Central African Republic: French troops preside over slaughter

In the Central African Republic (CAR), French troops are presiding over the purging and slaughter of Muslims by Christian militias. French troops went into CAR in December last year, when the government collapsed. Then, around a thousand people had died and around a fifth of the population had fled their home. In March 2013, power had been seized by a rebel militia, the Seleka, which had its roots in the more-Muslim north of the country. The Seleka were well-equipped with Chinese and Iranian-made weaponry and experts guessed they were backed by Chad or Sudan. The Seleka overthrew unpopular...

Kenyan writer's stand for freedom

“I have never thrown my heart at you mum. You have never asked me to.” Only my mind says. This. Not my mouth. But surely the jerk of my breath and heart, there next to hers, has been registered? Is she letting me in? Nobody, nobody, ever in my life has heard this. Never, mum. I did not trust you, mum. And. I. Pulled air hard and balled it down into my navel, and let it out slow and firm, clean and without bumps out of my mouth, loud and clear over a shoulder, into her ear. “I am a homosexual, mum.” - Binyavanga Wainaina, “I am a homosexual mum”, January 2014 Kenyan writer Binyavanga Wainaina...

Solidarity with LGBT struggles worldwide!

In many countries across the world, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people are recurrently subjected to targeted killings, violent assaults, torture, and sexual violence.

Shockingly, in 2014, homosexuality is illegal in 76 countries around the world, and in 10 of these punishable by...

The murder of Patrice Lumumba

“Dead, living, free, or in prison on the orders of the colonialists, it is not I who counts. It is the Congo, it is our people for whom independence has been transformed into a cage where we are regarded from the outside… History will one day have its say, but it will not be the history that Brussels, Paris, Washington, or the United Nations will teach, but that which they will teach in the countries emancipated from colonialism and its puppets... a history of glory and dignity.” Patrice Lumumba, October 1960 “The slave went free; stood a brief moment in the sun; then moved back again toward...

Collapse in Central Africa

The Christian majority in Bangui, the capital of the Central African Republic, are reported to be impatient and disillusioned with the French army intervention, which at first they welcomed. The Muslim minority are reported to be flatly hostile. France has long had troops in the CAR, and has been the power behind CAR thrones ever since the country became formally independent from French rule in 1960. France’s decision on 5 December 2013 to send 1,600 French troops onto the streets of Bangui, together with 4,000 troops from nearby African countries (all also countries where France has heavy...

African LGBT activists protest at Uganda House

African LGBTI Out & Proud Diamond Group were joined by RMT union activists and human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell at a demonstration outside the Uganda High Commission in London on 18 November, protesting two anti-gay "show trials" in Uganda and demanding the release of Samuel Ganafa, Bernard Randall and Albert Cheptoyek. Samuel K Ganafa, the Executive Director of Spectrum Uganda and the Chair of Sexual Minorities Uganda, appeared in court on Monday 18 November on charges of "sodomy", under section 145 of the Ugandan penal code. Three other LGBT rights advocates also face charges...

Surveying homophobia

In this two part documentary, Stephen Fry and the director Fergus O’Brien set out to survey what the situation is for LGBT people around the world. A laudable task, and a good way to use your celebrity. In some ways the documentary lives up to its good intentions to expose homophobia across the world; the interviews with victims and survivors of some of the most extreme consequences of homophobia moved me. Fry’s journey surveying the situation for LGBT people took him to the US, Uganda, Brazil, Russia, and India. He did not visit the likes of Saudi Arabia, Iran, Sudan, Yemen or Mauritania...

Lampedusa: open the borders!

As of 8 October, only 155 people seem to have survived the wreck of a small boat in which Somali and other migrants were attempting to reach Italy from Libya. The boat sank just off the coast of Lampedusa, a small Italian-owned island in the middle of the Mediterranean, between Sicily and Tunisia. It is reckoned to have had over 500 people on board — over 25 for each metre of its 20-metre length. 232 bodies have been found so far. Just a day before the boat sank, the Council of Europe condemned the immigration policy of the Italian state. The Council criticised the policy under which migrants...

Islamist atrocity in Nairobi

Islamists stormed a shopping mall in Nairobi, Kenya on 21 September. As we go to press, they are known to have killed 62 people and injured 170. The killers released people only if they could prove they were Muslims. The events should hammer home three things often denied on the left. First: Islamists are different from specially religious Muslims. Islamists are right-wing, fascistic political people who use and abuse Muslim religion for their political ends. They are not primarily religious, any more than Spain’s dictator from 1939 to 1976, Franco, was primarily a good Christian. They are...

Mali: a "difficult phase"

On 20 February the Islamist militia Mujao took the town hall in Gao, one of the three sizeable towns in Mali's north, and on latest reports (23 February) fighting continues. There are now 4000 French troops in Mali, and 2000 soldiers from France's ally Chad, between them making a larger effective force than Mali's own army. There are also 300-odd British soldiers, and troops from other West African states. France has called for a UN force in addition. Yet France's defence minister says that the French military intervention must now go through its "most difficult phase". After French troops...

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