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Outcast to icon: Peter Tatchell’s 50 years of LGBT+ activism

Outcast to icon: Peter Tatchell’s 50 years of LGBT+ activism

HUGO GREENHALGH DRIVEN by passion and motivated by justice, veteran activist Peter Tatchell says LGBT+ equality remains elusive despite his 50-year campaign for gay rights in Britain and beyond. In a Netflix documentary that premiered on Thursday, the maverick campaigner said fairness for LGBT+ people from Iran to Zimbabwe was a distant dream and the West had to change, too. "The battle for queer freedom will never end until every LGBT+ person on this planet has respect, dignity and human rights," he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. Tatchell said the fight for rights had stalled in Britain, where the government this month announced…
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Fear breeds bravery as LGBT+ South Africans resist ‘war on queerness’

Fear breeds bravery as LGBT+ South Africans resist ‘war on queerness’

KIM HARRISBERG THREE months ago, Chippa Mohanoe's fiancée was stabbed in the neck and killed in front of their neighbours in South Africa's Sebokeng township. Every day since, Mohanoe had to push past his fear of a repeat punishment for being transgender, hoping a high profile will stifle the homophobia that he says killed his fiancée and at least seven other LGBT+ South Africans in recent months. Fear is making him brave. "I am still here and I don't want to hide, I will make sure the justice system upholds her memory," Mohanoe said outside court after the man accused…
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OPINION: LGBT+ refugees should be resettled with their chosen families

OPINION: LGBT+ refugees should be resettled with their chosen families

SAMUEL RITHOLTZ and REBECCA BUXTON IN the autumn of 2018, a ‘rainbow caravan’ of LGBT+ migrants from central America reached the Mexico-U.S. border, where they applied for asylum. In this group were 30 transgender women who requested asylum together at the border in Tijuana. Though a group, they were treated as individuals: some won their asylum cases, others lost.  Such separation is common within the U.S. asylum system, and globally because refugee status is normally decided on an individual basis. Exceptions are made to this rule for families and married couples, where refugee status decisions and resettlement are possible on a group basis. But these…
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Call for the release of 21 LGBTQI+ arrested in Ghana

Call for the release of 21 LGBTQI+ arrested in Ghana

AFRICAN MIRROR REPORTER ACTIVISTS and members of the LGBTQI+ community in Africa are calling for the release of 21 people who were arrested in Ghana during an LGBTQ+ conference.  Volta Police Command in Ghana arrested 21 LGBTQI+ activists in the suburb of Ho. The police said those who were arrested were partaking in an LGBTQI+ workshop at a recreational centre in Godokpui, in the suburb of Ho, in the country's southeastern region.  The arrested are members of Rightify Ghana, an organisation that put together an event to train attendees on paralegal services for vulnerable groups, including documenting instances of abuse…
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Major donors urge Ghana to respect LGBT+ rights amid crackdown

Major donors urge Ghana to respect LGBT+ rights amid crackdown

NITA BHALLA Major foreign aid donors called on Ghana on Tuesday to respect LGBT+ rights following a crackdown including arrests of people from sexual minorities and an increase in homophobic persecution. In the latest incident, police in the West African country arrested 21 people last week for promoting LGBT+ rights during a training workshop at a hotel in Ghana's southeastern city of Ho. The United States and the World Bank told the Thomson Reuters Foundation they were closely watching the situation in the country, where gay sex is punishable with up to three years in jail. "We urge national leaders in Ghana…
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New video evidence of violence in AKA-Anele’s lives

New video evidence of violence in AKA-Anele’s lives

AFRICAN MIRROR REPORTER THE  camera pans into the lounge. Evidence of either violence or unkempt house comes into view.  The 22-year-old Nellie Tembe, wearing a black crop top, and black leggings storms into a lounge area, running away from a man in a white T-shirt, yelling loudly ”get away from me” as the man tries to calm her down. Tembe then falls to the ground and screams: “Look what he’s doing, you guys don’t know what he’s been doing to me!” The person behind the camera is believed to be rap star AKA (real name Kiernan Forbes), and is heard…
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Our research shows gaps in South Africa’s diabetes management programme

Our research shows gaps in South Africa’s diabetes management programme

DIABETES is currently the ninth most common cause of death in the world. Around 420 million people or 6% of the world’s population is affected. This number is expected to rise beyond half a billion by the end of the decade with the biggest increase occurring in low- and middle-income countries. PATRICK NGASSA PIOTIE, Project Manager, Tshwane Insulin Project, University of Pretoria ELIZABETH M. WEBB, Senior Lecturer, University of Pretoria PAUL RHEEDER, Project Head, Tshwane Insulin Project, University of Pretoria Most people with the condition have type 2 diabetes. This type of diabetes is the result of excess body weight…
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Nine killed, many wounded in Russian school shooting

Nine killed, many wounded in Russian school shooting

ANDREW OSBORN, TOM BALMFORTH and ALEXANDER MARROW NINE people, including seven children, were killed yesterday and many more badly wounded after a lone teenage gunman opened fire in a school in the Russian city of Kazan, local authorities said, prompting a Kremlin call for tighter gun controls. Two children could be seen leaping from the third floor of the four-storey School Number 175 to escape as gunshots rang out, in a video filmed by an onlooker that was circulated by Russia's RIA news agency. "We heard the sounds of explosions at the beginning of the second lesson. All the teachers…
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Bodies float down Ganges as nearly 4,000 more die of COVID in India

Bodies float down Ganges as nearly 4,000 more die of COVID in India

AURABH SHARMA SCORES of bodies are washing up on the banks of the Ganges as Indians fail to keep pace with the deaths and cremations of around 4,000 people a day from the novel coronavirus. India currently accounts for one in three of the reported deaths from coronavirus around the world, according to a Reuters tally, and its health system is overwhelmed, despite donations of oxygen cylinders and other medical equipment from around the world. Rural parts of India not only have more rudimentary healthcare, but are now also running short of wood for traditional Hindu cremations. Authorities said on…
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