Monday 23 September 2013

"One Love" against homophobia and hatred - action in Yerevan

Renewed homophobic hysteria surrounding gender equality law in Armenia [recommended reading: The ‘Gender Equality Law’ Hysteria in Armenia - The Armenian Weekly] led to further displays of hateful posters on the streets of Yerevan (some previous examples - here), as well as direct threats to attack women's rights and other progressive groups.

Activists in Yerevan have replaced the "Mek Azg"["One Nation"] & other neo-nazi, homophobic groups posters with ones that say "Mek Ser"["One Love"].


*picture - via One Armenia Facebook page

Sunday 15 September 2013

Baku: Not quite “pride march” but Azeri LGBT activists attempt at visibility statement with rainbow flag

Azeri LGBT website Gay.az reports that a week ago, on 7 September 2013, for the first time some LGBT activists walked the streets of Baku with a rainbow flag. Two activists are pictured on the website, seating and standing with a rainbow flag in Azerbaijan capital Baku.

This was not a “pride celebration”, “march” or “mini-rally”, as wrongly indicated by PinkNews and Gay Star News, or anything remotely close to that scale.

This was an attempt at making statement on visibility, albeit with covered faces.

Considering a poor state with human rights in Azerbaijan with virtually non-visible LGBT community, this is a positive small but brave step forward.

As per reports, the action passed without incidents.
В минувшую субботу информационный ресурс Gay.Az провел мини акцию, пройдя по городу с радужным флагом. Как отметил организатор мероприятия Балухин Руслан, встречала прошла в дружественной обстановке и без инцидентов.  Отметим, что это первый случай в Азербайджане, когда ЛГБТ граждане прошлись по городу с радужной символикой.
*pictures - via Gay.az

Friday 6 September 2013

Equality California: commitment to equality for LGBT Armenians - picture of the day

#Commit2Equality campaign

Awesome!!


Nora commits to raising the visibility of the Armenian LGBT community! 

www.eqca.org/commit2equality

*source of picture

About Equality California: Equality California is the largest statewide LGBT advocacy organization in California working to secure full and lasting equality for and acceptance of LGBT people. More info... 

[Equality California Facebook page]

Sunday 1 September 2013

Hypocrisy of Armenian TV personalities exposed: Lulu and Nazeni

It’s been 5 years already that British Council Armenia organises Na/Ne media competition on “issues relating to the gender equality in general” and how “particular publications or stories have resulted or may soon result in positive changes.” According to the British Council Armenia website, all published or broadcast materials should cover “the activities and achievements, problems and challenges of women in political, economic and social spheres. All publications should be presented from the gender equality perspective.[emphasis mine] British Embassy in Armenia is a co-founder of Na/Ne Media Award.

February 2013. TV personality Lusine Badalyan, more known as Lulu, was a co-host of Na/Ne gender equality media awards ceremony by British Council Armenia. [Lulu worked in homophobic radio Van station, now TV host in Kentron TV station owned by oligarch MP Tsarukyan, head of Prosperous Armenia party]


August 2013. Lulu joins anti-gender equality law hysteria by a series of comments, status updates on Facebook, as well as by inviting and agreeing with homophobic individuals, conspiracy theory fans, who are among those who provoke anti-gender equality and homophobic hysteria on- and off-line.


In a series of TV programmes she hosts, Lulu repeatedly agrees with such people, including members of so called “Pan-Armenian parents committee”, a copycat of similar Russian structure that spreads hatred online and in Armenian media towards LGBT, as well as targets individuals and women’s rights groups for their work on gender equality.

She agrees “completely” with all the conspiracy theories that her guests introduce and claims she will not agree for her children’s teacher to be member of other than Armenian church ‘official’ religion or homosexual. Lulu also complains that “pure Armenians” are the minority in Armenia. She commits to fight against gender equality laws. [example 1; and example 2 with Armenian version of Russia’s Mizulina - there are more examples, these are for illustration purposes]

Lulu also posted a hand-written letter on her FB, as if out of compassion, of a gay person who wanted to be “cured of homosexuality”.

***
And here are more examples of hypocrisy, this time by another TV personality, Armenia TV host Nazeni Hovhannisyan, who apparently felt that she could preach morality to others.


“We should not remain SILENT. Watch this - this will only take 10 minutes of your life but perhaps then we will WIN centuries"  - This is a suggestion by Nazeni to her Faceboook followers to watch hateful, filled with conspiracy theories video about gender equality 'destroying Armenian families', full with homophobia and targeting women’s rights groups and individuals. This video was prepared by so called “Pan-Armenian parents committee”, a copycat of similar Russian groups.

A humorous posters appeared on Facebook, exposing Nazeni’s hypocrisy.