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Sapphite News: Greece
News in Greek the first Greek e-news page, reporting about our own issues and concerns !!! in the Sapphites pages since 2001 (english page since spring 2003) |
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Latest Sapphite News We would celebrate any signs of a local police that a. respects itself, b. is able to respond succesfuly to ONE full days local crimes, c. stops hiding behind its finger, and mostly d. stops being so proud about "not having any homosexuals in its ranks", ie. stops hunting any possibly homosexual people of their own. This would be a good starter for the local police.. We would be gratefull at any real attempt to educate teachers and all education-related civil servants about what homophobia is and the funtamental rights of pupils, students and teachers that may be somewhat different than the compulsive heterosexual norm wants them to be. We strongly believe all civil servants and especially the ones related to education should take exams on funtamental rights, including special questions about the usual reasons of discrimination that are always forgaten in our country, like homosexuality, religion, disability.. before they become our officially appointed bulies. But before all this we need the EU to inform us seriously about the official local government branch supporting homosexuals in our country, especially since the supposed "general secretariat for equality" DOES NOT. Hermeia the Infosharer, for the greek sapphites The Opera orchestra members opposed the addition of a kiss between men to the presentation of the Rusalka Opera. They pressured the leading singer to refrain from the kiss, or they would not play at the premiere, and they circulated leaflets about how the director turned a fairytale to a degenerate homosexyal play. Their leaflet said.. "You may see for yourselves during the performance that this particular staging alters the libretto and adds homosexual tendencies to the central hero, with strong images. We have filed writen complains for this to the management on the National Opera." The lgbt friendly blogs stress the fact that the opera orchestra musicans are public servants paid by the taxpayers, and they should respect the constitutionaly protected human rights and facilitate their practice. Foreign media report that the kiss was finally staged in the premier, but the lcal media disagree, and there's a published statement of the leading singer saying he only gave a very etheral kiss in the last show, on the night of the kiss-in demonstration in front of the opera house, Sat. 14 March. more.. http://gayrightsgreece.blogspot.com/2009/03/homophobia-at-athens-opera-house.html Local and international media report rising numbers of rapes of women and lesbians and killings of lesbians during the last years, with a total of about 5000 rapes a year lately. Lesbians are considered an easy target, and the government refuses to do anything about hate crimes and sauvinist crimes. guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/12/eudy-simelane-corrective-rape-south-africa South Africa betrays principles on gay rights Gay groups and activists have reacted angrily after Pope Benedict XVI said that mankind needed to be saved from a destructive blurring of gender. Speaking on Monday, Pope Benedict said that saving humanity from homosexual or transsexual behaviour was as important as protecting the environment. The comments were "irresponsible and unacceptable", the UK's Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement (LGCM) said. Vladimir Luxuria, a transgender former Italian MP, called his words "hurtful". news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/europe/7797269.stm Athens vice-procecutor, mr Stayroy, asked doctors for the full detailed personal data of all persons who have been infected with StD. ActUp reports this request as witch hunting, dangerous to public health and human rights.. ACTUP HELLAS press release (20/10/08, in Greek) @ www.10percent.gr http://openaccessday.org/blog-competition/ The greek law about civil marriage does not refer to future-weds sex in an way, it's part of the 1980s equality-promoting legislation, and the current high prosecutor and the minister of Justice are trying to enforce their own discriminative "explanation" of the law, actually trying to exterminate gay and lesbian couples access to civil marriage, breaking their authority limits. 25 Sept 2008 The court rejects the motion, and rules the plaintiffs pay the court expences http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7520343.stm ttp://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/23/world/europe/23briefs-SUITTOPROHIB_BRF.html?ref=world http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/greece/2445282/Lesbos-islanders-lose-lesbian-ban-court-case.html foto gallery : http://www.lesben.org/bildergalerie/CSD_Frankfurt_2008/html/ 
The bill keeps discriminating against same-sex cohabitating, supporting and really depending on each-other people, regardless of the reasons why they need this co-dependency. This was expected since the minister of justice had promiced this discriminative legistation, in accordance with his religious identity. We have nothing against religious people, we just need someone to stop them enforcing their strong discriminating phobias on everyone else. publications in Greek press, 12 June 2008: Τελικό το όχι στο Σύμφωνο Συμβίωσης ομοφύλων Lesbos islanders dispute gay name - BBC news on 1st May 2008 refrains from using the lesbian word in their title, just to be on the safe side. some pictures.. [links comming..] 
A female couple and a male couple, with a bunch of local islanders, socialist party supporters, friends and press-people present and signing up as witnesses. The mass media freaked out, all tv-channels talking about it all day (and the next day, until they realised they were actually promoting lesbian & gay visibility and stoped it!), starting just an hour after the actuall marriage. The minister of (in-)justice supporting the power-abuse of mr. Sanidas against the mayor of Tilos Tasos Aliferis, and various priests and homophobe lawyers declaring these marriages "invalidatable". Oups! There're actually just saying they will try their best to invalidate them and they hope they will succeed. In fact the public attorney mr Sanidas has no power to discriminatively exclude some people from a civil right when the law itself does not exclude them. Nor does the minister of justice. There is going to be a long court-strugle before full civil right equalty is establised in the current south-eastern extremity of the EU, and maybe along this strugle the west europe will discover the fact tha this is actually not a "western european" country. It is not in the map, it is not in people's rights. Please don't believe the wertern-european rights reports claiming that the ministry of justice bill on cohabitation about to go to the parliament will supposedly include same-sex couples. Not when the minister of justice insists that it won't, because "he is a religious man" and he keeps consulting the church about the subject. For example see this (greek) news article Ta Nea, 12 June 2008 about this bill. press links reporting : http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7432949.stm (bbc, 3 June 2008) http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080603/lf_afp/greecegayrightsmarriage_080603091819 (Athens press agency) http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/080603/world/greece_gay_weddings_1 (Associated Press) http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080603/lf_nm_life/greece_gay_wedding_dc_2 (Reuters and local reporters) http://www.advocate.com/news_detail_ektid55236.asp We are gratefull to the mayor of Tilos, Tasos Aliferis for being the first greek mayor to really support equal civil rights in spite of the homophobe greek state and the high proseccutor putting his job and his career at stake, trying their worst to punish him for daring to support equality. We also need to thank the current Archbishop of the greek church, the first after a long line of loud homophobe agressors that has refrained from hate speech spreading, like every true spiritual leader should. Since the greek civil marriage law is not discriminative about sex, gender, nor sexual ID of the partners, but keeps refering olny to "the future weds", some people are going to get married, in June, on the dodekanesse small island of Tilos, according to the local press. Some more social adds were published in Athens daily papers announcing the marriages of same-sex people, as had happened last March. This publication is needed for the civil marriage application to be valid. The law allows for skipping the publication in "serious social conditions", but the same-sex couples did not skip it, fearing the homophobe state would use this to invalidate the marriages. On Friday, May 30th, the high court prosecutor, mr Sanidas, banned civil marriage for same-sex couples, announced any mayor daring to proceed with any same-sex marriage would be prosecuted, and ordered the Rhodes (Dodekanesse) prosecutor to make sure he enforces this ban against the mayor of Tilos, if he proceeds with the weddings. according to the OLKE organisation and the local press ! [Announced on 13 March 2008] Later update: the marriages did not take place. It turns out there were no applicaions for marriage licence. This should be expected, regarding the social homophobia levels. The first two future-weds couples are a lesbian couple in Athens and (probably) a gay couple in Thessaloniki. Their names are not publicly announced, to protect them from the homophobic yellow-press part of the local media negative exposure. Our best wishes to them !!! & Sydney gay pride in pictures: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/7272846.stm>http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/7272846.stm According to local press articles starting to appear in late February in Athens daily papers, the greek government is preparing a poor excuse for a discrimnating co-habitation contract. The bill is supposed to target at making existing non-married heterosexual couples "face their responsibilities", possibly especially conserning taxes and anything else they will have to pay more as a couple (as in a couple's tax-exempt income is less than that of two individuals), and it does not seem to be anything close to any self-respecting registered co-habitatio arangement, as it is reputed that the basic way of braking the contract is "when one or both the participants get married", without any mention that in the cases that one of the participants is getting married (obviously to someone else), they at least should inform the other part in writting before their marriage !!! It does not seem like anything interesting to any real person at this point, still un-contitutional and against every international human rights declaration even to think about drafting a bill discriminating agaist part of the population. Please send your relevant complaints to the competent Greek ministry of justice [grammatia @ justice.gov.gr] about this planned legislative discrimanation against homosexual couples. more.. and to the coresponding email addresses & fax numbers you will find in the Athens municipality site and the competent EXPERTS RELEASE GROUNDBREAKING PRINCIPLES ON SEXUAL ORIENTATION, GENDER IDENTITY, AND HUMAN RIGHTS Call for Action Worldwide Against Discrimination and Abuse (New York, NY, March 26, 2007) The Yogyakarta Principles on the Application of International Human Rights Law in Relation to Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity, released today by a group of 29 international human rights experts, is a collection of groundbreaking international legal principles on sexual orientation, gender identity, and international law that charts a way forward for both the United Nations and governments to ensure the universal reach of human rights protections. the full principles : http://yogyakartaprinciples.org/ This is greek law 3500/06 about home violence, published on the government paper FEK 232A' on 24.10.2006 and valid 3 months later. * The Sapphites were in the 6th Antiracism Festival @ Rethymno, Crete, on the 23/24th weekend. This was our 4th consecutive year there. We can't stop being gratefull to the organisers for their hospitality and support. This time it was not a lonely sapphite at all, there were friends and lesbian couples visiting a lot and releiving me of my duties to have a snack and visit other stands. They went so far as to pose for an unknown photographer, smiling ear to ear, not even thinking of asking where will those photos appear ! Looks like they're almost ready to start their local group.. * This year on the "first-screening nights", the Athens film festival, there was a queer cinema section for the first time! We were lucky to be able to see "Go Fish" (1994, by Rose Troche, 1994) on Tuesday, Sept. 21 and Desert Hearts (1985, by Donna Deitch) on Monday, Sept. 25. Two of the lesbian classics that usually stay distant myths for the greek sapphites. I was lucky to be able to see only the first one, and it was so cool being in a 90% lesbian filled cinema, watching a lesbian-only setting on screen, then being around a lesbian-only audience having beers and chating very happily around the bar in the inteval .. it was like you just went out of the lesbian room in the film for just ten minutes, into the other lesbian room filled with more familiar faces.. It was just too great. After the end of the film the women were just hanging around the cinema exit, nobody seeming eager to leave.. I don't know for so long, I had promiced the lady I was escorting to take her home early, and we had to catch the last train.. so I guess we broke the spell. * We regret to announce the loss of another of our too few activists. Patra Serafimidoy death was announced on July 22nd, 2006. Patra has been a great worker with feminist and lgbt groups in Salonica. We hope the Sympraxis and POEK-Salonica groups in both of which she was a distinguished worker, will issue some more informative announcement. We already miss her too. * The Athens Antiracism festival was held at "platia Protomayas", next to the Evelpidon courts area, Friday, June 30 to Sunday July 2nd, with exceptional participation & attendance. *** The open public Athens Pride 2006 was held on Saturday, June 24, on the same Klaythmonos sqr. & the same march to the parliament & back, just like last year, with the expected success of some more participation, despite the fewer public anouncements precceding it. See some photos online in our club, @ http://clubs.pathfinder.gr/sappho/9478?album=168084... (you don't really need to download the greek fonts if you're offered to...) ** The Greek LGBT community lost one of the most active members, Vangelis Giannelos, a member of AKOE 1987-1989 and a founding member of EOK since 1989. We bid him last farewell on Monday, May 22nd, 5pm, at the Zografou Cemetery, in Athens. *** Homophobic fears about " A new European Union directive will oblige Greece to treat all registeredor married same-sex EU couples as traditional husband-and-wife couples " !!! Athens News, 14/04/2006, page: A15 - Article code: C13178A151 (our emphasis on the title above) www.athensnews.gr/athweb/nathens.prnt_article?e=C&f=13178&t=11&m=A15&aa=1 Our comment: - The notion of the "bad EU" enforcing "poor Greece" to take various "unheard of" measures.. and to pay huge fines when "bravely" refusing to.. is the typical local lore about everything the local government/s are not really eager to promote, no mater how long before they have fully accepted and signed it. All major media support this fairytale. The same fairytale "explains" the EU fines paid by the taxpayers money for misconducts made by officials on all levels. This all the average citizent knows about the EU and social programs and equal rights and all .. The EU is always "enforcing' us, and then fining us. It is a real wonder that about half the population still thinks it's good for us to be a member state. It should be really beneficial to Greece and probably other heavily indebted countries to make such fines payable by the individuals whose illegal activities resulted in the fines. They have probably made more money that the fine costs during their years in office anyway.. This one is also common knowledge of the Greek people. We plead the EU desision-makers to try and make human rights and european citizents rights education compulsory, at least in high-schools, as the local ministry or religion (controlling education), will never permit this. ** Greece does not want gays in its armed forces - Η Ελλάδα δεν θέλει ομοφυλόφιλους στο στρατό - (in english) - (AFP, 28 March 2006 ) http://www.politicalgateway.com/news/read.html?id=6756 www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle.asp?... www.hipforums.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-157071.html www.gaymilitary.ucsb.edu/PressClips/06_0328_FrancePresse.htm all last accessed Sept. 2006 |
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