Persecution of Homosexuals (Israel)
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[edit] Gay teen previously threatened by relatives demanding he "act like a normal person", is kidnapped and beaten by them in a 12-hour ordeal. Relatives arrested attempting to "hide" their victim in a village house
. . .
Several days before he was kidnapped he filed a complaint with the police, saying he was being threatened by his relatives who demanded that he return to the village and "act like a normal person".
On Monday night, the relatives decided to act on their threats. They arrived at the man's house in Tel Aviv's Florentine neighborhood, armed with pepper spray, and waited for him. As they spotted him walking on the street with a friend, they assaulted the two, sprayed them, snatched their relatives and escaped.
The man's friend rushed to call the police and report the incident. Investigators from a Tel Aviv police unit sought the help of the Shafaram Police, and discovered that the car was making its way to Tamra.
The four suspects allegedly beat the young man on their way to the north and threatened him. They held him for 12 hours before being caught by the police a moment before arriving at their hiding place in Tamra.Eli Senyor, Israel News, August 25, 2010
[edit] "Human Rights Watch continues to be driven by an anti-Israel bias and lack of focus on real human rights issues in the Middle East, including women’s rights, religious freedom, and sexual freedom"
The long-overdue December release of the Human Rights Watch report “‘We Are a Buried Generation’: Discrimination and Violence against Sexual Minorities in Iran” bolsters Ireland’s reporting and captures the pressing need for human rights sanctions targeting Iranian rulers. (See Ireland’s story on the HRW report, “Human Rights Watch Scorches Iran Over Anti-Gay Violence.”)
Efforts by human rights watchdog organizations like the Jerusalem-based NGO Monitor contributed to HRW breaking its eerie longstanding silence about the intensifying repression of LGBT Iranians since Ahmadinejad took power. NGO Monitor highlighted the skewed priorities of HRW, such as fundraising in violently homophobic Saudi Arabia and devoting the bulk of its Middle East resources to investigating the region’s only democracy — Israel — which guarantees LGBT rights and freedoms for Jewish and Arab Israelis.
Professor Gerald Steinberg, president of NGO Monitor, told me, “Human Rights Watch continues to be driven by an anti-Israel bias and lack of focus on real human rights issues in the Middle East, including women’s rights, religious freedom, and sexual freedom. Ignoring the plight of the Iranian LGBT community for many years is indicative of what HRW founder Robert Bernstein repeatedly condemned — HRW has abandoned its mission to pry open closed societies, to help individuals in those societies who lack the infrastructure to fight for their rights.”
Bernstein wrote a scathing 2009 indictment of HRW’s wrongheaded approach to the Middle East on the New York Times op-ed page. The thrust of his thesis is that closed and authoritarian societies, like those in the Muslim world, should be the principal focus of contemporary human rights organizations, and not open, vibrant democracies.
The record is replete with examples demonstrating that Islamic countries are the most repressive and violently homophobic on the planet.Benjamin Weinthal, Gay City News, January 20, 2011
