Berlin's Memorial to the Homosexual Victims of National Socialism

In Nazi Germany, homosexuality was persecuted to a degree unprecedented in history. In 1935, the National Socialists issued an order making all male homosexuality a crime; the provisions governing homosexual behaviour in Section 175 of the Criminal Code were significantly expanded and made stricter. A kiss was enough reason to  prosecute. There were more than 50,000 convictions. Under Section 175, the punishment was imprisonment; in some cases, convicted offenders were castrated. Thousands of men were sent to concentration camps for being gay; many of them died there. They died of hunger, disease and abuse or were the victims of targeted killings. 

The National Socialists destroyed the communities of gay men and women. Female homosexuality was not prosecuted, except in annexed Austria; the National Socialists did not find it as threatening as male homosexuality. However, lesbians who came into conflict with the regime were also subject to repressive measures. Under the Nazi regime, gay men and women lived in fear and under constant pressure to hide their sexuality.

For many years, the homosexual victims of National Socialism were not included in public commemorations –neither in the Federal Republic nor in the German Democratic Republic. In both East and West Germany, homosexuality continued to be prosecuted for many years. In the Federal Republic, Section 175 remained in force without amendment until 1969.

Because if its history, German has a special responsibility to actively oppose the violation of gay men’s and lesbians’ human rights. In many parts of the world, people continue to be persecuted for their sexuality, homosexual love remains illegal and a kiss can be dangerous.

With this memorial, the Federal Republic of Germany intends to honour the victims of persecution and murder, to keep alive the memory of this injustice, and to create a lasting symbol of opposition to enmity, intolerance and the exclusion of gay and lesbians.

The memorial sits on the edge of Berlin’s biggest park, Tiergarten, within view of the Brandenburg Gate, Peter Eisenman’s Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, and the new, terror-proof American Embassy. It consists of a concrete stele, thirteen feet high, with a small window through which viewer’s can watch a looped video, shot by Robby Müller (Wim Wenders’s cinematographer) and directed by Dogma 95 cofounder Thomas Vinterberg, of two men and two women kissing. The memorial was designed by the Danish-Norwegian duo artists Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset, and was inaugurated in 2008.

Homo Memorial in Tiergarten, Berlin

The next four years are gonna suck

"The next four years are gonna suck. But they’ll suck worse if we let the news cycle — and the man who dominates it — drain the joy from our lives. We need to pay attention and we need to stay in the fight. Because of course we do. But we should spend as much time as we possibly can over the next four years with friends and lovers doing things that bring us joy.

Anyone who tells you that making time for joy — however you define it — is a distraction or a betrayal has no idea what they’re talking about. During the darkest days of the AIDS Crisis, we buried our friends in the morning, we protested in the afternoon, and we danced all night. The dance kept us in the fight because it was the dance we were fighting for.

It didn’t look like we were going to win then and we did. It doesn’t feel like we’re going to win now but we could. Keep fighting, keep dancing."

- Dan Savage

Spain’s Shame: The Times view on racist abuse of football players

When English football was shamed by the racist abuse of players in the 1980s, the response by both the government and football authorities was robust. The Football Spectators Act of 1989 introduced banning orders of up to ten years for anyone found guilty of using racially threatening, abusive or insulting words. In 1993 the Kick It Out campaign was established by the English game’s governing bodies, including the Premier League and Football Association, to tackle discrimination at a grassroots level and provide a facility for fans to report incidents of abuse. No one would claim that the English game today is perfect — racism abounds on social media — but incidents of racist abuse at matches are now extraordinarily rare, and English football has become a model of diversity and inclusion for the rest of the world.

Compare this record with the shameful scenes in Spain at the weekend when fans chanted insults at a visibly distressed Vinícius Júnior, Real Madrid’s 22-year-old star Brazilian forward, during a match against Valencia. Nor was this the first time Vinícius had been the target of such abuse. The Spanish league has made nine formal complaints for racist abuse against the player over the past two seasons, most of which have gone nowhere. While some fans have been fined and banned from stadiums, so far only one faces a possible trial.

Vinícius has clearly been let down at every level of the Spanish game: by a referee who failed to take the players off the pitch on Sunday in line with international protocols and even ended up sending off Vinícius in the 97th minute after an altercation; by La Liga, which runs the league, and the Spanish football association, which have conspicuously failed to tackled racism in their sport; and by the police and prosecutors who have failed to bring any of the player’s tormentors to justice. Yet when Vinícius wrote on Instagram that “racism is normal in La Liga”, the response by Javier Tebas, La Liga’s president, was to attack the player for not turning up to meetings to discuss the problem.

Nor is Vinícius’s treatment an isolated case in Spanish football. Other black players have been subjected to abuse. That points to a wider problem in the Spanish game. Unlike football authorities in other countries, La Liga does not have the power to hand down punishments to fans on its own, but can only pass racism cases to local prosecutors. La Liga expressed “tremendous frustration” yesterday at the lack of sanction and convictions by the sports disciplinary bodies, public administrations and jurisdictional bodies to which it has reported racist incidents. It says it will request a change in the law to give it more sanctioning powers, including the right to require the partial or complete closure of venues, the ability to ban individual fans and impose financial penalties on clubs.

The government would do well to give La Liga these powers, if that is what it takes to drive racism out of the game. Spain is preparing to bid alongside Portugal and Morocco to host the 2030 World Cup. It is surely unthinkable that Spain could be chosen for the tournament unless and until it takes decisive action to drive racism out of the domestic game. After all, La Liga is second only to the English Premier League as the richest football league in the world. Its matches attract a global audience. What kind of signal does it send to the world if it cannot protect a prodigious young talent such as Vinícius from abuse by fans? Thirty years after Britain, Spain needs to Kick It Out. (The Times, Tuesday May 23, 2023)

PUTIN MY PUTAIN

American artist Ryan Mendoza playing cunningly with words and sounds in his wall-to-wall, pro-Ukraine piece "PUTIN MY PUTAIN", on display at Naples' Spazio NEA. 

https://segnonline.it/ryan-mendoza/

Pop Singer Is Still Missing Amid Chechnya’s ‘Gay Purge’

Human rights activists are demanding answers on the three-year anniversary of the disappearance of Zelimkhan Bakaev, a high-profile pop singer from the Russian region of Chechnya.

In April 2017, the independent Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta alleged that Chechen officials were arresting and violently torturing men they believed to be gay in what was described as a “gay purge”.

“There is little doubt he was targeted because of his sexual orientation,” the group said. Chechen singer Zelimkhan Bakaev was last seen on August 8 in the Chechen capital of Grozny, and Human Rights Watch said his family had been unable to get answers from authorities about what happened to him.

Chechen authorities have repeatedly denied the violent campaign against the country’s LGBT community, but last month a 30-year-old Russian man became the first to publicly identify himself as a victim.

Maxim Lapunov said he was living and working in the Chechen capital of Grozny when he was jailed and tortured by police in March.

Human Rights Watch’s Tanya Lokshina said at the time Lapunov was “incredibly brave and courageous” and other victims hadn’t come forward because of the risk of violent retribution from their families.

The Russian LGBT Network said last month the persecution of the region’s gay people was continuing despite global outcry.“Russian authorities at different levels made numerous statements about the fact that not a single victim filed an official complaint and that made it easy for officials to dismiss the [reports] as rumours,” she said.

They said since March this year more than 150 people had contacted them for assistance, 79 had fled Chechnya and 53 people had found safety outside of Russia.

Reports have emerged claiming that pop singer Zelimkhan Bakaev has become the latest victim of Chechnya’s anti-gay purge. The singer, aged 25, reportedly went missing in August 2017, and hasn't been heard from since by his family and friends. After fears began to grow for his safety, LGBT human rights groups previously thought that Bakaev had been detained. However, sources now believe the Russian singer was brutally tortured to death by authorities shortly after his arrival into the country because of his sexuality.

Chechnya's Islamic, anti-gay leader has denied involvement in the disappearance of Russian pop singer Zelimkhan Bakaev. 

The singer was feared to be a victim of Chechnya's anti-gay purge after he went missing in August 2017 while visiting the country for his sister's wedding.

While Chechen officials kept quiet about the disappearance, Ramzan Kadyrov has now claimed that the singer was 'dealt with' by family members.  

In a speech to an audience of uniformed security men that aired on state television channel Grozny TV, President Kadyrov denied involvement and claimed the singer's parents were blaming him for the disappearance.