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silverfoxesclub-digest In this issue:
-Thanksgiving cards
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Subject: Thanksgiving cards
Subject: Tokyo: first Asian city to includes gays in rights
Ben Boxer says: I perk up whenever I
see an article from the Japan Times.
My interest in the paper goes back to
1976 when I was traveling on the
Bullet Train at 125 mph from Kyoto
to Tokyo. Someone had left a copy on
the seat next to me, and I picked it up
and read a story that would give me
nightmares for years. The article
concerned the excesses of Pol Pot and
his Communist regime in Cambodia,
in the early days of what was to
become known as the "time of the
killing fields" in which he committed
genocide on his countrymen,
murdering millions of them. It spoke
of rounding up homosexuals and
impaling them on bamboo spears,
which meant to lift a hog-tied naked
man over a long stake protruding
from the ground and set him down on
it so that it penetrated his asshole
(more politely, his anus) while his feet
barely touched the ground. Then a
plastic bag would be placed over his
face. In his depurate struggle to
breathe, of course, his own weight
pushed him downward until the spear,
thus driven upward, penetrated his
guts and his heart and killed him.
Meanwhile, his teenage persecutors,
boy soldiers of the Khmer Rouge,
stood by laughing and placing bets on
which would kill him first --
asphyxiation or the stake. I could not
help but blanche when I read the
statement by Tokyo's Governor in the
story below, "In what way are
(homosexuals) discriminated
against?"
Headline:
(PlanetOut 11/21/00)
Text:
The Japan Times reported that on
November 21 the government of
Tokyo bowed to public pressure and
decided to put the term
"homosexuals" back in its human
rights guidelines. "The term had been
scrapped from the draft guidelines
unveiled for public comment in June
on the grounds that various surveys
indicated that Tokyo citizens 'do not
fully understand' homosexuals,"
reported the Times. But international
human rights groups sharply criticized
the exclusion of sexual orientation,
and the majority of Japanese citizens
who expressed opinions on the issue
believed it should be reinstated.
Gays and lesbians were included in
the process of developing the human
rights guidelines for Tokyo, and the
advisory commission included their
concerns in its report. So it was a
surprise when homosexuality did not
appear in the draft published in June.
(See PlanetOut News of August 16,
2000.) When Tokyo's Governor
Shintaro Ishihara was asked about
the omission at a press conference, he
responded, "In what way are they
discriminated against?"
According to the Times, though, the
final version of the document
recognizes that sexual minorities
suffer discrimination.
In an October 9 letter to the city's
government, the International Lesbian
and Gay Association (ILGA) said,
"The city of Tokyo has a unique
opportunity to become the first Asian
city to enforce a human rights policy
protecting gay and lesbian human
rights. We hope that your government
will see the importance of our appeal
and adopt a human rights policy for
its population in accordance with the
international recognition of human
rights for all."
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