WOCKNER/INT'L NEWS #202

[WOCKNER]

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= INTERNATIONAL NEWS #202 - Mar 09, 1998 =
= (c) Rex Wockner =
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--> 750,000 AT SYDNEY MARDI GRAS

More than 750,000 people clogged Sydney's Oxford Street Feb. 28
for the 20th annual gay Mardi Gras parade.

There were a record 274 contingents, including, for the first
time, a group of gay cops in uniform. International entries
included Tonga's Miss Galaxy, the San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus,
the Exotic Blossoms of Fiji and the Filipino Queens.

U2 star Bono attended in a black outfit and leopard-skin boots.

"I love it," he said. "It is the celebration of the flesh,
something that is not done in northern Europe. Tolerance is the
mark of any evolved society."

The first Mardi Gras parade in 1978 was attacked by police, and
53 of the approximately 1,000 marchers were arrested.

Although the situation today could hardly be more different,
Mardi Gras President Bev Lange noted, "We still don't have equal
rights in regard to recognition of our relationships, nor in
regard to age of consent."

--> POLICE ABUSE TIJUANA TRANSVESTITES

Transvestites and transsexuals in Tijuana, Mexico, are under
renewed assault from the city police department's Special Forces,
reports the local newspaper Frontera Gay.

The paper cited "constant arrests of young men dressed as women
or simply wearing makeup, abuse during arrest, two and three
hours trips [around the city] in police vehicles, body searches
that include ripping off clothes, insults, and sexual harassment
for the enjoyment and diversion of the officers."

"They hunt [transgendered people] like rabbits, on the sidewalks
in front of nightclubs and on the streets of the city," the paper
said.

Those taken into custody are charged with offenses to public
morality, prostitution, drug possession or theft.

"These abuses signal the ominous intention of the police to
divide gays into 'acceptable' and 'unacceptable,' 'discreet' and
'shameless,' with prejudice against the most vulnerable groups
within the community," Frontera Gay said.

"Veronica," a drag performer at the club Noa Noa, has been
arrested three times in six months. The most recent time, she was
driven around the city for three hours then taken to the Special
Forces headquarters on International Avenue and ordered to strip
"so we can check that you don't have drugs hidden up there."

The officers proceeded to slap her rear and paw her face and
chest, Frontera Gay said. One officer ordered her, "Dance so we
can see how good you are in your show."

Finally, they told her, "If you suck us off, we'll let you go and
won't take you before the judge."

Veronica refused and was convicted of "scandal in the public
way." She opted for a 350 peso fine ($42) rather than 36 hours in
jail, and was released.

Numerous other transvestites interviewed by Frontera Gay related
nearly identical stories.

Tijuana is located 15 miles south of downtown San Diego, Calif.

--> JAILED ROMANIAN LESBIAN RELEASED

Romanian President Emil Constantinescu signed a decree March 3
releasing Mariana Cetiner from prison.

Cetiner, 40, had served two years of a three-year sentence for
"luring another woman into sexual intercourse." In December, she
had been adopted by Amnesty International as a prisoner of
conscience.

In a statement, Amnesty welcomed Cetiner's release but said it
remains concerned for her welfare.

"She suffered repeated beatings whilst in prison. She is unwell
and is extremely isolated with little support from friends and
family in her country," said Linda Wilkinson of Amnesty's British
gay network.

In January, President Constantinescu promised foreign gay
activists he would pardon all gays and lesbians jailed under the
nation's anti-gay laws.

"Homosexuality is the last remaining human-rights problem we have
to address in Romania, and we will address it," he told the
visiting activists.

Romanian law bans gay sex between consenting adults "if the act
was committed in public or has produced public scandal." It is
also illegal "to entice or seduce a person to practice same-sex
acts, as well as to form propaganda associations, or to engage in
other forms of proselytizing with the same aim." The penalty is
one to five years in prison.

Appeals for the release of persons jailed for being gay -- and
for repeal of the laws under which they were convicted -- can be
sent to President Emil Constantinescu, Excelenti Sale,
Presedintele Romaniei, Palatul Cotroceni, Bd. Geiuli 1, 76238
Bucuresti, Romania.

--> JAPANESE NOVELIST OUTED

In a new biography, Japanese writer Jiro Fukushima, 68, has outed
the late novelist Yukio Mishima.

Mishima, Japan's pre-eminent author, is perhaps best-remembered
abroad for his sensational 1970 harakiri (ritual suicide) at a
Tokyo army post. His more widely translated books include
Forbidden Colors and Runaway Horses.

Fukushima said he and Mishima were lovers for four months in
1951, when Mishima was 26, and again for five years in the early
1960s.

Mishima's biographer, Henry Scott-Stokes, commented to reporters:
"It's astonishing it's taken nearly 30 years for this [outing] to
happen. There's probably 100 elderly Japanese men here in Tokyo
now who were his lovers."

According to The Australian newspaper, when Mishima committed
harakiri he stormed the Self Defense Force's headquarters, took
the general hostage, hailed the emperor, then ripped out his own
guts with an 80-centimeter blade. A colleague then sliced
Mishima's head off with an antique sword.

--> SLOVENIA CONSIDERS GAY PARTNERSHIP MEASURE

The government of Slovenia has formed a workgroup to consider
formalization of gay partnerships.

Two of the body's six members are gay activists.

The group's main task is to draft a registered-partnership law.

Denmark, Greenland, Iceland, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden
have implemented registered-partnership laws that, in general,
grant all rights of matrimony except access to adoption,
artificial insemination and church weddings. (The Netherlands
allows gay couples to adopt Dutch -- but not foreign --
children.) Hungary recognizes a type of common-law gay marriage,
withholding only the right to adoption.

--> THAI CONDOM CAMPAIGN PAYS OFF

HIV infections have dropped five-fold in Thailand following a
five-year government campaign promoting condom use. Other
sexually transmitted diseases have declined ten-fold.

The new statistics come from testing of 4,000 army draftees in
six northern provinces.

"I haven't seen anything like this anywhere else in the world,"
said researcher David Celentano, a professor of health-policy
management at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.

The campaign appears to have had a similar effect in the general
population as well, researchers said.

--> TWO AMERICAN GAYS MURDERED IN MEXICO

Two wealthy American gays were found murdered in their Mexico
City-area homes last week.

Joseph Edward Anisz Poston, 51, was found with his genitals cut
off at his house in the capital city's posh Lomas de Chapultepec
district.

An hour south of Mexico City, William Markely Nixon, aged between
55 and 60, was found on the balcony of his luxury home in
Cuernavaca. He had been stabbed 10 times.

-end-

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--Rex Wockner's weekly international news reports dating back to
May 1994 can be searched at http://www.wockner-news.com. The
reports in their original form are archived at
http://www.qrd.org/qrd/www/world/wockner.html, which also
archives Wockner's Quote Unquote column and some of his longer
gay-press articles.