Tag: important

Authorities Reportedly Detaining and Killing Gay Men in Chechnya

sullengirlalmlghty:

sullengirlalmlghty:

More than 100 gay men have been detained “in connection with their nontraditional sexual orientation, or suspicion of such,” according to the New York Times, which cites the opposition newspaper Novaya Gazeta. The Russian newspaper says it confirmed the news with government officials and an analyst of the region also confirmed the news to the Times with her own sources.

Three men are known to have been murdered, although the real number is likely to be higher.

in almost every genocide, the first “act” is the rounding up and killing of a group of men, specifically.

In “root and branch”
genocides they [”civilian men of ‘battle age’”] are often the first group to be separated out and massacred, paving the
way for the murder of women, children, and elderly men. In more common articulations
of genocide, however, they can be the only group slated for outright massacre, while
women, children, and elderly men suffer a range of alternative fates involving rape, sexual
exploitation, torture, forced maternity, murder, and expulsion.

Gender and the Future of Genocide Studies and
Prevention 

as the rest of this article explains this isn’t to say that men have it worst in a genocide, but that it’s important when you see a very common red flag for genocide to pay attention to the “conflict” in case any more markers of an impending genocide occur. 

the g word is really loaded and i’m not bringing this up because i want to start an avalanche of “CHECHNYA IS COMMITTING GENOCIDE AGAINST GAY PEOPLE” fear mongering (that is the absolute last thing that i want). it’s just not possible to prevent any genocide without questioning whether a current conflict might eventually get there. and i do not think it’s nothing that genocide watch is reporting on this.

UPDATE 4/10/17

Chechnya has opened concentration camps for gay men

Gay men arrested in a ‘purge’ in the Russian region of Chechnya are being held in concentration camp-style prisons, reports have alleged.

Early reports emerged earlier this month that gay people are being targeted in the region, which is part of Russia but has substantial autonomy.

Russian newspapers and human rights groups report that more than 100 gay men have been detained “in connection with their non-traditional sexual orientation, or suspicion of such” as part of a purge. Several people were also reportedly feared dead following violent raids.

In a chilling response, a Chechen government spokesperson denied that there are any gay people to detain, insisting that “you can’t detain and harass someone who doesn’t exist in the republic”. The Kremlin denied any knowledge of a purge.

But reports have since emerged that the men arrested are being kept in horrific concentration camp prisons, where violent abuse and torture is common.

Based on interviews with eyewitnesses and survivors, Novaya Gazeta reports that a secret prison has been set up in the town of Argun to detain the men arrested in the purge.

One man who was released from the camp told the newspaper that he was subjected to violent “interrogations” at the camp, as Chechen officials attempted to get him to confess the names and locations of more gay men.

The officials also seized his mobile phone, targeting his network of contacts regardless of whether they were gay or not.

The camp was reportedly set up by Chechen forces in a former military headquarters in the town.

The newspaper reports allegations that the Speaker of the Parliament of Chechnya was among officials to visit the site, though the claims have not been substantiated.

The detainees face electric shock torture and violent beatings, while some of them have been held to ransom and used to extort their families.

Tanya Lokshina of Human Rights Watch wrote: “For several weeks now, a brutal campaign against LGBT people has been sweeping through Chechnya.

She continued: “Law enforcement and security agency officials under control of the ruthless head of the Chechen Republic, Ramzan Kadyrov, have rounded up dozens of men on suspicion of being gay, torturing and humiliating the victims.

“Some of the men have forcibly disappeared. Others were returned to their families barely alive from beatings. At least three men apparently have died since this brutal campaign began.”

She added: “These days, very few people in Chechnya dare speak to human rights monitors or journalists even anonymously because the climate of fear is overwhelming and people have been largely intimidated into silence.

“Filing an official complaint against local security officials is extremely dangerous, as retaliation by local authorities is practically inevitable.

“It is difficult to overstate just how vulnerable LGBT people are in Chechnya, where homophobia is intense and rampant.

“LGBT people are in danger not only of persecution by the authorities but also of falling victim to ‘honour killings’ by their own relatives for tarnishing family honour.”

What Can We Do?

Alexander Artmyev from Amnesty International spoke to Metro.co.uk.

He said that people who are not in Russia can help by joining the charity’s Urgent Action on Chechnya.

The action encourages people to write in Russian or your own language to Chairman of the Investigation Committee and Acting Head of the Investigation Committee for the Chechen Republic.

Amnesty has also asked the letter, which should ask for an investigation and appeal for protection for LGBT individuals, to be copied into Human Rights groups and diplomatic missions from your country.

Authorities Reportedly Detaining and Killing Gay Men in Chechnya

velocicrafter:

markingatlightspeed:

cyanwrites:

iammyfather:

evilelitest2:

petitepenquin:

mehofkirkwall:

disputedthreshermaw:

natrsrants:

deadcatwithaflamethrower:

jadedhavok:

randomthingsthatilike123:

gweatherwax:

awesomonster:

obese-starving-artist:

the-treble:

nowyoukno:

Source for more facts on your dash follow NowYouKno

That was super nice of them.

And now I’m mad that nobody told us we were given cows. Cause that’s really f*cking nice and nobody mentioned it at all.

American media tends to disregard that anyone donates to the US. And then Amurricans complain about money going abroad because “nobody helped the US in our disasters.”

>.>

Also, do you know how much a cow costs? O.O

It isn’t just a matter of how much a cow costs, its a matter of considering that Masai life is based around their cattle. Its their wealth, their food, and a significant part of their religion. Here’s a quote from Wikipedia:

“Traditional Maasai lifestyle centres around their cattle which constitute their primary source of food. The measure of a man’s wealth is in terms of cattle and children. A herd of 50 cattle is respectable, and the more children the better. A man who has plenty of one but not the other is considered to be poor.[37] A Maasai religious belief relates that God gave them all the cattle on earth, leading to the belief that rustling cattle from other tribes is a matter of taking back what is rightfully theirs, a practice that has become much less common.[38]”

So its not just “they gave us 14 cows”, its that they gave us something that is very important and significant to them, it is more than just a kind gesture that definitely deserves to be known and its a genuine shame that more people don’t know about it.

Wait, you guys DON’T KNOW that we offer help to the US when you have disasters???????

Shit, down here in Brazil we not only offered to send tracking units and doctors to help in 9/11 but we wanted to send a whole lot of donations to help with Katrina (we have experience with floods down here so we knew what kind of medicine to send to prevent outbreaks). 

We alone had like 2 army airplanes full of medicine and non-perishables like baby formula, diapers, bottled water, mosquito nets and other stuff that’s needed to fight opportunistic diseases that hit flooded areas, enough to assist a good few thousand people at least, ready to go the day after it hit, but your government refused the donations. 

The same thing happened to the Canadians and Europeans who offered help, the US embassies around the world told us all to give money to Red Cross.

And so we did, we all gave hundreds of millions of dollars to them, and then this happened:

Red Cross scandals tarnish relief efforts

‘Breathtaking’ Waste and Fraud in Hurricane Aid

So please, don’t you go spreading misinformation and prejudice against the rest of the world, WE DID OFFER HELP AND ORGANIZED IT EVEN FASTER THAN BUSH DID, BUT Y’ALL REFUSED IT. 

Oh wow I had no idea this happened it’s really not talked about in media at all wow this is something good to know about wow

I’m so angry.

I didn’t know that other countries tried to help after 9/11 or Katrina. Like, that’s something we, the people, should hear about and we don’t.

Please don’t blame us for the shitty decisions our government makes. We don’t have as much control over our government as we would like to think and they keep a lot from us.

Spread this shit. 

After Katrina, Cuba donated several hundred blankets. Think about that. A country that is suffering economically due directly to the US embargo offered to help us when we needed it by sending what they could. And once again, it was refused. We have a government that is so self-righteous that we refuse to accept disaster aid in order to maintain this facade that we are the most generous nation on earth.

Okay, Katrina thing.

Only Texans really knows this? and even then it’s not wide spread.
Mexico sent their army.
They sent their army for relief efforts. Didn’t call ahead, they drove all the way to San Antonio with doctors and food and all sorts of supplies.

When people actually got a call from them saying “Hey, we’re sending people up.”
The people who answered said “What? We can’t…”
“Too late, already there.”
This was while the government was turning down help.

So yeah, other countries send relief.

Forest fires up in Washington last year? Firefighters from Australia came up to assist.

Like… we don’t hear about this shit. At all.

I can second the above with the fires. 

Most the time, when people say “oh FEMA or something sent people right?” re: fires, its actually people from other countries showing up and kinda ignoring the government telling them to fuck off and staying on behalf of local departments because we REALLY need them. 

If there’s a huge ass disaster, and the government is sitting there with a thumb up it’s ass, help is offered and most the time– shit, it gets there!
But then the feds do something really fucking dirty.
They insist they were the help, if it’s talked about at all. 

They insist those people putting out fires were federal people, because to most people a fireman’s a fireman. The people handing out water and food, a relief worker is a relief worker. So on and so forth. 

We had people come up when the fires were so bad a while ago– not the Australians, but i think there was like a German group of like 3 guys that flew themselves over? They came out of sheer “this is horrible and we’re helping” and my dad [local fire chief] had them working with our guys and the feds lost no time telling every news outlet that it was THEIR people doing all the fire knockdowns and structure work when these guys were running into buildings and grabbing people, pets, and people’s important documents because they knew papers were a pain in the ass to replace. 

What you gotta understand is that our government is very intent on selling us and the rest of the world [as much as possible] the idea of a powerful and self reliant country. All our reporting on disasters, starts with the scaremongering and then moves to “but our people can handle it because we’re the best at handling things” and then they move on before the idea it’s out of control comes to mind. The average person outside of the disaster has no idea, if they have never been around such an event or met someone who regularly deals with these things, they will kinda probably nod along with that. Because we have no real scope on the scale and impact– by design. Our media intake is very controlled to slant everything to the “eh, we can handle it and everyone else out there– they need our help because they’re not so good at handling disasters like we are.”
People who know better, reading international news, interacting with international social groups, looking outside their sphere of community– we know better but that kinda slant is really hard to break from because of that grip American media has on information.
So, taking that knowledge, we further have restricted reporting on certain disasters because they’re considered unimportant. 
Hurricanes are considered important, earthquakes are only considered important if it wrecks something the government cares about or somewhere a couple million people live that they’ll upset the national money flow/they can throw money at someone to make the news care, floods are only important if it’s in a similar manner to earthquakes but since they occur annually they’re rarely reported on nationally, mudslides that kill people or leave hundreds homeless aren’t important to the government even through they happen constantly, wildfires that consume most of the nation/continent each year generally are unimportant until they consume a town or threaten a government interest/money flow location.
Terrorist attacks are always important because people will talk about them.

So, when we do get help for any of the above, it’s possible that most people may have no idea about what’s happened, let alone that help’s been sent. Or if people know something happened, the details are vague– the news don’t care to give the nitty gritty. You’ll know something happened and people are suffering and “gee, isn’t it good you’re not them” and then now the weather.

So, yeah, basically no one really knows we get help.

International response to Hurricane Katrina:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_response_to_Hurricane_Katrina 

We got HELLA help, but nobody really talks about it

American Media really fails regularly 

Hurricane Sandy, Quebec sends power line crews down to assist in restoring power.  California gets rid of water bombers due to budget cuts, Canada sends theirs down to help fight wild fires. Amazing what living on the border and having outside TV News does to your information flow.

After Katrina, Denmark offered to donate water purification units so people wouldn’t get sick from drinking contaminated water, but the offer was declined.

A private Danish company built a mobile satellite phone booth and drove it around the poor neighbourhoods in Mississippi and Louisiana so people could call their families and insurance companies for free (apparently there was a deadline for reporting damages but people couldn’t call in because their mobile phones were dead and landlines were down).

American propaganda is not a thing of the past, nor is it a new thing. It has been around forever, telling stories of exceptionalism and self-reliance while our government tries its hardest to refuse the help of others and offer its own to them, to try and force other nations onto their back foot and remain aggressively benevolent in international matters, so that it can lord that shit over them in negotiations and the media in general.

I guarantee you America would have a less jingoistic, less xenophobic populace overall if this sort of information were actually reported to us. If we weren’t always fed the lie of helping the world without any gratitude or help in return. If the media didn’t present us as world police and instead as a part of the community, as other countries try hard to include us as, then maybe Americans would actually act like they’re part of a fucking community.

But global citizens are hard to monger fear and distrust and xenophobia and nationalism with. They’re hard to control with propaganda and hate. They’re hard to keep ignorant and docile and saying “this is fine” while the empire burns.

A lot of Americans wonder why our country is seen as a worldwide bully. Shit like that, my friends. Shit like that. Its hubris is seemingly limitless.

C O M M E N T A R Y

primarybufferpanel:

stumpyx163:

DISABLED ORCA SIGHTED AGAIN AFTER FOUR YEARS 

In 2013, photographer and marine tour guides Rainer and Silke Schimpf spotted a young killer whale, who they named Sira, with a missing dorsal fin and right-side pectoral fin, leaving him unable to hunt for himself.

But rather than be left to fend for itself or – even worse – die the young calf appeared to be cared for by members of its pod, which shared food with the youngster.

Four years later, by chance and coincidence, Rainer and Silke were out at sea in Algoa Bay, South Africa, documenting a pod of 1000 common dolphin hunting sardine when they had the surprise of a lifetime.

Rainer said: “We had been following this massive pod of dolphins for a couple of months with different film crews as well as tourists and on this particular day we encountered the dolphins we realised they were very nervous.

“Bearing in mind that orcas had been sighted in Cape Town about 800km away, 5-6 days prior, we knew that there was a good chance that orcas would actually be present.”

As the dolphins suddenly sped up, Rainer and his team noticed a pod of five orcas hunting the dolphin in front of the boat.

Rainer said: “We realised that one of the killer whales was our old friend Sira, who is a handicapped whale, which we had encountered first in 2013.”

When Rainer and Silke had first spotted Sira, the young killer whale appeared to follow the rest of the pod at a distance – swimming slower than the others and incapable to hunt.

But four years later, the couple were surprised to see that not only was Sira almost fully grown, but also appeared to be the leader of the pod.

Rainer said: “When we first saw that orca, he was a baby, about 3 and a half metres long and now this particular orca is almost fully grown to about 4 and a half to 5 metres and appeared to be the leader of the pod.”

The pod also included a female with a bent dorsal fin like the killer whale in Free Willy, a ‘huge male’ and four other females.

After spending an hour and a half following the pod of killer whales, Rainer and Silke headed back to shore with the hope that they will continue to encounter the friendly orca for years to come.

Rainer said: “It is obviously very interesting to us and any of the data that we collect gets sent out to diverse researchers.

“Hopefully there will be a happy end for Sira the orca and we will meet again and again.”

Source

Take that, ableist ‘in nature only the strongest survive’ assholes.

vaspider:

skeletrender:

glumshoe:

The other thing about the word “queer” is that almost everyone I’ve seen opposed to it have been cis, binary gays and lesbians. Not wanting it applied to yourself is fine, but I think people underestimate the appeal of vague, inclusive terminology when they already have language to easily and non-invasively describe themselves.

Saying “I’m gay/lesbian/bi” is pretty simple. Just about everyone knows what you mean, and you quickly establish yourself as a member of a community. Saying “I’m a trans nonbinary bi woman who’s celibate due to dysphoria and possibly on the ace spectrum”… not so much. You’re lucky to find anyone who understands even half of that, and explaining it requires revealing a ton of personal information. The appeal of “queer” is being able to identify yourself without profiling yourself. It’s welcoming and functional terminology to those who do not have the luxury of simplified language and occupy complicated identities. *That’s* why people use it – there are currently not alternatives to express the same sentiment.

It’s not people “oppressing themselves” or naively and irresponsibly using a word with loaded history. It’s easy to dismiss it as bad or unnecessary if you already have the luxury of language to comfortably describe yourself.

There’s another dimension that always, always gets overlooked in contemporary discussions about the word “queer:” class. The last paragraph here reminds me of a old quote: “rich lesbians are ‘sapphic,’ poor lesbians are ‘dykes’.” 

The reclaiming of the slur “queer” was an intensely political process, and people who came up during the 90s, or who came up mostly around people who did so, were divided on class and political lines on questions of assimilation into straight capitalist society. 

Bourgeois gays and lesbians already had “the luxury of language” to describe themselves – normalized through struggle, thanks to groups like the Gay Liberation Front.

Everyone else, from poor gays and lesbians to bi and trans people and so on, had no such language. These people were the ones for whom social/economic assimilation was not an option.

The only language left, the only word which united this particular underclass, was “queer.” “Queer” came to mean an opposition to assimilation – to straight culture, capitalism, patriarchy, and to upper class gays and lesbians who wanted to throw the rest of us under the bus for a seat at that table – and a solidarity among those marginalized for their sexuality/gender id/presentation. 

(Groups which reclaimed “queer,” like Queer Patrol (armed against homophobic violence), (Queers) Bash Back! (action and theory against fascism, homophobia, and transphobia), and Queerbomb (in response to corporate/state co-optation of mainstream Gay Pride), were “ultraleft,” working-class, anti-capitalist, and functioned around solidarity and direct action.)

The contemporary discourse around “queer” as a reclaimed-or-not slur both ignores and reproduces this history. The most marginalized among us, as OP notes, need this language. The ones who have problems with it are, generally, among those who have language – or “community,” or social/economic/political support – of their own.

Oh hey look it’s the story of my growing up.

All of this is true.

rosalarian:

kateordie:

sosobriquet:

ryanvoid:

i adore how much Dirty Millennial Writers focus on found family as a central theme. we love it so much! we all just wanna move in together in a big house with all of our friends and marry everyone, and i think that’s nice

about me

I push this in story meetings all the time ❤

Especially queer writers! We are all about found family! I’m pretty sure every major thing I’ve written has an element of found family.

Ok so

knifeshoesport:

I don’t have the full story and I refuse to pry further because that just spreads possible misinformation but from what I understand

A player has potentially (I say potentially because the name is not going around, but that doesn’t make it any less severe) been outed as queer by a partner

This. Is. So. Fucked.

Period. End of sentence.

Like I don’t care if you think “well they were on x dating app, they had to see this as a possibility”

No.

Sharing any sort of information from any sexual partner on social media is disgusting, disrespectful, and wrong. I don’t care if they’re it’s a regular person, a pro-athlete, or the fuckin Queen of England. Posting anything online that you have not been given explicit consent, by every party involved, to post is wrong and straight up illegal.

This is not me defending whatever player this is. This is me defending the fucking personal privacy of another human being.

If you think anything to the contrary or think that this was okay on even a microscopic level you can fuck right off

Service Dog Programs: Myths and Reality

thewinterotter:

myservicedogadventure:

I’ve blogged in the past about some myths surrounding owner-training. Now, I would like to talk about some misconceptions that many people have about service dog programs.

Keep reading

This is such a terrific post, and I wanted to add just a few things from the perspective of somebody who used to work for a service dog training program. My program was not one of the really high quality ones, IMO – which is part of the reason I no longer work there – and in looking at how my org ran things and how other service dog training organizations operated, here are a few things you might specifically want to look at and ask questions about:

Keep reading

Rogue One Subverts Asian Male Stereotypes — and That’s Important

desiree-rodriguez:

Let’s start with Chirrut, played by Donnie Yen. When Chirrut first showed up in the movie, I had a sense of dread: “ah, here we go with the magical Asian stereotype.” After all, he was wearing robes, carried a staff, and offered some vague, mysterious platitudes about the kyber crystal necklace Jyn was wearing. He knew martial arts, and it looked like that was going to be his defining characteristic. But the more interactions we saw between Chirrut and the other characters, the more revolutionary he seemed as a character — while the TV Tropes page may technically list Chirrut as a “Magical Asian” (your mileage may vary, obviously), in many ways, he turned the stereotype on its head. After all, here was an Asian male character who was also Force-sensitive, religious, a badass, and disabled. He was wise, sure, but he was also impish and wry.

In a lesser movie, he’d have been the Mr. Miyagi or Pai-Mei of Rogue One, whose sole purpose was to offer bland mystic platitudes while teaching the white protagonist. But Chirrut didn’t just speak in platitudes or proverbs, even though his most memorable line is a prayer chant. He made jokes and cracked wise, most memorably when he asked “are you kidding me?” as Saw Gerrera’s rebels placed a black bag over his head. He also didn’t offer to teach any of the other characters (and what good would that have done, really, in the timeframe this movie takes place in?), and Jyn, the sole white protagonist, didn’t exceed his particular skills by virtue of being white and “special.”

Rogue One Subverts Asian Male Stereotypes — and That’s Important