Rompe Armarios: LGTB POLITICS AND INTERVENTIONS IN CATALONIA

LGTB POLITICS AND INTERVENTIONS IN CATALONIA

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LGTB POLITICS AND INTERVENTIONS IN CATALONIA. Joaquim Roqueta president de Gais Positius i Eugeni Rodríguez Portaveu Front d'Alliberament Gai de Catalunya -FAGC-

The present document attempts to make a broad approach of the last actions performed by LGBT and Anti AIDS movement of Catalonia.

In Catalonia the majority of the LGTB movement is organized through the fledgling platform LGTBcat, who´s primary objective is the achievement of the

" Law for Lesbian, Gay, Transsexual, and Bisexual people, and the eradication of Homophobia, Lesbophobia, and Transphobia

. At the present moment, this law is under parliamentary procedure. This law is composed of 34 articles and a single provision.

1. The objective of this law is to develop and guarantee the rights of the Lesbian, Gay, Transsexual, and Bisexual men and woman (LGBT), and to avoid discriminating and violent situations towards this group, socially also known as Homophobia, Lesbophobia, and Transphobia.

The measures foreseen in this Law that would make effective the right to equality of the LGBT people, would affect:

a) In all the areas of social life, both in public and private fields

b) To the course of all stages in life

c) In all contingencies in the course of his/her life: diseases, disability, or any other change in marital status, starting a family, deprivation of liberty, to death

2. The law intends to intervene in the following aspects:

-Universities

-Culture, Leisure, and Sports

-Mass Media

-Health

-Social Action

-Public Order and Deprivation of Freedom

-Labor Market

-Implementation of Measures for Employment

-Transsexual Men and Woman

-Education

3. The law intends to regulate mechanisms to guarantee the right to the equality of the LGTB people:

-Right to Admission

-Right to an integral protection, real and effective

-Contravention of the law within the contractual ambiance

-Right to judicial attention and assistance

-Participation and Solidarity

4.Finally, the law has a regime of offences and penalties, and a governing body.

INTERVENTIONS TO DIFFERENT SITUATIONS OF VIOLATION OF FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS.

Police Raid a gay bar the night of June 28th 2013 while celebrating the day of LGTB pride

- Last June 28th the police violently entered one of Barcelona´s gay bars. The riot-control police bordered the street and prevented the free circulation of the people found in the area.

The police action was disproportionate and unjustified; no illegal activity was taking place in the bar, nor of any other nature that would bear such intervention.

Given this arbitrary performance, the LGTB movement pressed charges before the defender of the people of Barcelona and presented questions to the Parliament through different political groups such as ICV, and EUIA.

-Last October 5th citizen and colleague Juan Andrés Benitez died as a result of an Autonomic Police intervention

.

The police intervention was filmed and seen by an innumerable amount of neighbors of the street where it occurred, inside the centric Barcelona neighborhood El Raval. It was a Saturday night around 22pm.

According to the images published by national newspaper El Pais, the police´s intervention was extremely violent and disproportionate.

Juan Andrés Benitez died hours later in the Hospital Clinic of Barcelona.

Juan Andrés Benitez was a member of the ACEGAL association of Gay and Lesbian Employers.

Hours after his death, a police union emitted a press release stating, and i quote : " as a result of the police intervention, two police officers will have to take antiretroviral medication during one year." This information reveals Benitez´s serostatus, fact that is penalized in the criminal code with up to three years in prison for revelation of official secret. The disclosure of a person's serostatus has been reported by more than 20 Anti AIDS organizations and by LGTB Catalonia.

-Last December 2013, the ultra homophobic group "Proyecto Pilla Pilla"

publicly released a series of videos where they retained, humiliated, and berated gay men against their will, distinguishing them as pedophiles.

By using false identities online, the members of this group pretended to be young gay men, ranging from the ages of 15 to 17, in order to contact older gay men above the age of 18. Once the bond was made, they would retain the victim and accuse him of pedophilia and perversion of minors. They would then release the videos of their encounters without consent.

It should be noted that in the Spanish State the legal age for sexual consent is 13.

Given this extremely serious attack on their fundamental rights -dignity and intimacy- the LGTB movement demanded a strong performance from both police and political forces.

In this case, police acted effectively and arrested those responsible of the ultra homophobic group.

-

Roundabout Square of the transsexual Sonia

Last October 6th 2013, the public space "Roundabout of the transsexual Sonia" was inaugurated in memory of the transsexual Sonia Rescalvo, murdered by a group of neo-Nazi's on October 6th, 1991. As a result of the incessant labor of the LGTB movement, the square where she was murdered now carries her name in remembrance.