Archbishop Chrysostomos

Tijuana Police Harass Gays in Park  Tijuana’s Gayest Street Becomes Unsafe  By Rex Wockner International News Report

Cypriot Greek Orthodox Archbishop Chrysostomos said last week he will defrock a gay priest who has AIDS. "He should go up into the mountains," Chrysostomos said of Archimandrite Pancratios Meraklis. "Without doubt he will be defrocked. It's not a severe punishment because if he's got AIDS he cannot carry out his duties, irrespective of how he was infected."   Chrysostomos claimed allowing a priest with AIDS to distribute communion would be the same as "infecting someone with a contaminated needle."  Health Minister Christos Solomis denounced that remark, saying it "takes us all one year back in our fight against AIDS because of misinformation as to how the virus is transmitted."  

In recent months, Chrysostomos repeatedly has lashed out at homosexuals as Cyprus faces a deadline for complying with a 1993 European Court of Human Rights ruling that the nation must legalize gay sex. If Cyprus refuses to decriminalize homosexuality, the country likely will be denied entry into the European Union and may be ejected from the Council of Europe.  "[Homosexuality] is a violation both of the laws of the creator God and the laws of nature," the archbishop said last month. "God made males and females for the reproduction both of animals and humans. Homosexuality is against the purpose of creation. The Church considers decriminalization to be against what is holy and against human dignity." 

Meanwhile, the Cyprus Mail daily newspaper seemingly has grown weary of Chrysostomos' attitudes.  In a May 1 editorial, the newspaper stated, "Chrysostomos and his bishops have proved time and again that they are public relations disasters in black robes."  

Police in Tijuana, Mexico, are trying to eradicate gay cruising from downtown's Teniente Guerrero Park, reports the local newspaper Frontera Gay. The police department claims to be combating prostitution, vagrancy and "public insecurity" but in reality they are "persecuting people based on their sexual orientation," the paper said.  

"According to the experiences of several persons who have been detained or sermonized to in the park, the methods of the police are far from civilized, full of homophobic expressions and acts of vexation against those they consider to be homosexual, without the least bit of attention to their rights, such as freedom of movement and freedom of expression," the newspaper said.  

One gay teen, Jorge Munoz, 15, told Frontera Gay the cops abused him after discovering he was carrying a condom. "Why do you bring condoms?" one officer allegedly said. "All you fucking fags should rot of AIDS. You should be dead."  In another incident, Munoz and a friend say they were punched in the mouth and stomach by two plainclothes cops. 

On May 8, two gay men at the park told this news column that police officers had harassed them with comments such as: "What are you doing in the fag park?" and "We saw you go into the toilet and stay there too long."  Frontera Gay says individuals abused by the police should complain to the city Sindicatura del Gobierno Municipal and the state Procuraduria de Derechos de Baja California.  

Tijuana, with a population estimated at up to 2 million, is located 15 miles south of downtown San Diego. The city has eight gay bars and two small gay-rights organizations. The third annual gay-pride parade last year drew 225 marchers. This year's march is June 20.  

Tijuana, Mexico's gayest street, the Plaza Santa Cecilia pedestrian mall, has again become unsafe after dark, reports the local newspaper Frontera Gay.  

At the beginning of April, the police department withdrew the officers assigned to the plaza at night and soon gays visiting the bars El Ranchero and Villa Garcia were once again being mugged, the newspaper said. The officers had been placed in the plaza about a year ago to halt an epidemic of muggings at that time.   According to Frontera Gay, plaza businesses are now being urged to hire "rent-a-cops," which are either off-duty policemen or graduates of the police academy who do not actually work for the city but rather work full-time as "commercial police." These officers also are issued city police uniforms, badges and guns.  

"The business owners have so far elected not to pool their money together to hire commercial police, and probably won't until the crime in the plaza gets so bad again that it affects their cash registers in the way of a drastic drop in customers," Frontera Gay said. "Local political and human-rights activists should, without much more delay, commence pressuring the police department by whatever means it takes to re-assign the two cops at the plaza again at night."  A typical assault involves three assailants, Frontera Gay said. One hits the victim from behind then grabs him by the neck while a second assailant hits him in the testicles and a third takes his money, watch, jewelry and jacket.  

In related news, on May 8, a member of the Tijuana Police Department's Special Forces unit told a reporter for this column that cruisy Teniente Guerrero park has become unsafe as well.  "A lot of pickpockets hang out there," the officer said.  The reporter spoke to the officer after fending off a pickpocket's attempt to snatch the reporter's U.S. passport while he was on assignment at the park. Prior to the incident, the pickpocket had been staring at the reporter in a manner customary to gay cruising.  

Numerous mainstream-media outlets and the U.S. State Department have reported a recent upsurge in crime in Mexico – including scores of often-violent attacks on U.S. tourists in Mexico City. Many observers link the crime rate to the continuing economic ramifications of the day in December 1994 when the peso lost half its value relative to the U.S. dollar.  Tijuana, with a population estimated at up to 2 million, is located 15 miles south of downtown San Diego.  

The city has eight gay bars and two small gay-rights organizations. The third annual gay-pride parade last year drew 225 marchers. This year's march is June 20. 

Rex Wockner's weekly international news reports dating back to May 1994 can be searched at http://www.wockner.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.