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Reports South African Military Castrated Gays Until 1994 Gays Excluded from Tokyo Rights Document |
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By Rex Wockner International News Report South African Gay Club Bombed—Doorman is Injured
A car bomb exploded outside the Cape Town, South Africa, gay bar
Bronx August 20, injuring the doorman and shattering the club's
windows.
Gay activists said four other individuals who had been outside the bar were hurt, but police could not confirm that. A taxi driver told the SAPA news agency the explosion shot flames two stories high. "I got one hell of a fright," he said. "My heart was still beating fast half an hour later." Another Cape Town gay club, Blah Bar, was bombed last November. Nine people were injured in that blast. Reports South African Military Castrated Gays Until 1994 South Africa's National Coalition for Gay and Lesbian Equality is demanding that a commission of inquiry be formed to investigate reports that military doctors tortured homosexuals with forced sex-change operations and chemical castration from the 1970s to 1994. According to the Mail & Guardian, military psychiatrists and chaplains colluded to identify gay draftees and send them to Ward 22 of Voortrekkerhoogte military hospital for "rehabilitation". NCGLE's petition is supported by Amnesty International and the South African Council of Churches. Gays Excluded from Tokyo Rights Document
Masaki Inaba, a spokesman for the gay group Occur, responded: "Although the amount of information available to the public about homosexuals [has] increased, it is still considered socially OK to pick on homosexuals and label them second-class citizens. This is a result of the lack of information about gays and lesbians. Government recognition is necessary for the proper measures to be taken." The guidelines will be finalized before winter, the Daily Yomiuri said. |
