This is a haunting insight into the work of the International Commission on Missing Persons, which is currently considering how to approach missing persons in Syria and helps recover and identify missing persons in armed conflicts and human rights violations.
The three-day long talks in Geneva to find a solution to Iran's nuclear ambitions have ended without an agreement.
A European Court of Justice decision last week brought some clarity to the precarious situation of gay asylum seekers in the European Union:
In its judgment today, the Court of Justice considers, first of all, that it is common ground that a person’s sexual orientation is a characteristic so fundamental to his identity that he should not be forced to renounce it. [...] However, in order for a violation of fundamental rights to constitute persecution within the meaning of the Geneva Convention it must be sufficiently serious. Therefore, not all violations of the fundamental rights of a homosexual applicant for asylum will necessarily reach this level of seriousness.
The existence of laws prosecuting homosexuals in their countries of origin isn't sufficient to justify asylum, but the regular application of these laws is. The ruling was made based on a request by the Dutch Council of State and responded to the case of three asylum seekers from Sierra Leone, Uganda and Senegal. In that context it's also interesting that Germany considers Senegal a "safe country of origin". Here's the Wikipedia page mapping out the situation of LGBT rights in African countries.
Pop Culture:
Patti Smith has written an essay about mourning Lou Reed, who passed away on October 27th.
He had black eyes, black T-shirt, pale skin. He was curious, sometimes suspicious, a voracious reader, and a sonic explorer. An obscure guitar pedal was for him another kind of poem. He was our connection to the infamous air of the Factory. He had made Edie Sedgwick dance. Andy Warhol whispered in his ear. Lou brought the sensibilities of art and literature into his music. He was our generation’s New York poet, championing its misfits as Whitman had championed its workingman and Lorca its persecuted.
The New Yorker: Lou Reed, by Patti Smith
Arcade Fire released Reflektor, their fourth full-length album (the video for the song Reflektor was directed by Anton Corbijn, Afterlife was directed by Spike Jonze and stars Greta Gerwig).
Films that I'm looking forward to that I haven't had a chance to see yet: Cuarón's Gravity (is it good??), Inside Llewyn Davis by the Coens, The Double, and Pawel Pawlikowski's Ida.
No comments:
Post a Comment