Jun 27, 2008   | COMMENTS     

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — A popular transgender Turkish singer went on trial last week on charges of trying to turn the public against military service. Bulent Ersoy could face more than two years in prison for saying during a live television show that if she had children, she would not want them to join the army to fight Kurdish rebels. Military service is obligatory for men over the age of 20 in Turkey and it is a crime to speak against it. The European Union, which Turkey wants to join, is pressing Turkey to do away with laws that stifle free expression. Under EU pressure, Turkey amended a law in April that barred the denigration of Turkish identity and institutions. The law had been used to prosecute Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk and other intellectuals. But human rights groups said the changes did not go far enough and pointed to other freedom-curbing laws, such as the one used against Ersoy. Ersoy, who underwent a sex-change operation in 1981 to become a woman, is one of Turkey’s best-loved singers. She was barred from appearing on stage during the 1980s following a military coup by generals who disapproved of her. Ersoy, 56, made the comment in February while appearing on the jury of a Turkish version of television show “Pop Idol.” Ersoy, who sings a traditional brand of Turkish music and often dresses in flamboyant evening gowns, did not appear in court in Istanbul last week. Her lawyers said she had a singing engagement that was arranged before the trial was scheduled.

Sheik on trial after gay seduction allegedly led to beating

GENEVA (AP) — Geneva’s chief prosecutor argued last week that a brother of the United Arab Emirates’ ruler should receive the maximum penalty on a charge of assaulting an American man with his belt in a luxury hotel bar after the man refused his advances. Silvano Orsi, a resident of Rochester, N.Y., says Sheik Falah bin Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan hit him repeatedly with a belt with a steel buckle after Orsi declined a bottle of champagne from the sheik. The sheik and his lawyer deny the charges. Defense lawyer Marco Crisante told the court on June 19 that Orsi’s legal complaint was full of lies meant to pressure the sheik for money. Geneva’s chief prosecutor, Daniel Zappelli, said that the defendant should be given the maximum penalty of more than $960,000 for the incident in the bar of Geneva’s La Reserve Hotel. Orsi said that after he refused the champagne the sheik, whom he had never met, came up behind him, jostled his glasses, sat in his lap and tried to kiss and fondle him. When Orsi protested, the assault began, he said. The sheik says the men got into a heated argument after he overheard someone call him gay and acknowledged that he pulled his belt from his trousers, but insists he never struck Orsi. Crisante said security officers intervened and prevented the sheik from whipping Orsi, who angered the sheik by calling him gay during the August 2003 incident.

Indian activists plan Pride parade to protest anti-gay laws

NEW DELHI, India (AP) — Several hundred gay activists plan to march in three Indian cities this weekend in the largest ever display of gay pride in a country where homosexuality is illegal, an activist said this week. The marchers plan to sing, give speeches and hold candlelit vigils in simultaneous parades in New Delhi, Calcutta and Bangalore on Sunday, said Gautam Bhan, a writer and gay rights activist involved with organizing the marches. While several dozen activists have marched in the eastern city of Calcutta in recent years, these would be the first Gay Pride parades in New Delhi and Bangalore. Bhan said the activists want to raise awareness of the issues facing gays in India. Homosexuality is illegal in India, classified as “against the order of nature” and punishable by up to 10 years in prison. And in India’s deeply conservative society, where any public discussion or display of sexuality is shunned, it has long been treated as taboo.

Saudi authorities arrest 21 gay men in raid on party

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) — A Saudi newspaper said religious police have arrested 21 men reported to be gay and confiscated large amounts of alcohol at the same location. Al-Medina daily says the Commission for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, which employs the religious police, was told June 20 of a ...