Afdhere Jama | |
---|---|
Born | 1980 Somalia |
Nationality | American |
Occupation(s) | Writer, Filmmaker |
Notable work | Illegal Citizens: Queer Lives in the Muslim World (2008) |
Afdhere Jama (born 1980) is an American writer and filmmaker of Somali origin.
Jama was born and raised in Somalia. He moved to America when he was a teenager. Between the years 2000 and 2010, he was the editor of Huriyah. Jama identifies as queer and Muslim. [1]
In June 2016, after a shooting in Orlando, an article Jama had written in 2014 about LGBT Muslims was shared on social media. [2]
Jama was the editor in chief of Huriyah [3] (Arabic : حرية, [note 1] "freedom"), an LGBT Muslim magazine published between the years 2000 and 2010. [4] It was based in San Francisco, California. Huriyah used the slogan "Queer Muslim Magazine".
The magazine was first published in Arabic and launched in English in 2002, with a focus on both LGBT and Muslim issues in politics, arts, and spirituality. [5] It had a major interview every month, conducted by Jama, including of Daayiee Abdullah and Faisal Alam.
In 2006 Jama stated, "My main difference with the majority of Muslims is the belief that a Jewish homeland is an important progress for all of us, especially one in their ancestral land of Israel". He continued, "Muslims in the United States must decide whether they see groups like Hamas and Hizbullah as legitimate resistance or the cause of Muslim troubles in the region". [6]
Within the Muslim world, sentiment towards LGBT people varies and has varied between societies and individual Muslims, but is contemporarily quite negative. While colloquial, and in many cases, de facto official acceptance of at least some homosexual behavior was commonplace in pre-modern periods, later developments, starting from the 19th-century, have created a generally hostile environment for LGBT people. Most Muslim-majority countries have opposed moves to advance LGBT rights and recognition at the United Nations (UN), including within the UN General Assembly and the UN Human Rights Council.
Queer is an umbrella term for people who are not heterosexual or are not cisgender. Originally meaning 'strange' or 'peculiar', queer came to be used pejoratively against LGBT people in the late 19th century. Beginning in the late 1980s, queer activists, such as the members of Queer Nation, began to reclaim the word as a deliberately provocative and politically radical alternative to the more assimilationist branches of the LGBT community.
Homosexuality in India has been documented and discussed in various artworks and literary works since ancient times and continues to be a major discussion point as LGBTQ rights are advanced in modern politics. Homosexuality is legally permitted in India, though same-sex unions only have limited recognition.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people face widespread prosecution in Egypt.
Over the course of its history, the LGBT community has adopted certain symbols for self-identification to demonstrate unity, pride, shared values, and allegiance to one another. These symbols communicate ideas, concepts, and identity both within their communities and to mainstream culture. The two symbols most recognized internationally are the pink triangle and the rainbow flag.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people in Tunisia face legal challenges not experienced by non-LGBT residents. Both male and female kinds of same-sex sexual activity are illegal in the country. According to the United States Department of State's 2018 report on human rights in Tunisia, "authorities occasionally use [the anti-sodomy law] to detain and question persons about their sexual activities and orientation, reportedly at times based on appearance alone."
El-Farouk Khaki is a Tanzanian-born Muslim Canadian of Indian origin who is a refugee and immigration lawyer, and human rights activist on issues including gender equality, sexual orientation, and progressive Islam. He was the New Democratic Party's candidate for the House of Commons in the riding of Toronto Centre in a March 17, 2008 by-election. Khaki came in second with 13.8% of the vote.
The rainbow flag or pride flag is a symbol of LGBT pride and LGBT social movements. The colors reflect the diversity of the LGBT community and the spectrum of human sexuality and gender. Using a rainbow flag as a symbol of LGBT pride began in San Francisco, California, but eventually became common at LGBT rights events worldwide.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people in Somalia face severe challenges not experienced by non-LGBT residents. Consensual same-sex sexual activity is illegal for both men and women. In areas controlled by al-Shabab, and in Jubaland, capital punishment is imposed for such sexual activity. In other areas, where Sharia does not apply, the civil law code specifies prison sentences of up to three years as penalty. LGBT people are regularly prosecuted by the government and additionally face stigmatization among the broader population. Stigmatization and criminalisation of homosexuality in Somalia occur in a legal and cultural context where 99% of the population follow Islam as their religion, while the country has had an unstable government and has been subjected to a civil war for decades.
Arsham Parsi is an Iranian LGBT human rights activist living in exile in Canada. He is the founder and head of the International Railroad for Queer Refugees.
The Iranian Queer Organization, also known as the Persian Gay and Lesbian Organization, was an advocacy group for LGBT rights in Iran based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The organization was founded by human rights activist Arsham Parsi and monitors violations of gay rights in Iran. Under the Islamic laws of Iran, homosexuality is punishable by death.
Homosexuality in the Palestinian territories is considered a taboo subject; lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people experience persecution and violence. There is a significant legal divide between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, with the former having more progressive laws and the latter having more conservative laws. Shortly after the Jordanian annexation of the West Bank in 1950, same-sex acts were decriminalized across the territory with the adoption of the Jordanian Penal Code of 1951. In the Egyptian-occupied Gaza Strip and under Hamas's rule, however, no such initiative was implemented.
Helem is the first LGBTQIA+ rights non-governmental organization in the Arab world, founded in Beirut, Lebanon, in 2001. Its mission is to lead a non-violent struggle for the liberation of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, and other persons with non-conforming sexualities and/or gender identities (LGBTQIA+) in Lebanon and the MENA region from all sorts of violations of their individual and collective civil, political, economic, social, and cultural rights. Helem’s name was also an acronym in Arabic that stood for “Lebanese protection for the LGBT community”.
The modern South Korean LGBT rights movement arose in the 1990s, with several small organizations seeking to combat sexual orientation and gender identity discrimination.
Kif-Kif is a non-governmental LGBT rights organization for LGBT Moroccans. Since it is not legally recognized in Morocco, the organization has been licensed and checked in Spain since 2008. On its constitutive act, it is mentioned that its actions include both Spain and Morocco. Although its focus is on homosexual rights, membership is open to everyone who shares its values based on the universal declaration of human rights.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people generally have limited or highly restrictive rights in most parts of the Middle East, and are open to hostility in others. Sex between men is illegal in 9 of the 18 countries that make up the region. It is punishable by death in five of these 18 countries. The rights and freedoms of LGBT citizens are strongly influenced by the prevailing cultural traditions and religious mores of people living in the region – particularly Islam.
Pinkwashing, also known as rainbow-washing, is the strategy of promoting LGBT rights protections as evidence of liberalism and democracy, especially to distract from or legitimize violence against other countries or communities. The concept has been used by Sarah Schulman in 2011 with reference to Israeli government public relations, and is related to homonationalism, the exploitation of sexual minorities to justify racism and xenophobia. Pinkwashing is a continuation of the civilizing mission used to justify colonialism, this time on the basis of LGBT rights in Western countries. More broadly, pinkwashing can also be defined as "the deployment of superficially sympathetic messages for [ends] having little or nothing to do with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) equality or inclusion", including LGBT marketing.
Censorship of LGBT issues is practised by some countries around the world. They may take a variety of forms, including anti-LGBT curriculum laws in some states of the United States, the Russian gay propaganda law, and the Hungarian anti-LGBT law, and laws in Muslim-majority states such as Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Malaysia prohibiting advocacy that offends Islamic morality.