Martin Savidge hosts David Rayside and Rachel Tiven on LGBT politics and gay asylum. We begin the conversation with Jamaica, which makes up 17 of the 55 U.S. asylum cases won by Immigration Equality last year alone. We examine the metastasizing colonial and slave culture, entrenched poverty and rampant violence in Jamaica.

In 1994, former U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno expanded asylum law to include persecution based on sexual orientation. Sexual orientation has been increasingly used as grounds for asylum. We also discuss how to begin the process of applying for gay asylum in the U.S.

From human rights abuses to political progress, the gay rights movement is at different stages throughout the world. We take a comparative look at the progress of LGBT politics and the gay rights movement in different countries, including the best and worst places to be gay.

A Greek gay rights parade. Photo: Megan Thompson

• Read about one gay Jamaican’s story of asylum: Gay men in Jamaica must lead two separate lives
• Watch signature videos from Jamaica: Violence and venom force gay Jamaicans to hide and Gays in Jamaica worship in underground church
• Watch our signature video from Greece: Ancient Greek values clash with modern treatment of gays

GUESTS:

David Rayside is a political science professor at the University of Toronto. His latest book “Queer Inclusions, Continental Divisions” is a comparative analysis of Canadian and  American political recognition of same-sex relationships, the extension of parenting rights to same-sex couples and the response to sexual diversity in public schooling. For over thirty years, he has also been an activist on issues related to sexual diversity and gender within academic institutions and beyond.

Rachel B. Tiven is the executive director of Immigration Equality, a national organization fighting for equal immigration rights for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and HIV-positive community. Under her leadership, Immigration Equality has doubled in size, quadrupled client services and opened a policy office in Washington, D.C.

Credits:
Host: Martin Savidge
Producers: Lisa Biagiotti and Ben Piven
Researcher: Geneva Sands-Sadowitz

For more information on homophobia and HIV in Jamaica, visit The Glass Closet, a multimedia project produced in partnership with the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.

Correspondent Lisa Biagiotti, producer Micah Fink and director of photography Gabrielle Weiss report on the secret underground church that is welcoming gay men and women to practice their faith. Reverend Robert Griffin, an American priest, leads the secret church.  He believes religion is at the heart of Jamaica culture of homophobia, and the time has come to reinterpret the Bible for modern times.

• Watch all the Worldfocus In the Shadows video signature series
• Listen to Worldfocus Radio on LGBT politics and gay asylum
• For more information on homophobia and HIV in Jamaica, visit The Glass Closet, a multimedia project produced in partnership with the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.

Correspondent Lisa Biagiotti, producer Micah Fink and director of photography Gabrielle Weiss report on the dark side of Jamaica’s anti-gay violence and attitudes and explore the ideological beliefs that perpetuate a culture of homophobia.

• Read Protecting our gay Jamaican sources and their confessions
• Watch all the Worldfocus In the Shadows video signature series
• Listen to Worldfocus Radio on LGBT politics and gay asylum
• For more information on homophobia and HIV in Jamaica, visit The Glass Closet, a multimedia project produced in partnership with the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting

The signature story Violence and venom force gay Jamaicans to hide reports on the dark side of Jamaica’s anti-gay violence and attitudes and explores the ideological beliefs that perpetuate a culture of homophobia.

Producer Micah Fink of the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting produced the Worldfocus signature story “Violence and venom force gay Jamaicans to hide.” He explains why we had to protect peoples’ identities.

For more information on HIV and homophobia in Jamaica, visit The Glass Closet, a multimedia project produced in partnership with the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.

Reporting for television on anti-gay violence in Jamaica is tricky.

It is widely believed that being openly gay in Jamaica is essentially a death sentence. That eventually, if you put your face on camera and admit you are gay, someone, sooner or later, will come along and kill you. Or attack your family. Or kill you and your family.

So we had to accept that anyone gay would not be willing to appear on television talking openly about their life experiences. We also agreed before we began filming that if we did find people willing to tell their stories, we would conceal their identities.

And we met many people, more than we could film, who were willing to be interviewed – and who trusted us to protect them from retribution.

There were only two exceptions.

One was a young gay woman who had been brutally attacked by anti-gay thugs and who was planning to flee Jamaica forever and apply for asylum in the United States. She agreed to openly tell her story as long as she was safely off the island when the film was broadcast. Unfortunately, her request for an American visa was denied, and she remains trapped in Jamaica, fearing for her life. And the footage we shot with her will likely never see the light of day.

The other exception was Reverend Robert Griffin, a gay American minister with the Metropolitan Community Churches, who agreed to appear on camera to tell the story of his efforts to build an underground church for Jamaica’s gay community. He is aware that he is risking his life by showing his face to the camera – since he often travels back and forth between Jamaica and the US – but he believes this is a risk worth taking. He sees himself as part of a long tradition of fighting for civil rights that passes through Martin Luther King and connects back to the anti-slavery movement and the underground railroad. And he believes that fighting for tolerance and human dignity for Jamaica’s gay community is a cause for which he is willing to risk everything.

Everyone else wanted to appear in silhouette.

I wasn’t sure at first if these darkened features, shot against a bright window frame, would convey the emotional intensity that is so essential for effective television story-telling. But after we filmed several young gay men speaking about their lives, it was clear this was material we simply had find a way to use.

I now think that the absence of specific visual details makes you listen more closely to the humanity of these voices, and that their remarks may even be more chilling and more universal than if you were able to see a particular, individual face.

“If you are gay in Jamaica, people want to kill you,” one young man told us, explaining how he has to change how he walks and talks so that he doesn’t draw attention to himself when he walks outside. “So I try to walk thuggish,” he explains.

Another young man tells us that he is now living in hiding. “Where I live it is very dangerous,” he says. “Most of the time I can’t come out during the day because people want to kill me.” Why do they want to kill him? “Because I’m gay,” he says.

He also tells how his best friend was murdered and chopped into tiny pieces – and how another friend was locked into his parent’s home and then burned alive.

“People who live here, once they find out that you’re gay, Battyman, let me use the word Battyman, they want to kill you,” says another young man. He goes on to explain that the police are also a serious threat. Just last week, he says, he was searched by several police officers who “razzle dazzled” him up, and then told him: “Bataman fi dead around here,” which means, translated from Jamaican, “We kill gay people around here.”

How do I know they were speaking the truth?

Partly from my 15 years of experience as a journalist—my inner sense told me while we were filming that these men were speaking openly about their lives. Most were poor and had nothing to gain from making up stories. And then there were the common themes that run through their accounts—that make their stories similar, while still being unique. Most of these men said they were afraid to disclose their sexual identity to their parents, or families, or girl friends, for fear of being rejected or expelled from their homes.

And then there are the odd, but very human inconsistencies.

Listen closely to the young gay man who goes by the pseudonym Damion and who says he believes that homosexuality runs counter to God’s will. “I read the Bible for myself and see in the Bible where it says Sodom and Gomorrah is wrong and God destroyed them, so I believe the practice is wrong,” he explained. “So what we need to do is try and put that in a restraining order and stop doing it.” he says. “It is a big challenge for your lifestyle to be changed from homosexual, to be free from it. I believe you need to go through a lot of prayer and fasting, dedication, commitment, and counseling that would help to bring you through that process. It is very hard to do, but I believe it can be done. I’m trying to climb that ladder but I keep falling back because it’s very hard to do. It’s very difficult to change your lifestyle.”

This is the confession of a man struggling with himself—his conscience battling both his sense of morality and his innate sexuality. Given the social context in which he lives, this seems to me to be a battle that he can never really win. Which I find as profoundly tragic as it is profoundly true.

- Micah Fink

• Watch all the Worldfocus In the Shadows video signature series
• Listen to Worldfocus Radio on LGBT politics and gay asylum
• For more information on homophobia and HIV in Jamaica, visit The Glass Closet, a multimedia project produced in partnership with the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.

Children in Ethiopia’s highlands. Photo: Flickr user turkairo

Organizations large and small — from the World Bank to local NGOs — are working to eliminate public health scourges in Africa. Whether sending malaria prophylactics or collecting leftover medical supplies, Americans also contribute to the fight against major health problems.

Do you think the United States has a moral obligation to do more to alleviate hunger and disease around the world?

Tell us what you think in the comments section below. Please remember to be respectful and on-point in your comments. Malicious or offensive comments will be deleted and repeat offenders will be banned.

Violence and hatred lurk close to the social surface in Jamaica.

Producer Micah Fink of the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting produced the Worldfocus signature story “Jamaica’s battle against AIDS fought in the shadows.” He reflects on Jamaican culture and the homophobia that has contributed to the country’s HIV/AIDS crisis.

Jamaica, to me, is a land of deep contradictions.

On one hand, it’s a lovely, lush tropical country, blessed with sandy beaches, fantastic flowering shrubs, ripe mango and coconut trees, and inhabited by a strong, proud people who clearly share a basic sense of personal dignity and a deep-seated hospitality towards strangers. I found this to be true regardless of whom I was speaking with, be they rich or poor, educated or illiterate, straight or gay.

At the same time, I also encountered an intensity of violence and hatred lurking close to the social surface that shocked me. I was amazed at how easily people expressed their disregard for the human rights of gay people. Or how the same individual could argue that most violence against gays is carried out by other homosexuals while also acknowledging how “understandable” it is that gay people would be beaten by a mob, perhaps even killed, if they “flaunt” their sexual identity in a public space.

I was also surprised by the homophobic venom expressed, openly and on-camera, by the political leaders we met. Perhaps it was to be expected from Representative Ernest Smith, an outspoken opponent of gay rights, but I felt side-swiped to hear similar views expressed by the Reverend Bishop Herro Blair, who is Jamaica’s Political Ombudsman and widely credited with reducing political violence in Jamaica’s inner cities. And I was stunned when their most inflammatory remarks were repeated by leading public health officials, teen-aged school children, and, sometimes, even by members of Jamaica’s gay community.

The ideology of homophobia is as deep as it is pernicious in Jamaica.

It is widely held that homosexuality is a mortal sin, which the Bible (and by extension God) has ruled should be punished by death. And if that wasn’t inflammatory enough, there is a wide-spread perception that gayness is transmitted by homosexual contact (gays are made, not born) and that gay men and women are out actively raping young Jamaican children to “recruit” them into a new generation of homosexuals. Many people also seem to believe in the existence of an “international gay lobby” that is conspiring to undermine and destroy the nation’s moral values and political sovereignty.

In the context of HIV and AIDS, of course, these attitudes are deadly. So it wasn’t surprising for me to meet a young gay man who rejected every safe sex message ever created. “It’s not AIDS that is killing us,” he told me. “If it were, I would use a condom. But it’s people, not AIDS, that is killing us. AIDS has nothing to do with it.”

Jamaica, it seems, needs to be reminded of another old biblical adage, expressed succinctly in Galatians: “You shall reap what you sow.”

- Micah Fink

• Watch all the Worldfocus In the Shadows video signature series
• Listen to Worldfocus Radio on LGBT politics and gay asylum
• For more information on homophobia and HIV in Jamaica, visit The Glass Closet, a multimedia project produced in partnership with the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting

Correspondent Lisa Biagiotti, producer Micah Fink and director of photography Gabrielle Weiss report from the front lines of Jamaica’s battle against HIV and AIDS, a war waged in the shadows.

• Watch all the Worldfocus In the Shadows video signature series
• Listen to Worldfocus Radio on LGBT politics and gay asylum
• Read Lisa Biagiotti’s blogs: There are no gay pride parades in Jamaica and Gay men in Jamaica must lead two separate lives
• For more information on homophobia and HIV in Jamaica, visit The Glass Closet, a multimedia project produced in partnership with the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting

For more, watch the Signature Story “Cambodia fears growing resistance to malaria drugs.”

Michael Novacek, the provost of science at the American Museum of Natural History, joins Martin Savidge to discuss fears that deforestation and global warming are contributing to the spread of malaria, as well as what scientists are doing to fight the disease.

Longtime CNN correspondent Gary Strieker, now a citizen correspondent, traveled to western Kenya recently, where he discovered a health project taking that very approach.

More than 90 cases of the disease have now been reported throughout the United States, and the first U.S. death attributed to swine flu was reported. Of course, Mexico is where the disease started — or so it seems — and where it continues to do the most harm. At least 150 people there have died from the disease. 

Laurie Garrett, a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations, joins Martin Savidge to discuss the origin of the flu. She also discusses various government responses to the flu, including discouraging public gatherings in Mexico, slaughtering pigs in Egypt and shutting down pig farms in Jordan.

The number of people thought to have died from the disease reached 152 — all of them in Mexico, where the outbreak began.

Beyond Mexico, the United States and five other countries were dealing with confirmed cases of the flu. The United States is now reporting at least 68 confirmed cases; Canada is reporting six, and a few cases are confirmed in the United Kingdom, Spain, Israel and New Zealand. Suspected cases have been reported all the way from South America to Asia.

Many more countries were taking steps they hope will keep it away, tightening borders and immigration controls as the swine flu epidemic spread. Cuba suspended flights to Mexico, and countries including the United States, Canada and France warned their citizens to avoid nonessential travel to Mexico. Russia, Hong Kong and Taiwan all said they would quarantine any ailing visitors who come from countries where the disease has been discovered.

Martin Blaser, a former president of the Infectious Diseases Society of America and the current chairman of the Department of Medicine at the New York University School of Medicine, joins Martin Savidge to discuss how governments are responding to the outbreak and how widespread this strain of flu is.

View a map detailing the spread of the swine flu:

The World Health Organization has said the deadly flu has “pandemic potential.” Governments the world over are racing to find and contain pockets of swine flu. The European Union is advising against unnecessary travel to the U.S. and Mexico.

Dr. Andrew Garrett, the director of planning and response at Columbia University’s National Center for Disaster Preparedness and the Mailman School of Public Health, joins Martin Savidge to discuss the threat posed by swine flu, how the disease spread from Mexico and how long it might be before it is brought under control.

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Daniel Hernandez, a writer based in Mexico City, describes the atmosphere in the city, noting that many are wary of the government: 

The metro is still operating but with hardly its normal level of weekend traffic. Public gathering spaces are closed or nearly empty — that includes art openings (most of them), museums, movie theaters, and soccer matches. Unbelievably, schools will be closed until “at least” May 6, the health secretary has announced, raising the fear factor considerably.

That’s at least 10 total weekdays of no classes for more than 6 million students at all levels. To put things in perspective, the last time classes were shuttered for days on end was during the apocalyptic Mexico City earthquake of 1985.

[...]On Saturday, while the top brass at the WHO convened an emergency meeting in Geneva, soldiers in Mexico City were passing out face-masks at traffic stops, metro stations, and plazas. A militar in fatigues handed me a mask upon entering metro Bellas Artes, but it fell apart before I could even get on a train. On board, passengers eyed one another suspiciously and made every effort to avoid contact with strangers.

Now, this is the sort of atmosphere some of us have most feared, health worries aside: An already heavy-handed federal government in Mexico issued an ominous decree on Saturday, saying it reserves the right to hold and quarantine anyone, enter and search any public or private establishment, and more or less do whatever it deems necessary to stop the virus from spreading.

Which makes you wonder if this is really Mexico’s “worst nightmare.”

Deborah Bonello in Mexico points out that there are economic costs to the outbreak: 

I was out shooting all day in downtown Mexico City Sunday, trying to get a sense of how the swine flu outbreak is affecting local businesses.

It’s bad. With schools closed, as well as cinemas, theaters and museums, sales for some vendors have dropped by as much as 70%. And it doesn’t look like things are going to get better anytime soon. The usual Monday morning traffic crawl was nowhere to be seen this morning, and I arrived at my office door to door in less than 20 minutes.

About half the people walking around on the streets are using masks, around half are risking it.

Blogger “mattliving” in Canada — where there are at least six confirmed cases of swine flu — criticizes the government response to the outbreak: 

Why are governments around the world waiting for this to get out of hand?

I personally know of persons in my workplace here in Canada that have recently returned from Mexico. Why haven’t governments contacted everyone who may have traveled in or out of Mexico in the last few weeks and get them tested.

Isn’t this scenario one of the biggest excuses from governments for tracking of travellers, RFID passports, etc.?

Photo courtesy of Flickr user Eneas under a Creative Commons license.

Worldfocus special correspondent Martin Seemungal, who has covered Africa for almost 20 years, explores the stigma and denial of AIDS in the province of Kwazulu-Natal in South Africa.

Also, watch the web original video: Fighting the stigma and treating HIV across South Africa

A hospital in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

An outbreak of Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo has put neighboring countries on alert.

At least 12 have died so far in the country’s fourth Ebola outbreak since 1976. The highly infectious disease, for which there is no known cure, kills approximately 80 percent of those infected.

Angola has closed parts of its border with the Congo in an effort to prevent the spread of the disease, and Ugandan immigration officials have been asked to closely monitor people crossing the border.

Uganda experienced an outbreak of Ebola last year. During that period, bloggers and doctors Scott and Jennifer Myhre in Bundibugyo wrote about losing a friend, Dr. Jonah Kule, to Ebola, and about hospital protocol with possibly-infected patients.

The “Ebola in DRC” blog, written by members of Doctors Without Borders, provided a firsthand account of an Ebola outbreak in Congo last year, including efforts to disinfect villages and contain the disease by contacting families of victims.

Blogger “Woody,” a humanitarian worker in Congo, discusses the current outbreak, writing that even more Congolese die as a result of extreme poverty and lack of basic healthcare.

American blogger “Thomas” writes that the outbreak would not have occurred had the international community acted to end the conflict in Congo long ago.

Blogger “Greg Laden” writes about recent scientific discoveries that he hopes could lead to the development of a treatment for Ebola.

View an interactive map of disease hotspots in DR Congo and elsewhere in Africa here.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user cyclopsr under a Creative Commons license.

AUDIO: Elizabeth Shelburne of GlobalPost discusses South Africa’s efforts to deal with tuberculosis.

A tuberculosis patient at the Botsabelo Hospital in Lesotho.

South Africa has one of the highest rates of tuberculosis (TB) infection worldwide and has declared a national emergency in response to the disease.

TB is a source of stigma in the country, which forcibly quarantines patients.

Countries must weigh the civil liberties of patients infected with the airborne disease against the greater public’s health interests.

Blogger “Peter” writes about the new home care for patients with Extreme Drug Resistant Tuberculosis (XDR-TB).

The “Encyclopedia of Earth” blog argues that environmental risk factors must be addressed to solve the TB problem, saying that one group has helped families pay for an additional room to house the infected patient — thus lessening the chance of spreading infection.

Blogger “Rick Stark” criticizes South Africa’s practice of dumping infected migrant workers across the border, arguing that the “cruel” tactic only augments the spread of the disease.

For more on migrant labor’s role in South Africa’s tuberculosis problem, read a recent report: The mining sector, tuberculosis and migrant labor in Southern Africa [PDF].

Blogger “Ethan Zuckerman” posts the work of photographer James Nachtwey, who chronicled the lives of XDR-TB patients in Southern Africa in an effort to raise awareness and put a human face on the disease.

South African blogger “Ridwan” despairs at the average life span in his country, made worse by TB prevalence and poor medical care.

Drug-resistant TB dominated U.S. headlines over a year ago, when one infected man flew to and from Europe and another was imprisoned for failing to wear a protective mask in public.

In the 1950s, New York confined uncooperative TB patients to Rikers Island to prevent the spread of the disease.

In 2006, about 9.2 million new cases of TB were reported — a 40 percent increase from 1990. The United Nations fears that the global financial crisis will limit medical research and the rate of infection will worsen still.

For more on the global health challenge that tuberculosis presents, see the World Health Organization’s 2008 report on tuberculosis control.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user Open Society Institute under a Creative Commons license.