PRESS RELEASE May 18, 2005
Swedish/Norwegian music and text on 1st International Day Against Homophobia:
Stockholm -- A Swedish and Norwegian rainbow cultural ceremony took place in the Swedish capital on May 17th -- the 1st International Day against Homophobia -- with Norwegian opera singer Björn Haugan presenting the same song he sang at a ceremony in the Nazi concentration camp of Mauthausen in Austria in 2002 honoring the homosexuals who perished in the death camps.
Bill Schiller, of Tupilak (Nordic organization of homosexual cultural workers) and of the ILGCN (International Lesbian & Gay Cultural Network) Information Secretariat in Stockholm, presented IDAHO greetings from groups in such countries as Bulgaria and the dictatorship of Belarus – mentioning the planned rainbow cultural festivals-in-exile for Belarus in Stockholm in September and London in October.
He also presented examples of homophobic violence claiming victims around the world – from Spainish poet Frederico Garcia Lorca to murdered young gays in Sweden and the U.S. to a gay soldier in Iraq -- brutally raped by others in the barracks and sent to his death on the mine fields.
Downtown Rainbow Rally
Some participants of the Tupilak/ILGCN afternoon cultural ceremony then joined a rally for IDAHO in a downtown Stockholm square arranged by the youth section of the Swedish national LBGT rights organization, RFSL.
Speakers there included the Social Democratic minister of discrimination questions and the minister for integration, the head of the opposition Left Party, a leader of the new Swedish Feminist Party, members of the Swedish Parliament’s LBGT group and Swedish lesbian and gay activists.
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More information: www.tupilak.se
Photos of Tupilak/ILGCN event available from the Swedish newspaper,
Stockholmsfria Tidningen.
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Tupilak (Nordic organization of lesbian & gay cultural workers),ILGCN (International Lesbian & Gay Cultural Network) Information SecretariatNordic Homo Council,Nordic Rainbow Humanists
