by Christopher Cappiello

Berlin sees Europe’s first gay nursing home

More than 10 years in the planning, Europe’s first gay nursing home opened in Berlin in January, with the enthusiastic support of the city’s openly gay mayor, Klaus Wowereit, the German Press Agency (DPA) reports.

“When you’re old, the last thing that you want to do is to have to hide,” said Christian Hamm, the Berlin architect who proposed and designed the project. “And you certainly don’t want to give up your identity and live in some hostile environment, possibly sharing a room with someone who despises you.”

Hamm’s four-story building can accommodate 28 patients in rooms with private baths. The 45-year-old architect reportedly plans to build an entire complex for LGBT seniors, including apartments, assisted-living facilities, medical facilities and a wellness gym.

“All in all, it is a sheltered accommodation complex in the center of Berlin,” said Marco Pulver, a gay social worker, to DPA.

Wowereit was elected mayor in 2001 after announcing, “I’m gay and that’s good.” He has been an active advocate for the nursing home project since Hamm’s first plans were drafted more than six years ago.

“Berlin is a gay-friendly city, a city of tolerance,” Wowereit said to DPA. “And I represent our city with this message. Berlin has the biggest gay and lesbian scene in Germany, and we welcome gays of all ages.”

Gay mayor of Paris possible terrorist target

Based on cryptic e-mails sent to an Islamic website advocating terrorist attacks on Bertrand Delanoë, the gay mayor of Paris, police in the French capital confirmed that they have heightened security around the popular official.

“I am calm,” Delanoë said on French television. “I have the information I need, and I have complete confidence in the work of police headquarters vis-a-vis security problems in general, terrorism in particular and, finally, the protection of the mayor of Paris.”

The Socialist mayor is up for re-election in March, and many consider him a possible presidential candidate in four years. He survived a 2002 assassination attempt when he was stabbed by Azedine Berkane while greeting revelers during Paris’ Nuit Blanche (“White Night”) festivities. Among Berkane’s stated motives was a hatred of homosexuals.

The potential terrorist threat to Delanoë is part of a patchwork of recent Internet “chatter” threatening attacks on various French targets, including the Eiffel Tower, The Associated Press reports. Portuguese authorities alerted French counterterrorism officials in mid-January after intercepting short-wave radio messages urging attacks in France. According to the French newspaper Le Monde, the messages were “vague and confused,” but are being taken seriously by authorities.

Russian activists acquitted

On Jan. 11, a Moscow judge acquitted 13 gay activists who were arrested in December for “conducting a picket” without permission when they protested against President Vladimir Putin’s United Russia Party at a polling place on election day.

Judge Larisa Bogdanovich said none of the group had “agitation materials” with them, such as posters, signs or placards, and could not be convicted of picketing.

Among the 13 arrested was Nikolai Alekseyev, the organizer of Moscow’s Gay Pride events in recent years and a veteran of clashes with the city’s homophobic authorities. On the day he was arrested, Alekseyev wrote “No to homophobes! No to Luzhkov!” on his voting ballot and held it up for the press. Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov has blocked several Pride events in the city and in January 2007 referred to gay rights events as “satanic.”

Alekseyev called Judge Bogdanovich’s decision the “first considerable victory in courts in the legal fight with Moscow authorities.”

Gays jailed in Cameroon and Morocco

Three men convicted of homosexuality in Cameroon have been sentenced to six months of hard labor, the AP reported Jan. 16.

The three men—Lazare Baeeg, Emmanuel Balep and Tony Dikongue—have already endured five months of confinement since their arrest in August 2007.

“None of these people were caught in a homosexual act, so the court cannot condemn them for something they never did,” said attorney Alice Nkom, according to the AP. She said the conviction would be appealed.

Homosexuality is a crime in Cameroon, a relatively small but diverse country on the central west African coast.

In Morocco, an appeals court upheld the sentences of six men convicted of homosexuality following an alleged “gay wedding” in the northern Moroccan town of Ksar el Kebir in November 2007, Reuters reports.

Video footage of a man in drag dancing at the party incited protests in the streets of the predominantly Islamic country, with calls for harsh sentences. Moroccan law prohibits “lewd or unnatural acts” between people of the same sex, and sentences can run up to three years with heavy fines.

The appeals court upheld a 10-month sentence for the event’s alleged organizer, identified as Fouad Friret by Agence France-Presse. The other five men had their sentences reduced by between two and four months, according to defense attorney Mohamed Sebbar.

“It’s a very severe judgment because the case is empty, “ Sebbar told Reuters. “There is no proof that these men practiced homosexuality in the affair of Ksar el Kebir.”

Amnesty International has called for the release of all six men, identifying them as prisoners of conscience.