The homophobia, stupid...

We don’t event want to mention his name, privacy is a great value to protect and much more for children. But we don’t want to miss the opportunity to show our solidarity with him; he is only 6 years old and he already knows what means to be discriminated and suffer homophobic hatred. Harassment, contempt and emptiness have become part of his daily reality.

This is much more than a simple and individual case, this is the narrative experienced by millions of people all around the world suffering all the different levels of homophobic perversion and hatred.

Although homosexual marriage has been passed and it has a strong social support, homophobia has not been defeated yet in Spain as the following data shows:

• About 30% of students has carried out homophobic actions such as insults or pejorative  comments.
• About 15% has thrown out objects, hit or isolated their classmates as consequence of their sexual orientation.
• 3% has been part of homophobic beatings.

Homophobic speech damages, even though Alcala de Henares Bishop would not understand this. As it was clearly demonstrated in the homily he addressed a few months ago.

In our opinion there is a contradiction between ethic-moral attitude and his words. We wonder if he would be touched by this data:

• 78 countries out of 193 still have legislation criminalising same-sex consensual acts between adults. Punishments range from a number of lashes (e.g. Iran), two months of prison (e.g. Algeria) to life sentence (e.g. Bangladesh) or even death (Iran, Mauritania, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Yemen). 

Alcala de Henares Bishop should analyze the limits of his own compassion. Superstitions, indifference to suffering and human condition criminalization, are examples of immorality. It is easy to preach at home while thousands of Christians are being persecuted as consequence of their faith exactly in the same way that other thousands of human beings are being persecuted because of their sexual orientation.

Our personal commitment with Human Rights make us stand by all of them.

We want to express our concern about the trivialization of this cause, because to overcome homophobia means for millions to live or die, freedom or oppression, dignity or humiliation. Activists all around the world are fighting every day and putting their lives at risk in order to defend the lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transsexuals rights.

Every single day from the beginning, Movement Against Intolerance has been active against homophobia offering legal and social advice to victims of homophobic discrimination, preventing homophobic attitudes at school, radio broadcasting against intolerance, working with media, lobbying policy makers, making public demonstrations and researching on homophobic hate crimes. We also support LGTB movement participating in international meetings whose participant States “are not sensitive enough” with the homophobic issue or are just homophobic. 

World Refugee Day - 20 June

20 June each year is dedicated to raising awareness of the situation of refugees throughout the world.

About 43 million people have been obligated to left their original countries as consequence of violence, threats and persecution because of their nationality, religion, race, political ideology or social group membership. 

Movement Against Intolerance shares the complaint made by UNITED FOR INTERCULTURAL ACTION since 1993 about  the Fatal Realities of 'Fortress Europe'.

Since then, UNITED has been monitoring the deadly results of the building of 'Fortress Europe' by making a list of the refugees and migrants who have died in their attempt of entering Europe. About 16,264 people.

Over the Mediterranean Sea and the Strait of Gibraltar transit thousands of people each year and the resulting data are also terrible: At least 198 migrants died in 2011 in the Coasts of Andalusia.

The rise of genocide memorials

Members of England's European Championship squad have visited the former Auschwitz-Birkenau Nazi death camps. This comes as memorials and museums marking the sites of mass killings around the world witnessed an increase in visitors.

A delegation led by Wayne Rooney and England manager Roy Hodgson took time out from training on Friday to visit the notorious death camp Nazi Germany operated on Polish soil after invading its neighbour during World War II.

Another group headed by captain Steven Gerrard travelled to Oskar Schindler's factory in Krakow.

The visits received a mixed reaction from commentators, with the Daily Mirror's Oliver Holt saying the "harrowing visit... made an extremely powerful statement" at a time "football is wrestling with new and grave concerns over racism among players and supporters".

But for the Daily Mail's Melanie Phillips, it was a "deeply distasteful football PR stunt", which was "intended to cleanse the besmirched reputation of English football".

Yet England's players are not the first footballers to visit Auschwitz. Holland and Italy, who are also camped in Krakow, have already been, as have representatives of the German team.

And they join the millions of tourists who have walked through the iron gates at Auschwitz bearing the legend Arbeit Macht Frei (work makes you free) to pay their respects.

Last year, a record 1.4 million people visited the site, while Holocaust memorials all over the world are also seeing numbers soar.

At the same time, other sites of massacres or genocide and cemeteries are becoming increasingly popular with tourists.

BBC News - 11/06/2012

Greek far-right Golden Dawn MP wanted for assault

Greek prosecutors have issued an arrest warrant for the spokesman of the far-right Golden Dawn party after he slapped a left-wing politician in the face on live television.

Ilias Kasidiaris, who was elected to Greece's parliament in last month's elections, was debating with two female politicians on a chat show.

Video footage shows him throwing a glass of water at one of the women.

When the other intervened, he slapped her in the face three times.

Anti-immigration

Mr Kasidiaris appeared to have been provoked when Rena Dourou of the radical left-wing Syriza party mentioned his alleged involvement in an armed robbery in 2007.

He jumped up and threw a glass of water across the table at her, a You Tube clip of the Antenna television channel showed.

When Liana Kanelli of the Greek Communist party, the KKE, apparently threw a newspaper at him, he responded by slapping her around the face with three right-left blows.

A journalist at Antenna told the AFP news agency that colleagues were unable to stop Mr Kasidiaris from leaving the building.

Golden Dawn has risen in profile after it won just under 7% of votes, or 21 seats, in parliamentary elections on 6 May.

The party's staunch anti-immigration policy has led to accusations of racism and instigating violent attacks against immigrants.

Golden Dawn's leader, Nikos Michaloliakos, has also denied the existence of gas chambers at Auschwitz and questioned the Holocaust, but he rejects the label neo-Nazi.

Greece's political system has been thrown into dissarray as the results of last month's elections failed to give any party enough seats in parliament to form a coalition.

Another vote is due to be held on June 17 to try and end a political impasse that eurozone leaders say is harming Greece's ability to tackle its economic crisis.

BBC News

Germany and others at Euro 2012 plan Auschwitz visits

The visit by Germany coach Joachim Loew and some of his players to Auschwitz on Friday will be gesture for tolerance and against racial hatred that other teams at Euro 2012 aim to follow.

"We are aware of the responsibility we have representing Germany when we travel to Poland and Ukraine," Germany team manager Oliver Bierhoff said of the visit by the national federation DFB delegation.

Loew will be accompanied by team captain Philipp Lahm and his two Polish-born team-mates Miroslav Klose and Lukas Podolski, for the visit to the memorial at the former Nazi extermination camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau.

The England team, which is to stay in Krakow, had already planned a visit to Auschwitz, about 60 kilometres away, while the Italia and Dutch teams were also planning visits.

In the host countries - the historically-minded Poland and Ukraine - the past casts a long shadow, particularly for German players.

The team visits will be of a private character, with museum officials to avoid any media spectacle at the site where the Nazis killed some 1.3 million people, mostly Jews, during World War II in occupied Poland.

Visitors to the museum in southern Poland during the tournament will also have to leave behind football accessories like team scarves, horns and flags.

For Irving Roth, who survived Auschwitz and also the Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany as a 14-year-old from the Czechoslovak town of Kosice, the debate over whether teams should visit the site was superfluous.

"I think everyone should come here," he said.

"Why else do we have symbols of good and evil? To remind ourselves, to learn from them, to ask how that could have happened. Auschwitz was the ultimate killing machine, and these sportsmen should visit the camp in a fully official way."

Bernhard Storch, whose family was murdered by the Nazis, said: "All players, all teams should see this place,"

Storch, who is from Bochnia, near Krakow, but now lives in the United States, added: "They should see it, and they should learn. Nobody will reproach the German players with anything, and I think they will still sleep well and be able to score goals.

"There is nothing here that they should be afraid of. It is very important that they should come here."

Edie, a 17-year-old from Dallas, Texas, who visited Krakow with a Jewish youth group, thinks the visit by Germany players, who are only a few years older, would be important.

"Of course Nazi crimes have nothing to do with them personally! But it's important to pay tribute to the victims and to show we disagree with those who deny the Holocaust."

If the Germany team, with its players of diverse ethnic backgrounds, should visit Auschwitz, that would also be a strong symbol for the "other Germany," says Amid, 24, who is from Israel.

"Current Germany is different and acts differently from Nazi Germany. And if the German national team symbolically honours the victims of Nazi Germany with their visit, this is also a clear gesture for those 'fans' who spread extreme-right and racist slogans in stadiums," he said.

Irving Roth, 83, still remembers well the pain he felt as a nine-year-old for no longer being allowed to play in the local football club because he was a Jew.

A visit to Auschwitz by the German team would also be a call for tolerance, a gesture against hatred of minorities, he said.

"They should not only come to Auschwitz, they should also see Birkenau, where the extermination happened," Roth says with a firm voice.

"And they should meet with a survivor who tells them of that time. I would volunteer to do that!"