TURKEY BARS GAY TOURISTS THEN APOLOGIZES
Turkish police barred about 800 mostly American gay tourists from visiting sites near the Aegean port of Kusadasi Sept. 6.
Turkish press reports said the authorities feared the gays would disrupt a traditional all-male wrestling contest at Edirne near the Bulgarian border. Earlier this year, organizers of the contest expressed disgust when a Turkish gay "bears" organization announced plans to attend the event.
Most of the American tourists were rounded up and forced to return to their Atlantis Events cruise ship; others were prevented from leaving the ship.
U.S. State Department officials protested the incident to the Turkish Foreign Ministry and told U.S. consul general Frank Urbancic to join the gays for the remainder of their trip to prevent further problems, State Department spokesman Philip Reeker told The New York Times.
A spokeswoman for the Turkish Embassy in Washington scoffed at suggestions the tourists were mistreated because they are gay. But gay activist David Mixner, who spoke with the tour organizer, told the Times: "They were not allowed off the ship because they were gay. This was not a secret. There was no issue other than that."
According to other reports, the mayor of Kusadasi boarded the ship later in the day to apologize for the mistreatment, and Turkish Tourism Minister Erkan Mumcu told local media: "We are not in a position to make judgments about peoples' sexual preferences. They are in Istanbul now, and I think they will end their visit without meeting any more problems."
Police met the group in Istanbul and escorted them throughout their visit there to prevent further troubles. Nineteen people who tried to harass the group in the city's historic Sultanahmet quarter were arrested, according to a Reuters dispatch.
BRAZILIAN GAY GROUP RECEIVES LETTER BOMB
Police defused a letter bomb sent to Sao Paulo, Brazil's Gay Pride Parade Association Sept. 6.
The return address was for a skinhead, neo-Nazi group, police said.
Another letter bomb bearing the same return address was received Sept. 5 by Amnesty International. It, too, was diffused by police. On the same day, two lawmakers who head human-rights commissions received hate mail from the same address.
The skinhead group has declared a new campaign against gays, Blacks, and migrants from the northeast of the nation, according to Brazilian newspapers.
MP TAKES TEST AIDS VACCINE
British Member of Parliament Dr. Evan Harris was the first of 20 British volunteers injected with an experimental HIV vaccine Aug. 31 in London.
The trial is being conducted by the Medical Research Council's Human Immunology Unit. The vaccine is supposed to stimulate T- cells to kill a new HIV infection before it takes hold.
"I am confident the vaccine is safe and that it will prime the immune system to be able to protect against HIV infection," Harris, a former family physician, said. "I am taking part in this trial as I believe that finding an effective vaccine is our best hope to control this devastating disease."
GAYS CAUGHT ON BRITISH BASE FACE PROSECUTION
Ten sunbathers found nude on Britain's Episkopi Sovereign Base Area in Cyprus will appear in military court Sept. 25.
Two of the six males allegedly were having sex with each other and, under Cypriot law, could be imprisoned for up to five years.
The other eight individuals face a fine of $120 for indecent exposure.
GAY GROUP FORMED ON GIBRALTAR
Gibraltar, a 2.25 square mile ( 5.8 square kilometer ) British dependency located at the south end of the Iberian Peninsula, has its first gay group, called Gib Gay Rights.
Spokesman Felix Alvarez said: "I am appalled at the active neglect that homosexual people in Gibraltar receive from politicians and political parties alike. For too long, gays, who number up to 3,000 in Gibraltar, have been completely and cynically overlooked. This cannot continue."
Alvarez called on gays "to withdraw their loyalty and support now from political parties which do not publicly and actively support gay men and women" and "to withdraw their vote from those parties which neither support gays nor make manifest commitments to them."
"Politicians and bigots in any and all institutions must hear a clear message: discrimination and prejudice are just not acceptable in Gibraltar in the 21st century," Alvarez said.
