quote:

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It was an unpleasant incident at a Bishkek cafe that helped convince Sasha Kim that Kyrgyz lesbians had been silent for too long. “After this incident, when we were thrown out of the cafe like dogs, we decided to ... create an organization which could protect our rights," Kim said.

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[ 10 October 2005: Message edited by: Hephaestion ]

We get so little news from any of the Stans, and I think that that feeds the temptation in North America to think of the whole of Central Asia as some kind of lost world.

So in a sense, it is tonic to read this report and recognize how far along human-rights debates have come in a country with such a long recent history of tyrannical oppression. In that sense, Heph, I am tempted to see this glass as half-full rather than half-empty.

quote:

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But there are bright spots on the horizon for Kyrgyzstan’s lesbian community. Gay men’s groups who’ve been campaigning for ten years now insist that attitudes are changing.

Vladimir Tyupin from the Oasis youth foundation, which works to protect the rights of gay men, said his group now comes under less pressure from the authorities than in the past and is even expanding its activities to the more conservative south. “I think that lesbians will also be successful and they will be able to win people over,” he said. Despite the difficult times ahead, Labris members also remain hopeful that they will one day be accepted by Kyrgyz society.

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I mean, I would not have expected that in Kyrgyzstan, but then maybe I need to catch up. Politics there is obviously advancing faster than elsewhere in the region and there must be reasons for that -- I just don't know them.