News
Members of Russian HIV/AIDS group attacked
Activist alleges police said they did not see any evidence that a crime took place.
Two masked men on Nov. 3 attacked members of a Russian HIV/AIDS group at its St. Petersburg office. (By David Crawshaw via Wikimedia Commons.)
Anastasia Smirnova of the Russian LGBT Network said in an e-mail to LGBT rights advocates that two masked men with air guns and baseball bats attacked those who were attending a social gathering at the St. Petersburg office of LaSky, a Russian HIV/AIDS group that serves men who have sex with men. The advocate noted two people were injured during the attack.
Smirnova said police arrived, but they “left right away” because “they did not see any evidence of the crime.”
Fontanka, a Russian news website, cited an official with the Russian Interior Ministry who confirmed the incident took place.
“Pograms are becoming a reality,” Smirnova said. “Now it is not migrants, but the St. Petersburg office of LaSky.”
The attack took place against the backdrop of ongoing outrage over Russia’s LGBT rights record ahead of the 2014 Winter Olympics that will take place in Sochi, Russia, in February.
President Vladimir Putin in June signed a broadly worded law that bans gay propaganda to minors. A second statute that bans foreign same-sex couples and any couple from a country in which gays and lesbians can legally marry from adopting Russian children took effect in July.
A 2012 law requires LGBT groups and other non-governmental organizations that receive funding from outside Russia to register as a “foreign agent.”
Activists maintain the deaths of two men in Volgograd and on the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia’s Far East earlier this year underscore the fact that anti-LGBT violence remains a pervasive problem in the country.
Police in St. Petersburg on Saturday arrested 40 LGBT advocates and a group of nationalists who challenged them during a gay rights rally. Authorities in May arrested 30 gay rights activists who tried to stage a Pride celebration outside Moscow City Hall.
Officials in Murmansk in July arrested Kris van der Veen and three other Dutch LGBT rights advocates for violating the country’s gay propaganda law while they were filming a documentary on Russian gay life. Authorities fined the activists 3,000 rubles or roughly $93 and banned them from entering Russia for three years.
The two men who attacked Dutch diplomat Onno Elderenbosch inside his Moscow apartment last month drew a heart with an arrow through it and the LGBT acronym in lipstick on a mirror in his home.
Putin said during an Oct. 28 press conference in Sochi that gays and lesbians will not suffer discrimination during the Winter Olympics, even though Russian authorities have previously indicated they plan to enforce the gay propaganda law during the games.
“It is hard to imagine how people can be welcomed equally regardless of sexual orientation when such a law… is in place,” Smirnova told reporters during an Oct. 29 conference call the LGBT advocacy group All Out hosted.
District of Columbia
Mayor Bowser signs bill requiring insurers to cover PrEP
‘This is a win in the fight against HIV/AIDS’
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser on March 20 signed a bill approved by the D.C. Council that requires health insurance companies to cover the costs of HIV prevention or PrEP drugs for D.C. residents at risk for HIV infection.
Like all legislation approved by the Council and signed by the mayor, the bill, called the PrEP D.C. Amendment Act, was sent to Capitol Hill for a required 30-day congressional review period before it takes effect as D.C. law.
Gay D.C. Council member Zachary Parker (D-Ward 5) last year introduced the bill.
Insurance coverage for PrEP drugs has been provided through coverage standards included in the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare. But AIDS advocacy organizations have called on states and D.C. to pass their own legislation requiring insurance coverage of PrEP as a safeguard in case federal policies are weakened or removed by the Trump administration, which has already reduced federal funding for HIV/AIDS-related programs.
Like legislation passed by other states, the PrEP D.C. Amendment Act requires insurers to cover all PrEP drugs approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Studies have shown that PrEP drugs, which can be taken as pills or by injection just twice a year, are highly effective in preventing HIV infection.
“I think this is a win for our community,” Parker said after the D.C. Council voted unanimously to approve the bill on its first vote on the measure in February. “And this is a win in the fight against HIV/AIDS.”
Vice President JD Vance and his wife, second lady Usha Vance, will visit Hungary next week.
An announcement the White House released on Thursday said the Vances will be in Budapest, the Hungarian capital, from April 7-8.
JD Vance “will hold bilateral meetings with” Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. The announcement further indicates the vice president “will also deliver remarks on the rich partnership between the United States and Hungary.”
The Vances will travel to Hungary less than a week before the country’s parliamentary elections take place on April 12.
Orbán, who has been in office since 2010, and his Fidesz-KDNP coalition government have faced widespread criticism over its anti-LGBTQ crackdown.
The Associated Press notes polls indicate Orbán is trailing Péter Magyar and his center-right Tisza party.
President Donald Trump removed Attorney General Pam Bondi from her post Thursday, following growing criticism over how she and the Department of Justice handled a range of issues, including matters related to sex offender and Trump ally Jeffrey Epstein.
Trump announced Bondi’s removal on Truth Social, where he also said Todd Blanche will serve as acting head of the Justice Department.
“Pam Bondi is a great American patriot and a loyal friend, who faithfully served as my attorney general over the past year,” Trump wrote on the platform. “Pam did a tremendous job overseeing a massive crackdown on crime across our country, with murders plummeting to their lowest level since 1900.”
Trump was seen as recently as Wednesday with the now-former attorney general at a Supreme Court hearing on citizenship.
The decision contrasts with Trump’s previous public praise of Bondi, the 87th U.S. attorney general and former 37th attorney general of Florida, who served in that role from 2011-2019 before joining the Trump-Vance administration. He has frequently lauded her loyalty and said he speaks with her often. Bondi was also one of president’s defense lawyers during his first impeachment trial.
Privately, however, Trump had grown frustrated that Bondi was not “moving quickly enough” to prosecute critics and political adversaries he wanted to face criminal charges, according to multiple sources. The New York Times reported that her inability to charge former FBI Director James B. Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James with any crimes is a large factor in the president’s choice to fire her from the government’s primary law enforcement agency.
The move comes as Trump has sought to minimize public turmoil within his administration, avoiding the perception of a revolving-door Cabinet that defined his first term.
Lee Zeldin, a former Republican congressman from New York who unsuccessfully ran for governor, has emerged as a leading contender to lead the Justice Department. He has been one of Trump’s most reliable allies.
“He’s our secret weapon,” Trump said of Zeldin in February during a White House event promoting the coal industry, adding, “He’s getting those approvals done in record-setting time.”
Bondi has also growing faced scrutiny from Congress.
The House Oversight Committee recently subpoenaed her to testify about the department’s handling of certain files, where she declined to answer key questions during a contentious House Judiciary Committee hearing in February.
The Tampa native has a long history of opposing LGBTQ rights through her roles in government. As Florida attorney general, she fought against the legalization of same-sex marriage, arguing it would cause “serious public harm,” pushing forward a legal battle that cost taxpayers nearly half a million dollars. She also asked the Florida Supreme Court to overturn a lower court ruling that found the state’s same-sex marriage ban unconstitutional.
More recently, Bondi established a “Title IX Special Investigations Team” within the Justice Department focused on restricting transgender women and girls from participating in women’s and girls’ sports teams and accessing facilities aligned with their gender identity. She also told Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia to turn over the medical records of anyone under 19 who received gender-affirming care.
Her removal follows Trump’s decision last month to oust another controversial female Cabinet figure, Kristi Noem.
Mayor Bowser signs bill requiring insurers to cover PrEP
JD Vance to travel to Hungary next week
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