Helem: Lebanese Protection for LGBT Boycott Jerusalem World Pride

Jerusalem World Pride 2006:

No Pride in Occupation

World Pride is a global event that aims to bring together sexual minorities from all over the world in order to protest the continued discrimination and violence that they face legally, culturally, politically, and socially. Helem, Lebanese Protection for LGBT, supports the rights of all lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people to love and live in freedom, and to demonstrate publicly to demand their rights. However, this July 2006, the unfortunate decision was made to hold World Pride in Jerusalem under the slogan "Love without Borders".

Helem supports the global movement to boycott Jerusalem World Pride 2006 as part of the international boycott of, and divestment from Israel. Helem strongly condemns holding World Pride in a city beleaguered by violence and conflict, and where the words "Love without Borders" belie a reality of separation, ubiquitous borders, destruction of homes and livelihoods, land theft, gross human rights violations, and the apartheid policies of Israel.

Human rights are universal, indivisible, and interdependent, and the rights of gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgenders should not be placed in competition with the long struggle of the Palestinian people, including Palestinian LGBT people, for self-determination, for the right to return to their homes, and the struggle against apartheid and the occupation of their lands. Helem recognizes that all human rights violations are interconnected and that an injustice anywhere is an injustice everywhere. The fight for the rights of sexual minorities is therefore inextricably tied into the fight for all human liberation.

We would also like to state our support of the initiative organized by Aswat (Palestinian Gay Women) and other progressive Palestinian and international organizations, who offered an open invitation to those who decide to come to Jerusalem for World Pride to speak with LGBT Palestinians, visit unrecognized and demolished Palestinian villages, meet with anti-occupation activists, and join an alternative parade demonstrating against the apartheid wall.

Helem's Mission Statement: Helem leads a peaceful struggle for the liberation of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) community in Lebanon from all sorts of legal, social and cultural discrimination.