Hate Crimes

Hate crime in Azerbaijan’s capital Baku? Double murder of two transvestites

Via Tert.am, Vesti.az reports on double murder in Baku of two transvestites. Source in Azerbaijan’s capital police district suggested of their "possible non-traditional sexual orientation.”

As per reports, they were wearing women’s wigs, lingerie, and having bright colored nail manicure. They were found dead with multiple stab wounds.

Russian to English Google translation

In Yasamal district of Baku for the day with a second murder, but this time double.

It was reported Vesti.Az in the 27th branch of the Police District.

White separatist group posts anti-gay hate fliers in greater Cincinnati

COVINGTON, Ky. – This Ohio River city, across the water from Cincinnati, has recently been plagued by reports of hate crimes against the LGBT community.

Now comes word that someone apparently supportive of the National Alliance, a white separatist group founded by William Luther Pierce of Hillsboro, W. Va., has illegally posted dozens of anti-gay hate fliers in Covington’s Mainstrasse neighborhood, where there is a significant LGBT presence.

California Senate passes new hate crimes bill protecting against legal loopholes

SACRAMENTO – The State Senate on Tuesday passed the Hate Crimes Protection Act (AB 1680) in a 22-13 bipartisan vote.

The bill would exempt hate crimes from mandatory arbitration clauses, often included in employment contracts and would prohibit contracts from requiring an individual to waive his or her legal rights and procedures, guaranteed under the Ralph Civil Rights Act and Bane Civil Rights Act, which provide protections for victims of hate crimes.

The bill is sponsored by Equality California and was introduced by Assemblymember Lori Saldaña, D-San Diego.

Arabic translation leads to hate crime charges in Chicago

CHICAGO -- Prosecutors have upgraded charges against two southwest suburban men who allegedly shouted anti-gay slurs as they attacked a woman outside a Hickory Hills restaurant.

Mohammad Shaban, 35, of Hickory Hills, and Akram Alshoweat, 25, of Oak Lawn, are now charged with felony hate crime and robbery in an alleged attack on a woman June 28. Prosecutors originally had charged the men with a misdemeanor count of battery, a spokesman for the Cook County state's attorney's office said Tuesday.

Anti-gay hate crimes in California drop 22% in 2009

LOS ANGELES -- Anti-gay hate crimes in California fell 22.1 in 2009, part of a downward trend in overall hate crimes, according to an annual report released this week.

The 2009 annual report shows that hate crimes in California fell by more than 20% last year, which Attorney General Edmund G. Brown Jr. called "encouraging," but he warned that we are still a long way from ending bigotry and prejudice.

Staten Island gay couple are latest victims of hate crimes as bias attacks spike

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- A gay couple who innocently made a late-night stop at a White Castle in Staten Island was among the latest in a skyrocketing number of hate crime victims in the city.

The number of bias attacks has ballooned from 111 to 200 through July 11 - an 80% surge from the same time period in 2009. A pocket of Port Richmond has been ground zero for such attacks, with six Mexican immigrants beaten there in separate incidents since April.

For married couple Luis and Richard Vieira, the attack on July 7 began with a homophobic slur.

LGBT hate crimes decline in 2009, but murder rate is second-highest in decade

NEW YORK -- Hate crimes against LGBT people are down in the U.S., but the 22 murders are the second-highest annual total over a 10-year period.

Details are documented in “Hate Violence Against the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer Communities in the United States in 2009,” a report released Tuesday by the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs.

Of the 22 murders in 2009, half of those were transgender women.

Vandals tear down Ohio’s first gay historic marker

DAYTON, Ohio — Vandals have torn down the first and only Ohio historical marker for a gay or lesbian person and one local activist is calling it a hate crime.

The marker recognizing Natalie Barney — literary patron and lesbian author who lived most of her life in Paris — was knocked down in Cooper Park some time before Wednesday, July 7, said John Gantt, executive director of the Greater Dayton LGBT Center.

“A friend noticed it had been torn down and told me about it,” Gantt said. “I called police and they came and took a report.”

Senegal's LGBT community facing escalating arrests and violence

In Senegal, same-sex activity has, since 1965, been punishable by up to five years imprisonment. Enforcement of this law has escalated in the past two years, with the arrests of more than 50 people and trials of at least 16 individuals suspected of same-sex activity or being part of the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Trans community.

Simultaneously, state-sanctioned violence and anti-gay rhetoric in the media against individuals believed to be LGBT has increased.

UPDATE: Two Marines who severely beat gay man may be charged with hate crime

ATLANTA -- The Anti-Defamation League on Wednesday, June 16, commended the Savannah police and federal authorities for investigating whether the assault of a 26-year-old gay man by two U.S. Marines meets the criteria for prosecution under the new Matthew Shepard James Byrd Jr. Federal Hate Crimes Act.

SDGLN original posting.