Beijing (Reuters) - Chinese police shut down the opening of a gay and lesbian culture festival on Friday, an action participants said highlighted deep-rooted intolerance toward homosexuality.

The festival was to be a weekend of films, plays, exhibitions and seminars on the issue of homosexuality, but police raided the opening reception on Friday night and participants said they were still negotiating on whether any of the events could go ahead.

"They didn't have permission to hold this event," said a police official surnamed He.

But participants said the real issue was the subject matter.

"The attitude in China is still very conservative. They say it's illegal, but what's illegal about wanting to understand more about these issues?" asked a film student surnamed Cui.

"They are just conformists, not pluralists. They don't tolerate dissent," said another student, 24-year-old Xiao Ming.

Homosexuality was listed as a mental disorder in China until 2001 and even state media have reported the heavy pressure gays are under to stay in the closet because of traditional beliefs that homosexuality is immoral.

A gay-themed film festival was forced to shift from its venue at Beijing University earlier this year under pressure from police. Friday's event had also moved venues at the last minute, probably in an effort to avoid being shut down.

"The police think it's a bad influence. But it's obviously discrimination," said Zhao Yongliang, among participants who retreated to a nearby restaurant after the raid.

Police also briefly detained a journalist covering the event, demanding, "Are you gay?".

This year, Shanghai's Fudan University launched two courses on homosexual health and research to try to shatter common stereotypes about homosexuals, but Zhao said many gays in China still did not talk about their sexual orientation.

"Most are still a secret but it's a secret that gets bigger and bigger," he said.

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20 December 2005
Voice of America

Human rights groups are protesting a recent crackdown on China's gay and lesbian community, which has been slowly moving into the open.

In 2001, China took homosexuality off the list of official mental illnesses. Human Rights Watch's Scott Long points to this as among recent positive moves. But he says Chinese authorities have taken a step back when they banned what would have been the country's first-ever gay and lesbian culture festival.

"Until about four years ago, the Chinese medical profession was still following a version of the diagnostic manual that still listed homosexuality as an illness," said Mr. Long. "That has also changed, but that may not have filtered down into how individual doctors or just ordinary people perceive it. Things have certainly gotten better, though, but this latest raid shows that the government can still step back, as well as forward."

Human Rights Watch and the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network wrote joint letters to the Chinese government, decrying what they described as human rights abuses. Chinese authorities had banned organizers from using the originally planned venue for the event, which included several days of films, plays, exhibitions and seminars about homosexuality. Then, on Friday, when some organizers tried to move the festival to a private bar, police raided the bar and forcibly shut down the event.

The Chinese embassy in Washington did not return phone calls seeking comment.

The executive director of the Canadian organization, Joanne Cseste, said she was especially disappointed at the crackdown because she felt the festival had the potential to raise awareness of a still very sensitive subject among the Chinese public.

"And in that sense, it's a real shame because this was not a bunch of people with megaphones on the street," she said. "These people, these were artworks and films and other things that could really reach out to the public."

One of the most important issues for gays and lesbians is the ability to be open about their sexual orientation, according to the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission's Paula Ettelbrick. She adds that this also applies to homosexuals in China.

"If the community there feels that they need to find a space in public, certainly in a large city like Beijing, and that they are ready as a group to be out, that in many ways is the most important feature," she noted. "Nobody around the world is ready for gay people to come out. We had to eventually, as a community, in every piece of the world, find the time in which we needed to be more out publicly and to start changing awareness and attitudes about who we are."

Ms. Ettelbrick adds that she thinks crackdowns like the one in China are an indication of what she describes as the increased visibility of homosexuals around the world. She adds her belief that many countries feel that homosexuality is a western concept that is being imposed on them.

"And I think there is a concern on the part of other parts of the world, and a resistance to gay people, not just as gay people, but as encroachments from the west," she added. "And that's a very clear signal that comes out of many parts of the world."

Official statistics list approximately 30 million homosexuals in China, although the state-run Xinhua news agency acknowledges that few Chinese will openly say if they are gay or lesbian.

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The Times (UK)
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,25689-1936654,00.html

Liu Chunxiao and his partner were calm when police shut down the opening of China's first gay and lesbian culture festival yesterday. Mr Liu may be 19 but he is more than familiar with sexual discrimination.

Organisers had planned to hold their festival of films, plays, exhibitions and seminars on homosexuality at one of the trendiest artistic communities in China. The venue was to be the studios and warehouses at the 798 complex of converted factory buildings in northeastern Beijing. Most of the capital's hippest and most happening events take place among the grey concrete blocks, fashionable French bistro-style bars and industrial pipes of 798.

Police notified studio owners that the event would not be allowed to proceed. Li Yinhe, a distinguished sociologist from the prestigious Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, had been invited to address the opening, but had to stay away.

The group of about 30 participants bold enough to reveal their sexuality in China's conservative society were undeterred by the cancellation. They decided to move their ground-breaking event to On/Off, a Beijing gay bar.

Police swarmed around the bar even before the group arrived. "This bar is temporarily closed for review," police told would-be festival participants.

A few gays and lesbians retreated to a nearby hotpot restaurant. One man who gave his name as Mr Sun said: "There is no reason for the police to stop us. We are doing nothing to disturb social stability."

The members of China's gay community had little doubt as to why On/Off had been closed. Mr Cui, a film student, said: "The attitude in China is still very conservative. They say it's illegal, but what's illegal about wanting to understand more about these issues?"

The police were clear. "They didn't have permission to hold this event," said an official.

Homosexuality has not been listed as a crime on China's statute books since the 1949 communist takeover. However, homosexuals were routinely arrested under a "hooliganism" clause in the law until a reform in 1997 removed this provision. Then, in April 2001, the biggest single advance in gay rights came with the declassification of homosexuality as a mental disorder by the Chinese Psychiatric Association, meaning that rather than being officially treated as a "perversion" requiring psychiatric care, it was re-categorised as something similar to an "identity crisis".

Homosexuality is frowned upon in communist China's puritan society but was far from unknown in imperial eras. One common name for homosexuals in traditional China was "broken sleeve", referring to an incident in which an emperor in ancient times sliced off his sleeve on which his adored male concubine was sleeping so as not to wake him.

But today there is much less understanding. Mr Sun's father said he had accompanied his homosexual son to the event to try to understand him. He said he had set up a hotline in the northeastern city of Dalian to help "parents of comrades".

The word comrade ­ more usually associated with communist Party members ­ has become in some circles a term for homosexuals in China.

He said: "The family of a homosexual comes under social pressure and just the curiosity of your neighbour is enough to drive you crazy."

Liu Chunxiao had travelled from Inner Mongolia and his partner from the northeastern coastal town of Qinhuangdao to attend the festival. The young men smiled shyly, explaining that they kept in touch every day by internet. But Mr Liu, a student, said he was very discreet. "I make sure other people don't know because the atmosphere isn't very open."

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Actually I didn't know this (the closure) until I went there and wanted to attend the festival this morning.

I changed buses and got to the unfamiliar area, wandered around in the cold wind to look for the venue, but I couldn't find it. And then I went online and learned the disgusting news.

I felt angry.

Not because of wasting time, but because of the authorities' attitude. I usually don't concern politics with the excuse that I can't even manage my own stuff. And though I'm clearly aware of the reality of Chinese society, yet it seems nobody is violating my life.

But when I decided to come out and participated more in gay activities, I realize it! They fear homosexuality. The authorities just want to confine Chinese homosexual people into darkness and make their souls distort and suffer.

They regarded homosexuality as "unstable factor" which may, in their view, undermines what they call "harmonious society".

But, it's unfair. The harmoniousness is superficial. Can we sacrifice the minority's rights to wangle the fake stability? A real harmonious society can only be obtained by facing every problem squarely and doing our utmost to tackle them. I believe this will be changed someday, though there is a long way to go. We need to keep trying.