Quote of the week:

“We can be optimistic about the end of the social engineering as driven by the Martin government.” —Bob Morrison, policy analyst at the Washington-based, anti-gay marriage and anti-abortion group the Family Research Council, on Stephen Harper’s victory Monday.

Gay Arabs get help

Helem, the first official Arab gay-rights group, is holding a workshop in Montreal this weekend. The meeting aims at reaching out to the city’s Arab LGBTs as well as informing the general public of the difficulties the organization faces.

Homosexuals are victims of discrimination in the Arab world and in some countries they are punished with death sentences. Organizers of Helem’s Montreal branch say the city’s Arab communities are equally homophobic. The group has received offensive phone calls in Arabic and many of their members don’t come out for fear of being ostracized.

“Arabs don’t want to accept LGBTs because they think being gay is a Western disease,” says Joelle, Helem’s Montreal secretary general, who requested the Mirror not publish her last name.

The workshop takes place Sunday, Jan. 29, at 3 p.m. in UQÀM’s Pavillon des Sciences de la gestion (315 Ste-Catherine E.), Room DR-200.

The event is free. Donations will be used to support a Lebanese gay man who fled his hometown for fear of persecution and is now seeking refugee status in Canada. » Irene Caselli

E-ntifada in Montreal

While much international media attention has been paid to Palestinian elections scheduled for this week, little attention has been given to the majority of Palestinians, who live in the diaspora, who have no vote.

“Nobody has organized out-of-country voting, as was done for Afghanistan and Iraq with much funding and much fanfare from the international community” says Palestinian-American activist Ali Abunimah. “So why should a Palestinian refugee in Montreal, or Lebanon, or Amman, care about elections in the Palestinian Authority? The PA is not designed to be a representative of all Palestinians collectively, so that leaves the majority of Palestinians unrepresented.”

A prolific media activist and co-founder of the Electronic Intifada (http://electronicintifada.net), Abunimah is in Montreal this week to discuss current events in the Middle East and how they’re covered by the Western press.

This Friday, Jan. 27, at 3 p.m., he speaks at McGill’s First People’s House (3505 Peel), and at 7 p.m. he’ll be at UQÀM’s Pavillon des Sciences de la gestion (315 Ste-Catherine E.), Room 110. For info call 398-6788. Both are free. » Christopher Hazou

Dads against judges

Stunt-crazy Fathers 4 Justice, a lobby group for fathers’ custody rights, plans to carry on even though its British progenitors have disbanded after some members of a splinter group were nailed planning to kidnap PM Tony Blair’s son Leo. But Montreal’s disgruntled dads have vowed to shelve such signature stunts as bridge blockages that brought them headlines last year.

“I don’t think we’ll see the need for that kind of action anymore,” says Yves Pageau, local F4J prez.

One consequence of the September Jacques-Cartier Bridge tie-up is that Pageau can no longer go to his own group’s meetings. That’s because leading member Andy Srougi attends, and a judge ordered the two separated until Srougi’s trial for the bridge business.

“It’s unreasonable,” says Pageau, no fan of our magistrates. “The judges are trying to divide us. They have this immense power and no one to report to.”

Pageau is also preoccupied with the case of Montreal F4J member Hermil Lebel, who has been held without trial since Nov. 17 for what Pageau claims is “trying to contact his children.” » Kristian Gravenor

Greenpeace at mid-life

In our current age of global warming, acid rain, diminishing wildlife habitat and all that other nasty business, there’s probably never been a better time to throw your support behind Greenpeace. Even better, many might argue, would be to stop whining and actually do something yourself about the sorry state of our ecology.

But what, you cry? Composting? Recycling? Walking or taking public transit more often? Sure, these are all good things, but where’s the fun, the entertainment? Well, thanks to local transgender performer Elle Ryker, the answer to these questions and more will be yours for the taking next week by way of a benefit/awareness concert she’s organized to help celebrate Greenpeace’s 35th anniversary.

And as far as the entertainment/fun question is concerned, Elle promises they’ll “be showcasing nine acts, but we will be collecting donations inside. As it turns out, there won’t be any drag acts, but there’ll be plenty of great bands, like Requiem and Play to name just a couple.”

At Inferno (1592 Ste-Catherine E.), Wednesday, Feb. 1, 8:30 p.m. Free, although a voluntary donation is requested. » Chris Barry

REAR-VIEW MIRROR

18 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK
Jan. 18–Jan. 25, 1990

On the cover: A wheelchair, as the Mirror examines the Jan. 5 mercy killing of Frank Guzzo, 56, by Micheline Poulos, 36, a close friend. Guzzo had told Poulos he was dying of cancer, but had never visited a doctor, relying on herbal medicines and aspirin for his pain. An autopsy revealed Guzzo, weighing 80 pounds and covered in gangrenous sores, suffered from curable diabetes and arteriosclerosis. Poulos faces 25 years in prison. “It will be one hell of a job for a jury to pass judgement on this one,” says a Montreal homicide cop.

• The Canada Council arts funding program is criticized by all sides. The Conservative Mulroney government says it’s being too liberal, while artists feel the grants system is too arbitrary. “It’s like playing the Loto,” says painter Geneviève Morin.

• “Harmony will teach you how the wind blows in the trees and how the waves break on the rocks, but dissonance will tell you how the universe works,” says “iconoclast jazz pioneer” Shawn Phillips.

Angel >> Steve Kubby Medical marijuana activist Steve Kubby was ordered deported from Canada earlier this week, after his stay of removal request was turned down by the federal courts. Kubby, 59, suffers from a rare form of adrenal cancer and uses marijuana to control the symptoms, but faces 120 days in a California prison for possession of small quantities of mescaline and psilocin in 2001. Without access to marijuana, he says, he’ll die. He’s due to be deported by today, Jan. 26, to San Francisco. His wife and two children will travel separately, he told Canadian Press, so they won’t have to see him being arrested upon his return.
Insect >> Conservative sneakiness Okay, so they’ll be the next government, but Stephen Harper promised he wouldn’t open up the abortion debate. Gay marriage, that’s another issue. Harper won Monday’s election in part by playing down his party’s social conservative roots, and a minority government all but ensures that the wackier right wing projects won’t go through. But dangers to mass transit funding, the Kyoto protocol and marijuana laws, medicinal or otherwise, are heightened thanks to a Conservative government. Time will tell whether Harper governs like another certain conservative head of government who was elected with the slimmest of majorities but rammed through legislation that polarized the country.