Another Man Accuses Kevin Spacey of Sexual Assault

Filmmaker Tony Montana says the actor grabbed and groped him at a bar in 2003.

www.advocate.com/crime/2017/10/31/another-man-accuses-kevin-spacey-sexual-assault

Gay Moroccan Man Faces Deportation From the UK

A gay man is facing deportation from the UK to Morocco – where homosexuality is punishable with up to three years in jail – after his bid for asylum was rejected.

25-year-old Abderrahim sought asylum earlier this year after being subjected to verbal abuse and death threats because of his sexual orientation. He and several other members of a fledgling LGBT group called Akaliyat  (“Minorities”) fled the country after it received national media coverage.

However, the Home Office rejected Abderrahim’s application because “his claimed treatment does not amount to persecution.” An appeal was dismissed by a first-tier tribunal judge earlier this month.

RELATED: 31 Chechen Gay and Bisexual Men Get Asylum in Canada

The asylum rejection comes just weeks after the Moroccan minister of state for human rights, Mustapha Ramid, called gay people awsakh, an Arabic word for “scum” or “dirt”.

According to The Guardian, Abderrahim said deporting him was like sending him back to darkness.

“Being gay in Morocco is hard, you can face persecution and be put in prison.

“I know who I am now, I understand what’s the meaning of freedom, I can walk in the street and not look behind my back. For me to go back to Morocco is to go back to darkness – homophobia in Morocco is rising.”

Jamal Malek, a Moroccan LGBT activist, said:

“People in Morocco still think an HIV-positive person is someone we should throw away, abandon and eliminate from our everyday life.

“Abderrahim is not only an HIV-positive person, but also publicly and openly gay, and that’s just enough for us to see how it’s going to be so difficult for him to come back to Morocco.”

Human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell added:

“Gay Moroccans are at risk of arrest, imprisonment, homophobic violence and so-called honour killing. Many people with HIV in Morocco do not have access to life-saving treatments, so his deportation could be a death sentence.”

Abderrahim’s lawyers have submitted an application for permission to appeal. A Home Office spokesperson said his claim “was carefully considered on its individual merits against background country information and was refused in August 2017”.

The post Gay Moroccan Man Faces Deportation From the UK appeared first on Towleroad.

Gay Moroccan Man Faces Deportation From the UK

김민수: “퀴어옵서예!” 첫 제주퀴어문화축제의 순간들
제주도가 무지개로 물들었습니다. 지난 10월 28일 토요일, 제주시 신산공원 일대에서 제주 퀴어문화축제가 열렸습니다. “퀴어옵서예!”라는 슬로건으로 개최된 이번 축제에서는 주최측 약 500명이 공원에 방문해 행사를 즐기고, 1000여명이 퍼레이드에 참가해 즐겁고도 힘차게 걸었습니다.

기사 보기: 동성애, 보이스, 제주, 제주 LGBT, 성소수자, 양성애, LGBT 퍼레이드, Korea News

www.huffingtonpost.kr/minsookim/story_b_18425394.html

Sexual Assault Victims Still Being Locked Up In UK Detention Centres, Women For Refugee Women Research Shows
All of the women interviewed had sought asylum and been detained at Yarl’s Wood after the government’s Adult’s at Risk policy came into force last year.

The Home Office policy stated that people most at risk of being harmed by detention, including women who have survived sexual and gender-based violence, should not normally be detained.

But the group argues that, one year after government policy was introduced, “nothing has changed”.

Key findings from the We Are Still Here report:  85% of the women spoken to were survivors of sexual or other gender-based violence, including domestic violence, forced marriage, female genital mutilation and forced prostitution/trafficking.  Women were depressed in detention, and 88% saying that their mental health had deteriorated while they were detained. Twelve of the 26 women had thought about killing themselves in detention, and two women said they had attempted suicide, both on more than one occasion. The vast majority, 23 out of 26, were in detention for a month or more. Nineteen women were in detention for three months or more. Pregnant women are still being detained unnecessarily.
The Home Office defended the policy, saying that detention is an “important part of our immigration system”.

Women for Women Refugees says that there is no screening process which actively identifies the vulnerabilities of women before they are detained, and if women disclose their experiences of abuse after they have been detained, they often remain locked up.

The report states that survivors of sexual and gender-based violence are not believed when they disclose their previous experiences, and find it difficult to obtain supporting evidence the Home Office will accept.

Even when they obtain evidence, survivors are kept in detention, the report continues, despite a deterioration in their mental or physical health.

Women for Women Refugees detail a number of case studies of females who are survivors of gender-based violence being detained at Yarl’s Wood.

Case studies:

Gabby was sexually abused when she was a teenager looking after a disabled woman who took her in after her family died. The woman’s son and his friends started sexually abusing Gabby, but she was too scared to tell anyone. After years of abuse she managed to get away and move to the city, but alone and with no money, she fell into prostitution. She was often beaten up by the men she had sex. Eventually she was able to get a visa to travel to the UK but she was arrested and detained after her visa ran out. She was taken to Yarl’s Wood detention centre. She said she was never asked about potential experiences of sexual violence and was not aware of her rights until campaigners helped her. “I feel angry that the Home Office has said they aren’t going to detain women who have been raped and trafficked, but then they don’t even try to find out about what women have been through before they lock them up. I still think about detention, and when I report to the Home Office I feel sick; I’m so scared that they will take me back there again. Now that I’ve talked about what happened to me when I was younger I’m having to relive that, which is so hard, but I also can’t forget about Yarl’s Wood: it’s there with me, every day.”
‘Vivian’, from west Africa, was forced into prostitution by her husband. She disclosed this in her asylum interview, which was held when she was in detention, and the Home Office accepted she was a survivor of gender-based violence. In spite of this, she was kept in Yarl’s Wood for six months. “I wasn’t really sleeping or eating at all, and I was having flashbacks about what had happened to me. Sometimes, it felt like I was suffocating, as if the walls were closing in. I had thoughts about killing myself.” She was released in August 2017, to continue with her asylum claim.
Voke, also from west Africa, was forced into prostitution by her stepfather and managed to escape to the UK after enduring many years of abuse. The Home Office accepted the medical report carried out in detention that showed she was a victim of gender-based violence but kept her in Yarl’s Wood. She attempted suicide twice but was in detention altogether for just under 8 months, until October 2017, when her solicitor challenged her detention through judicial review and forced the Home Office to release her. “I hope I will feel better soon, but I will never forget being detained. I will never forget Yarl’s Wood.”
Natasha Walter, founder of Women for Refugee Women and author of the report, said: “When the Home Office put in place new policy that recognised that vulnerable women should not be locked up, we were hopeful that we might see real change.

“The findings of our research are hugely disappointing. Women who have already survived violence and abuse are still being locked up in immigration detention.

“Detention is traumatic for individual women, and it is also unnecessary, expensive and inefficient.

“We need to move away from detention and build a fair asylum process in which cases are heard and resolved while refugees are living in the community, so that they are able to start rebuilding their lives.”

Women for Refugee Women are calling for a proactive screening process to ensure that survivors of sexual and gender-based violence, and others who are vulnerable, are identified before detention.

The group also wants an absolute exclusion on the detention of pregnant women and a 28-day time limit on detention.

Caroline Spelman, Conservative MP for Meriden, said: “It is vital to have a transparent process to ensure that vulnerable women are protected in detention and Home Office policy needs to be properly implemented and monitored.”

Kate Osamor, Labour MP for Edmonton, said: “The government needs a much more humane approach that offers alternatives to detention and assists refugees rather than treating them like criminals.”

A Home Office spokesperson said in a statement: “Detention is an important part of our immigration system, helping to ensure that those with no right to remain in the UK are returned to their home country if they will not leave voluntarily.

“We operate on a presumption against detention, and the adults at risk policy aims to improve our approach to identifying individuals who may be particularly vulnerable to harm in detention. When people are detained this is for the minimum time possible, and the dignity and welfare of those in our care is of the utmost importance.”

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/sexual-assault-victims-detention-centres-refugee-women-research_uk_59f8b83ce4b046017faf4100

Why Did The Advocate Redact Kevin Spacey’s Name in 2001?

The LGBT magazine’s former editor in chief and a writer discuss how a scoop turned into a secret.

www.advocate.com/media/2017/10/31/why-did-advocate-redact-kevin-spaceys-name-2001

Revealed: The ‘Loophole’ Developers Use To Avoid Building More Affordable Homes
House builders are using a “legal loophole” to wriggle out of developing thousands of affordable homes in order to maximise profits, a housing charity has claimed.

Shelter has released a dossier it claims shows the number of affordable homes in new-builds drops drastically after developers submit a “viability assessment” when applying for permission to build.

These assessments allow developers to put in planning applications which do not hit council targets for affordable homes – claiming if they were to build those houses it would mean profits would be severely reduced.

One council told HuffPost UK it feels it has no choice but to accept the lower affordable housing figure, or risk no development happening at all.

According to Shelter, at least 2,500 affordable homes across England were lost from developments thanks to these assessments.

The Home Builders Federation – whose members build 80% of new dwellings each year – furiously defended the actions of developers, saying affordable housing targets are not set in stone and planning applications are always negotiated with local authorities.

But Shelter’s chief executive, Polly Neate, called on the Government to act now to make sure that affordable housing is not being axed in new developments by house builders looking to maximise profits.

She said: “What this research reveals is the scale at which developers are able to use legal loopholes to protect their profits and dramatically reduce the numbers of affordable homes available for people.

“Through freedom of information powers, Shelter has been able to reveal the extent to which affordable homes are required in local plans, only to be dropped by developers.

“The government needs to fix our broken housing system – and it must start by closing this loophole to get the country building homes that are genuinely affordable for people on middle and low incomes to rent or buy.”

Councils put affordable home targets in their Local Plans, and it is against these that new planning applications are measured.

Yet the National Planning Policy Framework – produced by the Government – provides a loophole for developers to apply for permission to build new properties without hitting the target for affordable homes:

To ensure viability, the costs of any requirements likely to be applied to development, such as requirements for affordable housing, standards, infrastructure contributions or other requirements should, when taking account of the normal cost of development and mitigation, provide competitive returns to a willing land owner and willing developer to enable the development to be deliverable.
This get-out-clause means council’s often find themselves having to grant planning permission that does not meet their criteria, for fear any refusal would be overturned on nationally.

Shelter’s research focused on Birmingham, Brent, Bristol, Cambridge, Leeds, Leicester, Manchester, Newcastle, Oxford, Kensington and Chelsea, and Southwark, but as the assessments are being used right across the country, the annual figure of lost houses is likely far higher than the 2,500 identified.

The dossier shows that where viability was used in an application, only 7% affordable housing was achieved.

Where viability was not used, 24% affordable housing was achieved – still well off the targets these councils had put in their local plans.

Mark Williams, Cabinet Member for Regeneration and New Homes at Southwark Council in London, says his team always pushes “for the highest amount of affordable homes that we can achieve.”

But the Freedom of Information request from Shelter revealed that of the 1,233 units built in the borough in 2015/16, just 26% were affordable housing when viability assessments were used – against a target of 35%

Even when viability assessments weren’t used only 19% of the 144 units built were classed as affordable.

Williams said: “The reality for any council is that it’s easy to turn down planning applications, but developers can then appeal the decision, and what often happens is that agreements then go through with lower levels of affordable housing, or developers walk away and sites lay empty for years.

He added: “In March 2016 we adopted tough new rules for how viability assessments are treated. This includes full transparency, a clear approach to valuing land to suppress land speculation, and upwards only review mechanisms for any schemes that are consented below 35%.

“These are incredibly challenging circumstances for those of us trying to tackle the housing crisis, we need everyone including government, and all councils, to play their part in tackling the housing crisis.”

Brent Council, also in London, said developers are in a strong position as local authorities rely on them to build affordable housing – something many council’s do not have the money to do.

Harbi Farah, Brent Council’s Cabinet Member for Housing said: “Until the government stops land-banking and better funds local authorities, allowing councils like Brent to borrow money to build new homes, we are in a position where we need to work with developers to provide the homes that people need and that sometimes entails compromise.

“We do however always use viability assessments as an opportunity to maximise affordable housing, with two out of every three assessments in the past five years resulting in an increased contribution to affordable housing than initially proposed, while keeping the project viable.”

Of the other councils in the list, Oxford City Council said of the five developments for 10 or more dwellings in 2016/17 where 50% affordable housing was required, four of them hit the target.

The only site that did not was required to build 40% affordable housing instead due to “abnormal costs” relating to providing a new bridge, boatyard, works to the canal and contamination remediation.

“So, we are delivering affordable housing,” said a council spokesperson.

Kensington and Chelsea Council leader Elizabeth Campbell seemed to admit that viability reports led to more houses being built in developments, but not at affordable rates.

She said: “In places like Kensington and Chelsea, an independent viability report often results in the ability to build more homes, due to the sums of money developers have to pay instead of providing affordable housing on site.

“That said, we are getting tougher with developers to ensure that where affordable housing can be provided it is. Grenfell has focussed everybody’s minds on the issue of housing and we and we want to find solutions.”

A spokesperson for Newcastle City Council said they “rigorously scrutinise” any viability assessment, and also require another report to be carried out once the development has finished.

“If the scheme is proved to be more profitable, then the developer is required to pay a contribution towards affordable housing up to the level that would have been required under the planning policy,” said the spokesman, adding the authority is “consistently achieving our 15% affordable housing target annually across all sites in the city.”

Birmingham, Bristol, Cambridge, Leeds, Leicester, and Manchester councils did respond to a request for comment.

Andrew Whitaker, planning director at the Home Builders Federation, took issue with Shelter’s black-and-white presentation of developers seeking to dodge obligations in the pursuit of enhanced profits.

He said: “We have become increasingly reliant on the private sector for affordable housing provisions, in addition to expecting contributions towards infrastructure and local amenities. However, there is a limit as to what can be extracted from development sites before they become unviable.

“All affordable housing requirements set out in planning policy must be negotiable – they are aspirational targets. This means they are not “set” at 50% (as suggested by Shelter) but based on individual site assessment of viability.

“Similarly, the report is incorrect to state that developer return of 20% is set. This too is a negotiable element of the viability of the site, discussed and agreed with the local planning authority when granting planning permission.

“Without a willing landowner and developer you get no development and thus no affordable housing. A willing landowner will become unwilling if they do not get an acceptable price for their land and a developer will not be a willing developer if they do not get an acceptable return on their investment. “

A spokesperson for the Department of  Communities and Local Government indicated reform of the viability assessment system could be on its way.

They said: “Where a local authority recognises the need for affordable housing they should set policies for meeting this as part of their local plan.

“We are currently consulting on a proposed changes to the approach to viability assessments. Our measures would speed up decision making and increase transparency, so that local communities know what is expected from developers on new sites.”

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/affordable-homes-loophole-developers_uk_59f8e311e4b00c6145e25708

8 Dead, Many Injured in Terror Attack in Lower Manhattan

Eight people have been killed in a terror attack in lower Manhattan when a man drove a truck on to a bike path just north of the World Trade Center.

.@BillDeBlasio: “Based on the information we have at this moment, this was an act of terror. And a particularly cowardly act of terror.” pic.twitter.com/XprrdCUWob

— CBS News (@CBSNews) October 31, 2017

The NYT reports:

Eight people were killed when a man drove 20 blocks down a bike path beside the Hudson River in Lower Manhattan on Tuesday afternoon before he crashed his pickup truck, jumped out with fake guns and was shot by police officers, the authorities said.

Federal authorities were treating the incident as a terrorist attack and were taking the lead in the investigation, a senior law enforcement official said. Two law enforcement officials said that after the attacker got out of the truck, he was heard yelling, “Allahu Akbar,” Arabic for “God is great.”

JUST IN: Multiple officials tell ABC News suspect in custody is identified as 29-year-old Sayfullo Saipov from Tampa, FL

— Michael Del Moro (@MikeDelMoro) October 31, 2017

In NYC, looks like another attack by a very sick and deranged person. Law enforcement is following this closely. NOT IN THE U.S.A.!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 31, 2017

CBS News reports:

The incident occurred at West Street and Chambers Street around 3:10 p.m, CBS New York reported. The NYPD said on its Twitter account just before 3:30 p.m. that one person is in custody. The department isn’t looking for any other suspects, the station reported.

The NYPD said on Twitter there were “several fatalities and numerous people injured.” The department said it was unclear whether anyone was shot or whether the injured were all struck by the vehicle, which entered the pedestrian/bike path a few blocks north of Chambers St.

The truck drove down the bike path for about four blocks before veering back into traffic lanes and striking a school bus and another vehicle.

Four people on board the school bus were injured, CBS New York reports. Fifteen people in total were injured in the incident, two critically, reports the station.

The post 8 Dead, Many Injured in Terror Attack in Lower Manhattan appeared first on Towleroad.

8 Dead, Many Injured in Terror Attack in Lower Manhattan