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Archive for the ‘Feminism’ Category

Anti-LGBTQ Protests in Canada.

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“1MillionMarch4Children”A display of hatred’: Cross-country anti-LGBTQ+ rallies met with counter-protests. Montreal Gazette.

Politicians including Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh condemn “rise of hate.”

Thousands of people gathered in cities across Canada on Wednesday for competing protests, yelling and chanting at each other about the way schools instruct sexuality and gender identity and how teachers refer to transgender youth.

Counter-demonstrators, meanwhile, accused protesters of importing United States culture wars into the country and trying to deny students important lessons about inclusion and respect for gender-diverse people.

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Comment, reports indicate that the anti-LGBT protesters were headed by the familiar group of alt-right wingers, religious bigots, Christians and Islamists, and conspiracists.

Written by Andrew Coates

September 21, 2023 at 11:47 am

Belgium: Arson attacks on schools follow Islamist, Catholic Integrist, and far-right conspiracy Protests against School Sex education programme.

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Brussels Sunday. Protest against sex education programme, EVRAS ‘anti-feminist, anti-abortion and anti LGBT speeches’. Le Soir says about 1,500 took part.

(AP) — Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo said on Friday that he will seek the help of government experts on extremism in the wake of a series of school arsons. Officials believe the attacks are connected to a controversial sexual education school program.

De Croo spoke just hours after a sixth school in the French-speaking Wallonia region was torched this week. Signs protesting the so-called Evras program were discovered in some of the schools, according to authorities.

The program is a required four hours of training for students aged 11 to 12 and 15 to 16, intended to help them develop their relational and sexual lives. The program had been around and available for all age groups for years, but was not compulsory until now.

Le Monde today:

In Belgium, several schools burnt after a campaign by religious extremists against sex education

The ransacking of the establishments occurred while the programme of courses devoted to emotional life, voted by the Parliament of the Wallonia-Brussels Federation, was the subject of attacks by fundamentalist Muslim and Catholic groups, joined by conspiracy theorists.

..some 1,500 people from gathering in the centre of Brussels on Sunday with a slogan: “Don’t touch our children!” » In a tense atmosphere, Radya Oulebsir, a Muslim activist, self-proclaimed organiser of the protest, and Alain Escada, a leader of the traditionalist Catholic association Civitas, demanded that the course be abandoned. On several of the vandalised establishments, hostile slogans such as “No Evras, otherwise the next ones, it’s you” had been sprayed by the arsonists.

Among those denouncing the new course, we can also find anti-vaccine activists who came forward during the Covid-19 pandemic, followers of conspiracy theories, climate sceptics….

Le Soir. Des discours anti féministes, IVG et LGBT à la manifestation anti-EVRAS (photos)

“around 1,500 people gathered this Sunday in Brussels to protest against the decree on education courses for relational, emotional and sexual life (EVRAS) in French-speaking education. The tone of the demonstration was set from the start of the speeches of the organisers, including Alain Escada, president of Civitas France, Nicolas Lefère, Gilet Jaune, and head of “Good Sense Belgium” (against vaccination, elites and international institutions ), Daniel De Wolff, very active in the anti-vax sphere, and Radya Oulebsir.”

Written by Andrew Coates

September 18, 2023 at 11:27 am

Irish MEP, red-browner Clare Daly, Stands with Iran on anniversary of the Islamic Republic’s murder of Mahsa Amini.

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Today, on the anniversary of Mahsa Amini’s death, her father has been detained. Reuters reports about this, citing a source close to the family. It is noted that “security forces” detained Amjad Amini in the west of Iran.

Ipswich this afternoon on the Old Town Steps. Protest in solidarity with Jin, Jiyan, Azadi. Women, life, freedom against the Islamic Republic of Iran.

About 30 to over 40 people, many of whom were Iranians as well as Kurds. There were some of us from the local trade unions and left.

Written by Andrew Coates

September 16, 2023 at 5:32 pm