(fron: lgbt-india] Police arrest Int'l LGBT Conference Organisers in Belarus


Gomel, 08 November 2006: Today, at 8:20 pm the special police forces broke into the apartment where the meeting of Organizing Committee of the International LGBT Conference took place and arrested seven people: Vyacheslav Andreev, Sviatlana Bortnik, Svyatoslav Sementsov, Tanya Ivanova, Aleksei Filipenko, Natallia Kavalchuk, and Viachaslau Bortnik. The
Conference materials have been seized. Activists have been brought to the Zheleznodorozhnyi Borrow Police Department and interrogated. Police officers asked for detailed information on the program of the conference, list of participants, and venue of the conference. International guests were of the special interest of police. Four of activists have been released after tow
hours of detention.

According to our information at 10:25 pm, Vyacheslav Andreev, Svyatoslav Sementsov and Viachaslau Bortnik of Organizing Committee remain to stay at the police station. Two activists who are taking duty near the entrance to the Zheleznodorozhnyi Borrow Police Department confirmed that they haven't left the building and their cell phones are switched off.

We're following the situation and will keep you posted.

On behalf of Organizing Committee of the International LGBT Conference in Minsk,

Tanya Ivanova

Co-president of TEMA - information center

loveforever@tut.by

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Transgender woman alleges discrimination at Philadelphia YMCA


Dawn Dalpe, a transgender woman living in South Philadelphia, has filed a complaint with the Philadelphia Commission on Human Relations alleging that she has been barred from all 10 regional branches of the YMCA, the Philadelphia Gay News reported Friday.

Dalpe, 38, states in her complaint that she joined the Christian Street YMCA in mid October to use the swimming pool but was barred after only three visits when executive director Michelle Stevenson demanded Dalpe's "proof of gender." When Dalpe returned with an affidavit from her doctor certifying her biological sex as female, Stevenson grabbed the paper out of her hand and told her to leave or else she would call the police.