Dozens of gay men who gathered at an outdoor pick-up spot in Beijing were rounded up and detained in a huge police swoop ahead of China’s National Day holiday, an activist said yesterday.
Officers and riot police descended on Mudanyuan, a forested area in northern Beijing that is the capital’s largest gay pick-up spot, late on Sunday and Monday, said Guo Ziyang, a project manager at the Beijing Gay Working Group.
DETENTION
“According to those who were there, riot and normal police detained more than 80 people on Sunday, made them register and took photos, and then they let them go,” said Guo, whose organization campaigns for gay rights.
“On Monday night they again went to check IDs, but I still don’t know whether people were detained,” Guo added.
According to the official Global Times newspaper, those who were detained were also required to take a blood test and leave their fingerprints.
REGULAR INSPECTION
Beijing police spokesman Zi Xiangdong said the swoop was part of the normal annual citywide public security inspection ahead of the National Day holiday on Oct. 1 that marks the founding of communist China, according to the report.
He did not elaborate on what regulations had been violated by the men, it said.
Beijing police were not immediately available for comment when contacted by reporters.
“The deep-seated reason is that society has not provided homosexuals with a tolerant environment,” Guo said.
He added that the fact that hundreds of gays regularly gathered at Mudanyuan had attracted police attention.
MENTAL DISORDER
Homosexuality was considered a mental disorder in China until 2001.
Today, gays face crushing social and family pressure and many remain in the closet as a result, despite gradual steps toward greater acceptance.
Experts estimate there are about 30 million gays and lesbians in China — 2.3 percent of the population — but observers say the number could be higher because many still refuse to come out.
The Global Times report quoted a 35-year-old gay man who used to be a frequent Mudanyuan visitor as saying that on weekend nights, as many as 300 gays could gather there.
“Many people have sex here, including paid service,” he said, adding that robberies were common.
NO FUNDS
Guo said that Mudanyuan was a place where gays with no money to go to bars or hotels would gather.
“Police hope that through continuous harassment they won’t come anymore, but this can’t be as they will still go out,” he said.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
RSS