ISSN 1446-4896 ISSUE 3, 2002, NUMBER 53
SEPTEMBER-DECEMBER 2002

1) PIETER-DIRK UYS - FOREIGN AIDS:

During the 2002 Gay Games in Sydney, Pieter-Dirk Uys presented his show FOREIGN AIDS at the Sydney Opera House during the first half of November 2002. The following is an extract from the Gay Games information about Pieter-Dirk Uys's show: "Pieter-Dirk Uys is South Africa's leading satirist. His most visible creation, Mrs Evita Bezuidenhout, is known and accepted as 'the most famous white woman in South Africa'.

His solo show Foreign AIDS has played to sell-out seasons in London, New York and The Netherlands and now he brings his comic genius to Sydney. Foreign AIDS aims to make people laugh at their prejudices and confront their fears about AIDS and related issues. In between some killer lines and withering caricatures of South Africa's new political elite, Pieter-Dirk Uys's performance achieves the near impossible and makes you laugh at death.

'AIDS is the beginning and the end in South Africa. If AIDS succeeds, we won't have a country anymore. The virus of apartheid was cured by democracy - - - - - so why shouldn't it cure the plague of AIDS?' Pieter-Dirk Uys. An extraordinary journey of laughter and revolution.
"Uys gets us laughing - not at death, but at fear, ignorance, complacency and drug companies, as well as the curious head-in-the-sand mentality of President Thabo Mbeki. Uys's comedy is ruthless - - - [the] show has as much to do with campaigning as comedy. But I have never had a more enjoyable time being soap-boxed. Laughter alone may not change the world.

But Uys knows how to use it as a weapon to start the revolution.' Lyn Gardner, The Guardian."
It is a great shame that this wonderful show did not tour Australia while Uys was here, and it is to be hoped that he will return, tour the country, and educate Australians to the support needed in relation to AIDS and drugs in South Africa and to counter the behaviour of the South African President and his health minister, together with many members of the ANC, both inside and outside Parliament. The Uys show is one of the best AIDS educational tools we have yet seen in Australia. We heartily endorse the Guardian's review.


2) STILL TIME TO OPPOSE HOWARD'S DANGEROUS ASIO BILL!:

We urge you to write to the Prime Minister, John Howard, and the Leader of the Opposition, Simon Crean, before February 1st rejecting Labor and the Liberal's plan for secret police in Australia. Send copies of your letter to your local Federal Member and your State's Senators in Parliament House, Canberra ACT 2600.

There have been three parliamentary inquiries during the past year, all critical of the ASIO bill. In December, deadlock occurred over amendments to it in the final session before the summer break. That is why it is to be reintroduced when parliament resumes in February. The ASIO Legislation Amendment (Terrorism) Bill 2002 will enable the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation to detain and interrogate innocent people in secret for up to seven days. Refusal to answer questions could lead to five years in prison and access to a lawyer would be limited. You could be detained -- disappeared off the street or out of your home-- even if you are not suspected of any crime on the basis you may have information that ASIO thinks it ought to investigate.

Kim Beazley admitted in Parliament (13 Dec 02) during debate that there is little difference between the government's and Labor's amended version. Innocent people would still be detained and interrogated in secret! No amount of amending can change the dangerous essence of the ASIO bill. It's every reasonable Australian's worst nightmare! ASIO or any Australian police force is not entitled to such powers. If Jack Roche can be so easily detained and charged under existing anti-terror measures, ASIO and police don't need these undemocratic powers of secret detainment and interrogation of innocent citizens.

Even a short letter opposing the ASIO Bill on any or all of the following reasons would be effective: Innocent people will be detained incommunicado; the right of silence will be taken away; existing powers are ample; ASIO will become secret police. JOIN US IN PROTEST!

3) AIDS AND COCA COLA WORLD DAY OF ACTION:

We have not been able to obtain up-to-date information on actions timed to take place on 17 October 2002 internationally, to protest Coca-Cola's selective treatment in Africa of its HIV positive workforce. The actions were organised by ACT UP New York, the Treatments Action Campaign (TAC) South Africa and the global AIDS group Health Gap. We will provide further information when it becomes available.

4) CONFERENCES - REPORTS:

There were five conferences during the Cultural Festival period of Sydney's hosting of the 6th Gay Games in 2002 --two in Newcastle and three in Sydney.

Unfortunately, in both cities, there were overlapping days associated with each which presented attendance problems for those of us with particular interests in each of them.

In Newcastle, we attended the Lesbian & Gay Archives' Australian Homosexual Histories 5 Conference (28-29 October). The keynote address was by Robert French on Martin Smith and the manner of his use of records to produce 'gay history' in early issues of Campaign. There was a wide-ranging set of papers presented at this conference, some which could be said to be history-in-the-making perhaps.

Histories 5 also included a fascinating tour of Newcastle Regional Art Gallery conducted by the Director, Nick Mitzevich, focussing on artists, William Dobell and Brad Levido. Histories 5 concluded with a joint session with the Queer Studies Conference at which Dennis Altman was the speaker. He chose to lecture on gay liberation in retrospect --30 years on. We left Newcastle the following day for Sydney without being able to attend Queer Studies (29-30 October).

We needed to be at the opening session of Health in Difference --the 4th National LGBT Health Conference (31 Oct-2 Nov). Our particular interest was the Ageing, Ageism and Activism session, a presentation by Jo Harrison a PhD candidate in Gerontology at the University of South Australia and chaired by Paul van Reyk on 1st November. We were two of the panelists which included Bobbi Keppel (Maine), Peter Lundberg (San Francisco), Peter Robinson (Melbourne) and Sandy Warshaw (New York). (For a full report, see the December 2002 issue of the Newsletter of the Australian Centre for Lesbian & Gay Research at Sydney University.)

Running at the same time as Health in Difference was Workers Out! --2nd World Conference of Lesbian & Gay Trade Unionists-- which combined for a final plenary where four speakers brought to light significant aspects of each conference --Theo Steele (South Africa), Cindy Patton (USA), Gerard Kelly (UK) and Amber Hollibaugh (USA). Unexpectedly or so it seemed, gay male nuns of the Order of Perpetual Indulgence (Trade Unions chapter) took over the stage before the plenary closed to canonise one of the conference participants, Louise Pratt MP, the very first open lesbian to be elected to the Western Australian Parliament, in colourful and memorable ceremony. Sadly, we have no report on the other conference in Sydney --Amnesty International: Global Human Rights (30 Oct-1 Nov). No representative to attend.

5) NO WAR WITH IRAQ:
In Melbourne there have been three huge anti-war and "no Australian involvement in Iraq" rallies and street marches --29 September, 13 October and 1st December-- and if Bush acts against Iraq there will be an instant protest at 5pm that day in front of Mebourne's Public Library in Swanston Street with similar ones around Australia.


6) U.S. RECIPE FOR SPACE-BASED WAR:
" We are going to fight from space and we're going to fight into space. That's why the U.S. has developed programs in directed energy and HIT-TO-KILL mechanisms" --General Joseph Ashy, former chief U.S. space command 1996 "With regard to space dominance, we have it, we like it, and we're going to keep it" --Keith Hall, director National Reconnaissance Office and air force assistant secretary for space, 2001. As well, the aerospace corporations produce rafts of propaganda designed to convince American children that everything that happens in space is exciting and must be supported, while NASA --working closely with the U.S. space command-- has designed a program to reach every science teacher in the U.S. with the efficacy of their space message.

The aim is to program children to believe that a large portion of the national treasure should be spent on Mars exploration, and that war in space is inevitable -- Caldicott, chapter 7 of her book. Is it, therefore, any wonder that the so-called 'rogue states' don't like the arrogance of the United States and want to use outlandish and scary methods against the bully? Read Helen Caldicott's The New Nuclear Danger for the full U.S. recipe for space- based warfare --who rules circumterrestrial space commands Planet Earth, who rules the moon commands circumterrestrial space, who rules areas in space where the respective gravitational forces of the moon and the earth are in balance, commands the Earth-Moon System --John Collins in Congress-commissioned 1989 book, Military Space Forces :The Next 50 years.

7) KEYSAR TRAD AND THE ABC:

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) has been using Keysar Trad, of the Lebanese Muslim Association, as a spokesperson and translator for issues that have arisen in recent months in the local communities relating to the ongoing so-called "terrorist" threats to Australia.

We wrote about Keysar Trad and his attitude to homosexuality in the last issue of our Newsletter (Number 52), and we have repeatedly sent details of this and his opposition to anti-discrimination and anti-vilification laws in Australia being obeyed by Muslim communities here to the ABC - so far, to no avail.

The ABC not only doesn't respond to our complaints, they continue to use Trad as a spokesperson. As a consequence, LGS will continue to monitor the situation and complain to the ABC every time we hear Trad being used in this connection. We request readers to complain to the ABC at comments@your.abc.net.au or PO Box 9994 Sydney NSW 2001 whenever they hear Kesyar Trad being used or quoted on the ABC. AND NOW SBS: On 7 January 2003 Keysar Trad was interviewed by both ABC TV and SBS TV in relation to the arrest of Sheik Hilali in Sydney on driving charges.

These "pillars of democratic processes" in Australia were protesting the treatment of the Sheik at the hands of the NSW police. So, protest as well to SBS at comments@sbs.net.au over the use of this homophobic, anti-democratic Trad as spokesperson for the Muslim communities in Australia.

8) WORLD AIDS DAY 2002 AND THE ONGOING CRISIS ON THE AFRICAN CONTINENT:

Stigma and discrimination is the theme of the two-year World AIDS Campaign for 2002-2003 and a new report released in November 2002 about the growing global AIDS epidemic estimates that 42 million people are living with HIV/AIDS - a net gain in 2002 of about 2 million.

Women make up 50% of total infections worldwide. Sub-Saharan Africa remains the region most affected by the epidemic, but China, India and other Asian countries face staggering consequences if they don't act quickly to educate populations about HIV prevention.

9) AIDS AND THE SOUTH AFRICAN GOVERNMENT:

(a) SOUTH AFRICA'S AIDS APARTHEID (LE MONDE - 15 AUGUST 2002): Le Monde states that a new and deadly apartheid threatens South Africa's freedom: FIVE MILLION of its people have contracted the AIDS virus and 360,000 more are infected each year. The public health sector, only resort of the poor, does not supply antiretrovirals. But HIV positive people, fighting for their own lives, are also encouraging the nation to resist all forms of discrimination. The article concludes: "Will economic and health apartheid result in another popular uprising in South Africa? Many believe that it has already begun and that the Treatments Action Committee (TAC) experience will serve as a catalyst for the country's social reconstruction.

Epidemiologist Quarraisha Abdool Karim coordinated the fight against AIDS when Nelson Mandela was president. Speaking at the Durban school of medicine, she said she was now optimistic for the first time. "You don't get used to seeing the people you have fought for dying. But treatments now have fewer side effects and are much cheaper. We're training a lot of students and a vaccine is down the road."

(b) The South African regime continues in the criminal treatment of its population by its ongoing commitment to "money for guns, not for AIDS!"

The most recent outrage has been reported by the South African Press Association (SAPA) on 18 December 2002. They reported that the South African Health Minister, Manto Tshabalala- Msimang was at the centre of yet another AIDS controversy, when she reportedly told a British newspaper that South Africa could not afford anti-AIDS drugs, because it needed submarines to deter an attack from the United States! The minister later dismissed the report published in Britain's Guardian newspaper as a "gross misrepresentation", but the journalist in question said he stood by the report as a correct version of his conversation with the minister.

Tshabalala-Msimang was reported as saying that budgetary priorities meant the health department could not provide antiretroviral (ARV) drugs to the estimated 4.5 to 5 million South Africans with HIV. A statement released by the health department later in the same day said the minister had outlined the challenges facing the public health sector to provide ARVs. The ministry repeated that it would continue to lobby for more resources to "fight diseases including HIV and AIDS." The SAPA report of 18 December concluded by stating that the ANC was poised to adopt a preface to its strategy and tactics document on 18 December, in which it reaffirmed that the AIDS campaign was at the top of the party's agenda.

c) The latest scandal to beset AIDS drugs and the African continent is the report (The Age 30 December 2002) that medicines provided cheaply to treat AIDS patients in Africa are being smuggled back into Britain and sold on the black market.

Police believe African officials are making tens of millions of pounds a year reselling for big profits in Europe drugs shipped to them at cost price. South Africa appears to be up to its ears in the racket as well - the report states that another smuggling ring in South Africa is being investigated by Interpol, the international police service. The discovery is an embarrassment to ministers in Whitehall who have placed enormous pressure on pharmaceutical companies to provide AIDS drugs to Africa for no profit. A box of 60 Combivir tablets sells for 342.58 pounds in Britain.

Under an agreement with GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), the drug is sold in Africa for its cost price of 32.70 pounds a box, allowing smugglers to sell at a discount in Europe but still make profits of hundreds of pounds on each pack. Detectives are also investigating the discovery of more than 10 million pounds of AIDS-related drugs believed to have been smuggled out of South Africa, some of which turned up in London.

10) AIDS AND CHINA:
An ABC radio programme - Background Briefing - concluded a very interesting report called "Denial in China" on 10 November 2002 by stating that "Unlike in most developed countries, none of China's top leaders have dared to discuss AIDS in public, and no celebrities are seen on TV promoting safe sex. The country's leaders will have a rare opportunity to openly address AIDS during this week's (10/11/02) Communist Party Congress in Beijing. It would take a fearless leader to make such a step. If they fail to grasp the moment, China may have to wait another five years until the next party congress. And that, most experts agree, will be five years too late to stop the spread of AIDS." Peter Piot, head of the United Nations AIDS organisation, UNAIDS, raised the alarm when he visited Beijing earlier in 2002. "To be honest, we don't really know what the extent of the problem is. We estimated from the UNAIDS side that over 1 million people are infected with HIV in China, which is more than what the government estimates are, but there is an acute need for better data on the extent of the HIV epidemic in China, particularly now that a response has been put in place."


11) AIDS DRUGS IN THAILAND AND THE SCOUTS JAMBOREE:
a) The Bangkok Post reported on 10 October 2002 that AIDS activists had filed a second suit against multi-national pharmaceutical giant Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS) in an effort to revoke the remaining patent protection on anti-retroviral drug didanosine (ddi). Nikhorn Chomphuchat, from the Law Society of Thailand, urged the Public Health Ministry and the Government Pharmaceutical Organisation (GPO) to support the case against BMS. The GPO had spent a huge budget researching ddi, but was being blocked from manufacturing the drug at low cost because of the pending patent. Only about 10,000 of almost 100,000 HIV sufferers nationwide had access to anti-retrovirals, said Kamol Uppakaew, of the Thai Network for People Living with HIV/AIDS. Lifting the patent protection on all dosages would enable the government to supply the drug under the 30-baht health care scheme, he said.

b) The 20th World Scout Jamboree started in Sattahip, Thailand. Our Thai correspondent reports that the director of the Jamboree reacted with outrage to a Thai Public Health Ministry plan to give condoms to the 30,000 participants gathering for the event. "Whose idea was it to pass out condoms? Are they crazy?" asked Jamboree director Yuwarat Kamolvej. "They must know that the international scout movement has regulations against condom use and sexual activity. I am the only person who can say yes or no to this and I won't allow them to pass out the condoms at the World Scout Jamboree." Scouts from Western countries say having sex and forming relationships is common practice among participants at the Jamboree. Michael Cojer, 16, from England, said sex was a very normal thing in Western culture. Every youngster in England knew how to reduce the health risks from sex. Thongchai Sakarcheep, 15, a scout from Bordindacha 3 school, said if foreign scouts wanted to have sexual relationships that was fine by him, but he felt it was inappropriate inside the camp. "As for me, I'm too young to think about sex. I came here because I wanted to take part in the scout meeting."


12) HOMOPHOBIA AND THE WORLD'S MAJOR RELIGIONS: CHRISTIANS IN SYDNEY!!:
If it's not the christians it's the jews, and if it's not the jews it's the muslims, and if it's not any of these, it's anybody else who hates homosexuals because of who they are! The latest we have heard about from Sydney, concerns "FOCUS YOUNG ADULTS" a group who organised Sexuality LOVE Purity: Sexuality Seminars for Young Adults with the ex-gay speaker Ron Brookman. According to the poster he is now married with children, and he was to "share" a 'story of journey out of a lifestyle' while another speaker John Tucker was to give his dish about 'true' masculinity on 23 November 2002 at Our Lady of Dolours Parish Meeting Room in Chatswood, Sydney. Topics to be covered were:

a) The dating game, boundaries, intimacy and friendship
b) Benefits of chastity and true love waits - contraception
c) Christian Response to Homosexuality
d) Empowering your will and freedom to choose
e) Choosing your soul mate and preparation for marriage
f) Understanding the opposite sex
g) True femininity and masculinity

EMAIL FOCUS YOUNG ADULTS

AND IN PERTH AND MELBOURNE:
"Lesbian tennis players 'snared' their counterparts into homosexuality," former Australian champion tennis player Margaret Court said recently. Court was speaking in response to Damir Dokic's recent claim that he would kill himself if his tennis champion daughter Jelena came out. Court, who runs a cristian ministry in Perth, said gay men and lesbians commit 'sins of the flesh' and can be 'changed'. She said that when the open tennis era came in 'there was quite a lot of it in there'. "Very young players would mix with a few of the older ones that were that way and they were sort of 'snared in with it'," Court said. (Melbourne Star 26 December 2002) No doubt Court's intense homophobia started when she was defeated in one of her last world-class tournament matches by Billie-Jean King, a lesbian. Now Court is having one of the stadiums at the Rod Laver Tennis Centre in Melbourne named after her in honour of her contributions to tennis in Australia. It doesn't seem likely that the gay and lesbian communities will name anything after her to honour her homophobia!


13) THANKS FOR DONATIONS TO HELP WITH PUBLISHING THE NEWSLETTER:
Once again we have received donations to assist with the production of the newsletter, and we hereby thank the donors for their help.


14) SPAIDS PLANTINGS & 2002 WORLD AIDS DAY AWARD:
Amongst those honoured officially at the Awards ceremony in Sydney was Sister Nun-Buoy alias Sister Mary Mary Quite Contrary for exceptional work in the field of HIV/AIDS. We gather that this was for his special role at SPAIDS plantings and his unstinting and continuous participation in the Sydney Park AIDS memorial tree plantings project since its inception in 1994. We congratulate him, and thank him and his OPI colleagues for their SPAIDS support. Keynote speaker at the Awards on 24th November was Neal Blewett, former Australian Federal Health Minister (1983- 1990), who laid the foundations of an ongoing policy rather than dismissing the problem as a short term crisis. In recognising HIV/AIDS as a major health problem so early and addressing it positively, Blewett played perhaps a more significant role than any other health minister in the world. Concerning plantings in 2003, the only one of three SPAIDS dates we know of at this stage is Sunday, 27 July, National Tree Day, but is yet to be confirmed along with another two by South Sydney City Council.


15) DEPORTATION OF GAY MAN AND HIS SISTER SEEKING REFUGEE STATUS IN AUSTRALIA:
We were contacted late last year by friends who had heard about the impending deportation of a gay man and his sister who were seeking refugee status in Australia. Unfortunately the information was received the day before the deportation was to be carried out and our next advice was that the Australian government had deported them. We put out some email information in the hope that there was some existing organisation to deal with future events of this nature, and we had many offers of assistance, but were aware that no specific organisation exists in Australia to deal with the matter. We hope that we will be able to get such a group organised with the help of those who contacted us so that those who visit Australia's concentration camps can find out who needs this assistance. If any of our readers are prepared to be involved, please contact us and we will put you in touch with those who responded to our emails.


16) BBC APOLOGISES FOR HOMOPHOBIC REGGAE TRACKS:
This is yet another astonishing story in the sad saga of homophobia around the world - this time from the UK. A report in the online gay site, uk.gay.com of 8 September 2002, states that "the BBC has apologised for posting allegedly homophobic lyrics from reggae artists on its website that appear to condone violence and even murder against homosexuals. Gay rights group OutRage! expressed concern that the lyrics were homophobic and encouraged violence against gays." A spokesman for the group said: "It is a clear incitement to homophobic violence and murder." The BBC said that 'Burn Out Da Chi Chi', by Jamaican reggae artist Capleton on a Top 10 playlist and the BBC 1Xtra website was 'a mistake'. The BBC added that the other controversial track 'Log on' by Elephant Man had been given airtime, but that the offensive lyrics had been edited out. This is not the first time the BBC has played homophobic tracks. Last year (2001) Radio 1 got itself in hot water for playing Chi Chi Man, which called for gay people to be burned. The station's head of specialist music defended its decision to play the track, claiming that it had "almost become an unofficial anthem for some people in Jamaica."


17) GAY & LESBIAN GROUP GETS LOCAL COUNCIL GRANT AGAINST ANTI- GAY OPPOSITION IN COUNCIL MEETING:
Despite homophobic attacks from two councillors, Bankstown City Council (NSW) recently awarded the Canterbury- Bankstown Gay & Lesbian Group (CBDG&L) a small grant to fund a Community Against Homophobia float. The two Bankstown Councillors, Paul Barrett (Liberal Party) and Lyn Abrahams (One Nation Party), opposed the grant with such ferocious, ill-informed and homophobic statements about gays and lesbians that the group demanded retraction and an apology from both councillors in a letter to the local newspaper. CBDG&L had applied to Council for a local community grant following the immensely successful Youth Against Homophobia float organised by the Coolaburoo Centre in Revesby (NSW) the previous year. The Canterbury- Bankstown group wanted to give their local government area the opportunity to express its support for its gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community. It seems that even in such a cosmopolitan community area like Bankstown, religious beliefs and discrimination override human rights which goes to prove that there is a real need for a Community Against Homophobia float in Bankstown.

Canterbury Bankstown Gay & Lesbian Social Group and "Islam and Homosexuality - a logical and scientific approach" forum

18) DEATH OF HARRY HAY:
A gay pioneer in the United States and a Marxist, Hay died at the age of 90 on 24th October 2002. His communist history dated back to the 1934 San Francisco General Strike. He joined the Party and rose rapidly in its ranks as a talented educator as Stuart Timmons records in his biography, The Trouble with Harry Hay. In 1950, Hay with the help of a few others founded the Mattachine Society which expelled him for his radicalism during the McCarthy era in the US. Later, in the early seventies he formed the gay, all male group, the Radical Faeries. Perhaps, because of his political education in the Stalinist period, Hay failed to see the material roots of gay oppression in women's second-class status. Still for someone forced to blaze new ground alone, it is a testament to Hay that he never abandoned his Marxist beliefs. He was always ready to fight against single-issue gay reformists and always offered his support to other struggles. In 1986 for example, he was asked to march in the founders' section of the Los Angeles Pride Parade sponsored by Christopher Street West, a group which epitomised the commercialism of the gay establishment. He refused. Instead he marched with a sandwich-board supporting organisations and individuals that the organisers had excluded. Hay's actions were severely criticised as an embarrassment . He replied to the criticism in a Los Angeles gay community newspaper. "Gay pride is out of date," he wrote. "How long are we going to go around saying:'I'm proud to have blue eyes?' San Francisco and Boston have been calling it Gay Freedom Day for years. Maybe it's time we had a Gay Freedom Day here [in LA] too." Long live the spirit of Harry Hay! Maybe his is the kind of spirit needed to lambast the idea of dropping lesbian and gay from the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras. We are grateful to the Chicago Anti-Bashing Network and Stephen Durham's obit in the Freedom Socialist Newspaper Jan-Mar 03 from which we produced this scaled- down piece.


19) TRANSGENDER TEEN HATE MURDER:
Since October 2002, when three men were charged with the murder of 17-year-old transgender youth Gwen Araujo, a fourth man has been charged. Araujo was killed at a party in Newark, California on 3 October 2002, but her body was not discovered until two weeks later when one of the suspects directed police to the burial site 240km away in a remote part of the Sierra foothills. (Sydney Star Observer 25 October 2002). According to the report Araujo attended the party and her transgenderism was discovered in a party rest- room by another girl who then told other patrons. It was alleged the three suspects (now four) began beating Araujo and gashed her head with a blunt object before taking her into a garage and strangling her. The murder took place while a student cast there was rehearsing for the play "The Laramie Project" about the murder of Matthew Shepard. The killing galvanized the small Silicone Valley community of Newark. The play was originally scheduled for four performances, but after Araujo's murder, demand for tickets jumped and two more sell-out performances were added. Before the play began, a candlelight vigil was held to honour Araujo and was attended by Moises Kaufman, author of the Laramie Project.


20) BRITAIN DENIES ASYLUM TO GAY PIANIST:
A gay man regarded as one of the most promising young pianists playing in Britain has been ordered to return to Zimbabwe despite his fears that he will be persecuted because he is gay. Michael Brownlee Walker, 25, five years ago, won a place at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester to study classical piano. He completed his study and a year ago applied for asylum. He has no family left in Zimbabwe. British gay rights activists have taken up his cause. He has no income and is not allowed to work and is currently living at the home of concert pianist Leslie Howard.