RAINBOW FLAGS ON SWEDISH BALTIC ISLAND

Tupilak, Nordic Rainbow Council, ILGCN, Nordic Rainbow Humanists:



Visby – A successful week of discussions, art and photos, Nordic CD music and performances took place June 29-July 3 at the" Almedalen Week" in this capital of this eastern Baltic Swedish island of Gotland -- during the biggest political, human rights and cultural week of the Swedish summer.

"We were pleased to be once again at the large silo in Visy harbor, " says Bill Schiller of the ILGCN (International Lesbian & Gay Cultural Network) Information Secretariat – Stockholm -- together with some 25 other internationally-minded human rights organizations.

Tupilak also participated in other LGBT discussions among the over 1,000 seminars and other events during the week, pointing out the urgent need to help Nordic colleagues on the other side of the Baltic Sea by criticizing the Lithuanian Parliament's ban on all positive information about homosexuality and the program of "Vilnius – European Cultural Capital 2009" deliberately ignoring rainbow culture.

Bifrost Award to Baltic Square and Fellow Participants

During the week, Tupilak handed out the first of this year's "Bifrost Award" to the Östersjö Torget "for promoting rainbow rights and culture and proving that human rights groups working together can create a strong voice for international solidarity." The 2nd of this year's winner will be announced in September at the giant Gothenburg Book Fair. (Bifrost is the old Norse word for "rainbow" -- linking the world of the Viking gods and human beings – and honors today's hetereosexual-homosexual bridge- building.

At the "Baltic Square" presentation by Balkan women planning to repeat the "Almedalen" solidarity week in Belgrade this fall, Tupilak promised to send a delegation to the "Freja Forum" in the Serbian capital 13-15 November.

Helping man the Tupilak tent in Visby this time was the Swedish Peace organization, Peace Quest International.

More information: info@tupilak.org

NORDIC HUMANIST AWARD TO ROMANIANS

PRESS RELEASE MAY, 2009


BUCHAREST/STOCKHOLM -- The 2009 Nordic Rainbow Humanist award has been
presented to the memers of the newly-started Rumanian Humanist
Association.

The award diploma was handed out during the ILGCN (International
Lesbian & Gay Cultural Network) 1st stage of this year's world rainbow
cultural conference in the Romanian capital oon May 21st as part of
this year's annual Bucharest GayFest.

The Romanians are being honored for -- despite the association's
young age and the fierce homophobia from politicians, religious
leaders, the media and neo nazi hooligans in that Eastern European
nation -- giving strong support to the LGBT community and for
standing up in solidarity in public at Pride parades and LGBT cultural
events -- proving that real progress for human rights can best be
achieved by gays and straights jointly manning the rainbow barricades.

Earlier awards from the Stockholm-based Nordic Rainbow Humanists
have gone to pioneering human rights activists in Britain, Norway,
Sweden, the Netherlands and Nigeria (see diploma for details).

For more information: http://www.tupilak.org

TUPILAK CULTURAL EVENING

Wednesday April 22, 2009 19.00 www.tupilak.org

Musik Valvet Kåkbrinken 5 Gamla Stan, Stockholm
(a few steps away from the exit of the "Old Town" tube station)






Preliminary program:

• Jenny Gabrielsson -- song and music
  
  
• Peter Fröberg -- music and song
  
  
• "LGBT films at major film festivals" -- Marit Kapla, director of the Gothenburg International Film Festival
  
  
• "Tupilak and ILGCN (International rainbow cultural network) Events 2009"
  - from Riga to Krakow, Visby to Bucharest, Gothenburg to St. Petersburg
  -- Bill Schiller, Tupilak chairman and secretary general of the ILGCN Information Secretariat - Stockholm
  
  
• "News from Rainbow Colleagues in Belarus* -- Yury Kazhura, Tupilak international secretary.
  
  
• Bastian Damascus "Flowers of the Cock" -- dance-performance
  
  
• Tupilak award ceremony
  

Wine at budget prices!


(No entrance fee, but donations appreciated to help cover the rent!)

NOTE: Short Tupilak steering committee meeting at 18.00. (Open to all members as well.)


...............................................................................................
Supporting Tupilak, ILGCN: Nordic Rainbow Council, Nordic Rainbow Humanists



_____________________________________________________________

Tupilak has members in Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland. Iceland, Åland, Faroes, Estonia, Latvia & Lithuania.

To Tupilak colleagues/supporters on both sides of the Baltic Sea:

YEARLY MEETING. Stockholm,
March 18, 2009 19.00

at HALLONGROTTAN Bergsundsgatan 25 (T-Hornstull)
Tel: 08 658 13 20

& a special INTERNATIONAL SALUTE to young LGBT activists in BELARUS
- the last Eastern Europe dictatorship


Agenda:

1. New steering committee (new blood wanted * especially outside Stockholm. Most meetings and decisions are by e-mail to save travel $$$$ and energy).
2. Financial report. (Miserable situation since no more funding from the Swedish state. Membership income and fund-raising more important than ever!)
3. Sending delegates to 1st Baltic Pride * Riga (May 15-17) and Gothenburg Rainbow Cultural Festival (May 15-17).
4. Working with the Swedish Pol-Balt Network (for Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland. Next meeting in Stockholm March 23)
5. Baltic Rainbow Cultural Festival * Visby (June 28- July 4, 2009 * Almedalen Week).
6. Tupilak/ILGCN Art Exhibit during Stockholm Pride 2009*?
7. Delegate to Nordic Rainbow Islanders* Human Rights& Culture Conference (Iceland, Faroes, Greenland, Åland, Gotland, Öland, Stockholm Archipelago).
8. Delegate to 10th Tribade Day & Night Festival * Helsinki (September) and ILGCN World Culture Conference in St. Petersburg (September 21).
9. Work with SödraTeater on *Swedish-Eastern Europe Rainbow Cultural Festival * Stockholm, 2009.
10. Work with Nordic Rainbow Humanists, Swedish Humanists. (Visiting Nigerian pro-LGBT humanists!)
11. Rainbow music and art festivals at Musik Valvet - Stockholm
    

Bill Schiller, bill@tupilak.org
Tupilak international secretary andsecretary general of ILGCN (International Lesbian & Gay Cultural Network Information Secretariat * Stockholm)

_______________________________________________________________

Tupilak members in Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Iceland, Åland, Faroes, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

Norwegian Opera Singer Björn Haugan Dies

Stockholm – Long-time Tupilak (Nordic rainbow cultural workers)

member and strong supporter of ILGCN (International Lesbian & Gay Cultural

Network) activities, Norwegian opera singer and music teacher, Björn Björn, has died at a Stockholm hospital after a long illness.

Aside from his professional work as a singer and teacher, Haugan performed voluntarily at a number of rainbow cultural events arranged by Tupilak and by the ILGCN, including IDAHO (International Day Against Homophobia) events in the Swedish capital – singing cheerfully and powerfully even from his wheelchair in the last years.

Björn Haugan was especially proud of his participation in 2002 in an ILGCN-arranged “Nazi & neo Nazi Persecution of Homosexuals” event in Linz, Austria, co-arranged at a city theater with the Austrian LGBT organization, HOSI-Linz, and including a rainbow ceremony at the near-by Nazi concentration camp, Mauthausen, where Haugan sang Wagner’s “Liebestod” at the gathering in front of the camp’s pink triangle monument marked “Beaten to Death, Silenced to Death” -- honoring the LGBT prisoners who were interned, tortured and murdered in the camp.

Björn Haugan carried out the visit to Austria despite severe pains from his diabetes.

. A memorial concert will take place on Saturday, February 7 at 17.00 at Sofia Church in Stockholm.

Bill Schiller – Tupilak international secretary

HOSI-Linzp photo from of a rainbow ceremony in Mauthausen -- honoring the LGBT prisoners

TUPILAK TV

TUPILAK TV
Homomonument

NORDIC BALTIC WINTER GATHERING… www.tupilak.se

TUPILAK MEMBERS & FRIENDS -- on both sides of the Baltic!

We're pleased to invite you to a winter Nordic/Baltic rainbow human rights &
cultural happening in Stockholm on:

November 30, 2008 Musik Valvet
(Svartmangatan 27 Gamla Stan) 17.00-22.00

...to meet some of our visiting colleagues from the region (thanks to funding from the Swedish International Development Assistance Baltic Unit in Visby on the island of Gotland) and a few representatives from other organizations working with us to discuss international co-operation and coming projects:

Krakow -- The Turbulent Battle of Flowers -- at the tomb of the homosexual 15th Century King

Helsinki -- The 10th Tribade Day & Night Festival: September 2009 -- with a special focus on Tallinn, St. Petersburg.

Minsk -- Where rainbows are still in chains.

Vilnius -- Where the rainbow flag is still banned.

Visby -- A Nordic/Baltic rainbow human rights & culture festival, July 2009?

Photo/ ill: Willi Reichhold

St. Petersburg -- Russian Co-operation with Sweden and Finland 2009.

Stockholm -- Nordic Focus on LGBT Nigeria (via the Nordic Rainbow Humanists).

Kristall Nacht -- An international November salute to victims of Nazis/ neo Nazis.

Nordic Rainbow Memorials -- an initiative of ILGCN, Nordic Rainbow Council, Nordic Rainbow Humanists.

Music, Poetry, Art …. Wine and beer at low cost.

No entrance fees for Tupilak members and invited friends.

-- Bill Schiller, Tupilak international secretary and secretary general of the International Lesbian & Gay Cultural Network: Information Secretariat - Stockholm



ILGCN www.tupilak.ilgcn.org