{"id":11606,"date":"2019-01-21T13:59:51","date_gmt":"2019-01-21T08:14:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pahichan.com\/?p=11606"},"modified":"2019-01-21T13:59:51","modified_gmt":"2019-01-21T08:14:51","slug":"artists-stage-rare-protest-against-gay-conversion-therapy-in-china","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/artists-stage-rare-protest-against-gay-conversion-therapy-in-china\/","title":{"rendered":"Artists stage rare protest against gay conversion therapy in China"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Kathmandu (Pahichan) January 21 – Three\u00a0Chinese\u00a0men have launched a public campaign sending bright red trucks with slogans denouncing homosexual \u201cconversion therapy\u201d through major cities in\u00a0China, in a rare public protest against homophobia.<\/p>\n

Artist Wu Qiong said the protest was inspired by the 2017 film \u201cThree Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri,\u201d in which a woman uses billboards to draw attention to her daughter\u2019s unsolved rape and murder.<\/p>\n

The three trucks \u2013 the brainchild of Mr Wu,\u00a0gay\u00a0policeman Lin He and art curator Zheng Hongbin \u2013 are protesting \u201ctreatment\u201d clinics that claim to turn people straight.<\/p>\n

It also aims to build awareness with\u00a0China\u2019s 1.4 billion people that \u201chomosexuality is not a disease,\u201d Mr Wu, who is straight, told the Telegraph.<\/p>\n

Being\u00a0gay\u00a0is not a crime in\u00a0China, but Mr Wu and rights experts say there remains a lack of public understanding. Part of that stems from inconsistent official terminology \u2013 in 2001, the\u00a0Chinese\u00a0Society of Psychiatry removed homosexuality from a list of mental disorders, though vague references remain to \u201csexual orientation disorder.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many public hospitals and private clinics in\u00a0China\u00a0offer \u201cconversion\u201d treatments, which can include arbitrary confinement, forced medication and even electroshock therapy, according to Human Rights Watch, an advocacy group, which has called on Beijing to ban the practice.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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T<\/span>he crowd-funded truck campaign is making stops at these \u201ctreatment\u201d centres; Mr Wu estimates there are roughly 100 in the country.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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T<\/span>hey started rolling around the streets of Shanghai last week and will hit another seven cities, including Beijing, on a 1,860-mile nationwide road trip. One truck reads, \u201cTo cure a \u2018disease\u2019 that does not exist?\u201d<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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A second says, \u201cThe diagnostic criteria for mental disorders in\u00a0China\u00a0still retain \u2018sexual orientation disorder.\u2019\u201d And a third has, \u201cIt\u2019s been 19 years, why?\u201d referring to the 2001 change on paper that the artists feel need to be clarified.<\/p>\n

Social attitudes in\u00a0China\u00a0are slowly shifting and conversion \u201ccures\u201d are increasingly recognised as a sham \u2013 a court in 2017 ordered a psychiatric hospital to compensate a\u00a0gay\u00a0man forced to undergo such therapy.<\/p>\n

But the country \u201cdoes not have a law protecting individuals from discrimination due to sexual orientation or gender identity,\u201d according to Human Rights Watch.<\/p>\n

Still, such campaigns are rare in\u00a0China, where authorities often quickly disband public protests over fears of widespread social unrest.<\/p>\n

In recent years, there has also been a crackdown affecting the\u00a0gay\u00a0community, including a ban on\u00a0gay-themed television shows, and a writer slapped with a 10-year prison sentence for penning a\u00a0gay\u00a0erotic novel.<\/p>\n

But so far, the bold, red trucks have toured unopposed, and the project\u2019s social media account, followed by nine million, has escaped censorship;\u00a0Chinese\u00a0state media have even covered the project.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cWe are not breaking the law. It\u2019s just three trucks driving on the road,\u201d said Mr Zheng, 32, who is straight. \u201cOur approach is pretty mild.\u201d<\/div>\n
Source :\u00a0telegraph<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kathmandu (Pahichan) January 21 – Three\u00a0Chinese\u00a0men have launched a public campaign sending bright red trucks with slogans denouncing homosexual \u201cconversion therapy\u201d through major cities in\u00a0China, in a rare public protest against homophobia.
\nArtist Wu Qiong said the protest was inspired by the 2017 film \u201cThree Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri,\u201d in which a woman uses billboards to draw attention to her daughter\u2019s unsolved rape and murder.
\nThe three trucks \u2013 the brainchild of Mr Wu,\u00a0gay\u00a0policeman Lin He and art curator Zheng Hongbin \u2013 are protesting \u201ctreatment\u201d clinics that claim to turn people straight.
\nIt …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":11607,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,621,492,490,11],"tags":[788],"class_list":["post-11606","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-current-issue","category-news","category-opinion","category-slider","category-world","tag-homosexual"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11606","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11606"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11606\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11608,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11606\/revisions\/11608"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11607"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}