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Indian photo series highlights plight of gay people

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Arjun Kamath’s Coming Out represents the difficulties many young Indians face when they come out as LGBT

A photographer has shared a series of photos illustrating the persecution many same-sex couples still face in the world.
In a series of photos shared on Facebook, Arjun Kamath’s Coming Out represents the difficulties many young Indians face when they come out as LGBT.
“I have some gay friends who feel suffocated at having to hide and I wanted to address that; this is why I literalised the metaphorical closet,” Kamath told The Quint.
The pictures powerfully depict the story of two women who hesitatingly come out of the closet in a forest.

 
In addition to the images, Kamath shared his narrative of the images on his Facebook page.
In the narrative, the lovers Maitreyi and Alpana leave the closet before playing hide and seek in a forest.

Soon after, Maitreyi steps on a thorn and falls down in pain.
The couple are then blessed by Parivala, who is said to have also found freedom in the woods just days before.

The next day, the couple are pictured having fun by a river, however their happiness is disturbed by the Rakshasas, a type of evil in Hindi mythology, who chain the lovers up and force them back into the closet.
The final photos show the Rakshasas lighting the closet on fire with the two women trapped inside.
“Their biggest sin,” Kamath writes, “was that they loved each other, and not a man.”

“I was sick of some of my friends not being able to talk to their family and friends about their orientation. The ‘log kya kahenge‘ fear made them step right back into that closet the second they so much as opened the door for a breath of fresh air. And that is not acceptable. To see them go through life in oblique disappointment is not acceptable,” Kamath told India Today.
The setting of the photos was intentional, with Kamath tellingIndia Today: “The forest that the closet is kept in reflects the savage retaliation they receive from the society. And I wanted it to be graphic, because no other way could I portray the agony that my friends, and even your friends, go through.”
To see the full series of pictures, along with Kamath’s narrative,click here.

UK teen faces jail for wanting to go kill gay people with ISIS

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  | By Joe Morgan
 

He said he wanted to go to Syria and join the group of religious extremists

A 19-year-old who became influenced by religious extremists to believe gay people should be killed and join Islamic State is facing jail.
Syed Choudhury is believed to have become radicalised by older Muslims when he left his Bradford home to attend college in Cardiff.
He has pleaded guilty at the Old Bailey to preparing acts of terrorism.
At and after college, Choudhury started to become more open about believing in the work of the religious extremists.
As part of an IT project, he made a poster saying ‘Islam Will Dominate The World, Freedom Can Go To Hell’.
He also posted articles on Twitter and Facebook, agreeing gay people should be killed.
When Choudhury left college with few qualifications leaving him to work in a fast food restaurant, it appears he saved around £3,000 to carry out his wish of going to Syria.
He had googled ’10 reasons to join Isis’, ‘Jihadist Highway’ and ‘How To travel To Syria These Days’, according to the prosecutor.
Choudhury had moved to a bedsit, after living with an aunt and uncle, when he was arrested on 4 December.
During his police interview, he told officers he had not gone to Syria as he wanted to go with someone else. He also said he cared little for the UK and wanted to impose Sharia law.
His lawyer Abdul Iqbal said Choudhury admitted he was embarrassed by some of the things he said to police.
‘[The case] shows a lack of sophistication, some naivety and level of immaturity,’ Iqbal said.
‘There appears to be no attempt at all to disguise his involvement or insulate himself from detection.’
He also said how Choudhury had a hard start in life, abandoned by his parents and brought up by relatives in Bradford.
And that was why he was susceptible when ‘older men who he regarded as more learned than him’ had ‘plied him with extremist ideas’.
As reported by The Telegraph, judge Peter Rook said: ‘You have pleaded guilty to conducting preparation for acts of terrorism and it is quite clear that you wanted to travel to Syria to join Isis and the only reason you had not gone was you had not found anyone you trusted to travel with.
‘You must understand there is only one sentence I can impose. It must be a custodial sentence.’
– See more at: http://www.gaystarnews.com/article/uk-teen-faces-jail-wanting-go-kill-gay-people-isis170615#sthash.5XDBIu5k.dpuf