IDAHO 2013 media campaign: Let everyone kiss whomever they want!

The International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia – IDAHO 2013

On the 17th of May 1992 World Health Organisation (WHO) declassifies homosexuality as a mental illness in the latest edition of its list of diseases and health problems, the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems. Since then this day has been marked as an International Day against Homophobia and Transphobia which emphasises that homophobia and transphobia are harmful and must be fought against until its logic is destroyed.

Sarajevo open centre is organising the first ever IDAHO media campaign in BiH this year.

The purpose of this campaign named Neka ljubi ko god koga hoce (Let everyone kiss whomever they want) is to raise the awareness of the issues LGBT person face. This campaign aims to indicate the alarming level of homophobia and transphobia in BH society and to attribute to their decrease. Homophobia and transphobia are present in the work places, educational system and schools, streets, media and Sarajevo Open Centre through all of its activities wants to raise the awareness of the public on their consequences and work on their decrease.

This campaign is just a beginning of our work on combat againsta homophobia and transphobia and the discrimination and violence they cause which occurs to LGBT persons almost daily.

Media coverage for the campaign will be provided by the web portals radiosarajevo.ba and lgbt-prava.ba, radio stations Radio Sarajevo and Ness radio Banja Luka. Campaign starts on the 13th and lasts until 19th of May 2013. Through audio and video messages from famous and respected individuals from BH society we want to introduce LGBT rights related topics into media and make them closer to the public thus conveying the message: Neka ljubi ko god koga hoce!

This campaign was also supported by many individuals on the international level such as the UN Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights Ivan Šimonovic, the representative of the European parliament Marije Cornelissen, Council of Europe and many others.

As a part of our campaign we will organise and Info session with journalists whose participant will be Marina Milkovic our guest from Croatia and a member of Zagreb Pride and a co-manager of Queer2Queer workshops in Zagreb. This Info session will be organised to present the campaign and generally discuss homophobia and transphobia in BiH and the region and also to present our tender for the professional and ethical reporting on LGBT topics for the journalists. A workshop for LGBT persond about Coming out and a discussion on activism in the region will be organised on Saturday.

On this link you can watch video messages.