Tsitsi Tiripano knows the price of lesbian visibility. The group burned GALZ literature and threatened violence against GALZ members. GALZ and the Book Fair organizers sought police protection. Their request went unheeded. Virulent articles about GALZ appeared in the national press, which published Tsitsi's photo.
Governments deploy a range of tactics to keep abuses under wraps and to evade accountability.
In countries where homosexuality is not criminalized, gay men and lesbians may be at risk of arrest on vague or bogus criminal charges which conceal the real reason for their detention. Charges of 'hooliganism' and 'unruly behaviour' have been used in this way in the past in China - as with 'vagrancy' in Venezuela and 'dangerousness' in Cuba. Another tactic is the privatization of murder. Killings are committed by private individuals acting with official collusion. The authorities wash their hands of all responsibility, but systematically fail to take action against the perpetrators.