Peter Tatchell

Peter Gary Tatchell (born 25 January 1952) is an Australian-born British political campaigner best known for his work with LGBT social movements. 
Tatchell was selected as Labour Party Parliamentary candidate for Bermondsey in 1981, and was then denounced by party leader Michael Foot for supporting extra-parliamentary action against the Thatcher government. The Labour Party subsequently allowed his selection when he ran in the Bermondsey by-election in February 1983. In the 1990s, he became a prominent LGBT campaigner through the direct action group OutRage!, which he co-founded. He has worked on a wide variety of issues, such as Stop Murder Music, which campaigns against music lyrics that incite violence against LGBT people, and is a frequent contributor on human rights and social justice issues in print and through broadcast media, authoring many articles and six books. In 2006, New Statesman readers voted him sixth on their list of "Heroes of our time".New Statesman Library – Articles by Peter Tatchell He attracted international attention when he attempted a citizen's arrest of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe in 1999 and again in 2001.
In April 2007 he joined the Green Party of England and Wales prospective parliamentary candidate in the constituency of Oxford East.
 However, in December 2009 Tatchell announced he was standing down from the post due to brain damage he says was sustained from injuries by President Mugabe's bodyguards when Tatchell was trying to arrest him for the second time, and by neo-Nazis in Moscow while campaigning for gay rights, as well as from an accident on a bus. He is a regular contributor to The Guardian's online opinion section, "Comment is Free".Peter Tatchell's contributor page, Comment is Free
Since 2009, he has been an Ambassador for the penal reform group, Make Justice Work.
In 2011, he was appointed the Director (unsalaried) of the human rights organisation, the Peter Tatchell Foundation.
According to the US Embassy cables released by Wikileaks, Peter Tatchell informed the US Embassy about his injuries at the hands of neo-Nazis at the 2007 Moscow Gay Pride Parade.
==Personal life==
Tatchell was born in Melbourne, Australia. His father, Gordon Tatchell, was a lathe operator in an engineering factory while his mother, Mardi, was a housewife and later worked in a biscuit factory. His parents divorced when he was four and his mother remarried soon afterwards. Her second husband, Edwin Nitscke, worked variously as a gardener, factory cleaner and taxi driver. Tatchell's mother was chronic asthmatic and the family finances were strained by medical bills. As a result he was unable to continue his formal education beyond a basic level and in 1968 at age 16 Tatchell started work as a designer, sign-writer and window-dresser in Melbourne's principal department stores, first Waltons and then Myer. At the latter he worked throughout the year to develop international prize-winning animated window displays for the Christmas period. Tatchell has said that he has incorporated the theatricality of these displays into his political activism."Is This Your Life?" television programme, Channel 4, 5 August 1995 Raised as a Christian, Tatchell says that he "ditched [his] faith a long time ago" and is an atheist.
In Australia he began a lifelong interest in outdoor adventurous activities such as surfing and mountain climbing. While speaking on BBC Radio 4's Any Questions in the context of insurance and legal risks making British teachers unwilling to take pupils on outdoor adventures, he said his outdoor activities helped him develop the courage to be a political risk-taker in adult life.
 
===Early campaigns===
His political activity had begun at Mount Waverley Secondary College where in 1967 he launched campaigns in support of the Aboriginal people. Tatchell was elected by fellow pupils as secretary of the Student Representative Council, and in his final year in 1968, as school captain, took the lead in setting up a scholarship scheme for Aborigines, and led a campaign for Aboriginal land rights. These activities were not popular with the school authorities and led the headmaster to denounce him as having been manipulated by communists. It is an issue he has returned to in 2004 in proposing the renaming of Australian capital cities with their original Aborigine place names.
He also joined the Australian campaign against the death penalty. Prompted by the impending hanging of Ronald Ryan in 1967, Tatchell went round his local area daubing slogans against the hanging, an action that was not identified as his until he revealed it in an interview nearly 30 years later."Bermondsey ten years on", Gay Times, February 1993. Ryan was accused of shooting dead a prison warder during an escape from Pentridge Prison. Aged 15, Tatchell worked out that the trajectory of the bullet through the warder's body made it more or less physically impossible that Ryan could have fired the fatal shot. More likely the warder was shot accidentally by another warder on a watch-tower. Ryan was hanged anyway. In subsequent re-examinations of the case many prominent Australians came to a similar conclusion as Tatchell.
In 1968 Tatchell began campaigning against the United States's and Australia's involvement in the Vietnam War, which he believed was a war of aggression in support of a "brutal and corrupt dictatorship in Saigon which was notorious for the torture and execution of political opponents". The conservative Victorian state government and Melbourne city council attempted to suppress the anti-Vietnam War campaign by banning street leafleting and taking police action against anti-war demonstrations.New Statesman: Volume 137, Issues 4891–4903, 2008.
===Gay Liberation Front===
thumb|Original UK Gay Liberation Front activists, including Bette Bourne (on the left), at LSE 40th anniversary celebration, Tatchell is fourth from the left.
To avoid conscription into the Australian Army he moved to London in 1971.Jorge Morales, "Tatchell's Long Crusade", The Advocate, 2 May 1995; page 23. He had accepted being gay in 1969 and four days after arriving he spotted a sticker on a lamp-post in Oxford Street advertising a meeting of the London Gay Liberation Front (GLF). He quickly became a leading member of the group until it disintegrated in 1974. During his time in GLF Tatchell was prominent in organising sit-ins at pubs that refused to serve "poofs" and protests against police harassment and the medical classification of homosexuality as an illness. He was a member of GLF's Youth and Action Groups. With others he helped organise the first Gay Pride march in Britain, in London in 1972.
In 1973 under the aegis of the GLF he attended the 10th World Youth Festival in East Berlin. His interventions brought out considerable opposition to gay rights within and between different groups of national delegates including the British Communist Party and National Union of Students, which manifested itself in Tatchell being banned from conferences, having his gay rights leaflets confiscated and burned, interrogation by the secret police (the Stasi) and being threatened and violently attacked by fellow delegates—mostly communists. Tatchell later claimed that this was the first time gay liberation politics were publicly disseminated and discussed in a communist country, although he noted that legally, in terms of decriminalisation and the age of consent, gay men had greater rights in East Germany at the time than in Britain and much of the West.Peter Tatchell, "GLF at the World Youth Festival, GDR 1973", in Gay Marxist no 3 (October 1973)
===Graduation===
After doing his A levels at evening classes at West London College from 1972 to 1974 Tatchell continued his education at the Polytechnic of North London. On his graduation he obtained a 2:1 BSc (Hons) in Sociology.
At UNL / PNL he was a member of the National Union of Students Gay Rights Campaign. On graduating he became a freelance journalist specialising in foreign stories, during which he publicised the Indonesian annexation of West Papua and child labour on British-owned tea farms in Malawi."Britain's profitable brew", New Statesman, 20 July 1979, p. 88–89
==Political activity==
In January 2005 he was first included in Who's Who.
He popularised the phrase "sexual apartheid" to described the separate, different laws that long existed for gays and heterosexuals.Tim Ross, "Peter Tatchell bids to overturn gay marriage ban at European Court of Human Rights: Campaigners for equal rights for homosexuals will launch an attempt to overturn England's "discriminatory" marriage laws at the European Court of Human Rights today." The Telegraph, 19 March 2011.Megan Murphy, "British Lesbians Lose Bid to Validate Their Marriage", Bloomberg News, 31 July 2006.
He opposed the appointment of Ruth Kelly as Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government in 2006, as the Department had responsibility for equalities while Kelly, a practising Roman Catholic, had not supported equal treatment of lesbians and gay men in any Parliamentary votes. Tatchell complained that "her appointment suggests the government does not take lesbian and gay rights seriously", adding "Tony Blair would never appoint someone to a race-equality post who had a lukewarm record of opposing racism".
===Timeline of political events===
Over forty years Tatchell has been involved or led protests and founded or co-founded many groups. Here are a few presented as a timeline:"About Peter", Peter Tatchell's website.
===Labour candidate for Bermondsey===
A 1973 attempt to join the Labour Party got no response. His later application to join the Labour Party was accepted in Hornsey in 1978, shortly before he moved to a council flat in Bermondsey, south-east London.
From October 1979, Tatchell became a leading member in a group of left-wingers who began planning to depose the right-wing caucus of Southwark borough councillors who were in control of Bermondsey Constituency Labour Party. Similar moves were occurring in many other Constituency Labour Parties as part of a shift to the left following the party's defeat in the 1979 general election. At the Annual General Meeting of the CLP in February 1980, the left group won control and Tatchell was elected as the CLP Secretary.
When the sitting Labour MP, Bob Mellish, announced his retirement, Tatchell was selected as his successor in November 1981. The selection was something of a surprise, as Arthur Latham (defeated in 1979 at Paddington by 106 votes, and former Chairman of the Tribune Group) was expected to be selected (Tatchell defeated him by 37 to 30). Later the Militant tendency were cited as the reason for Tatchell's selection, but as Tatchell pointed out in his book The Battle for Bermondsey, they had at that time only a handful of members in the constituency, Tatchell had never been a member and Militant did not support his selection. Tatchell ascribed his selection as Labour candidate as due to the support of the "older, 'born and bred' working class; the younger professional and intellectual members swung behind Latham".Peter Tatchell, The Battle for Bermondsey (Heretic Books, 1983), p. 50
===Bermondsey by-election===
Tatchell had written an article for the left-wing magazine London Labour Briefing in which he urged the Labour Party to support innovative direct action political campaigning to challenge the excesses of the Thatcher regime.London Labour Briefing, November 1981. The article came to the attention of James Wellbeloved, a former Labour MP who had joined the Social Democratic Party. Wellbeloved, arguing it was anti-Parliamentary, used it at Prime Minister's Question Time in December 1981 to embarrass Labour leader Michael Foot. Unexpectedly, Foot denounced Tatchell, stating that he would not be endorsed as a candidate. Foot narrowly won a vote at the Labour Party National Executive Committee to refuse endorsement to Tatchell. However, the Bermondsey Labour Party continued strongly to support him, and Tatchell worked on convincing Foot that his article was in the tradition of the Chartists and the Suffragettes, and had been misinterpreted by Labour's political opponents. It was eventually agreed that when the selection was rerun, Tatchell would be eligible, and he duly won. When Mellish resigned from Parliament and triggered a by-election, Tatchell was endorsed as the Labour Party candidate.
The divisions in the Labour Party, which Tatchell's far left views had exposed, and his homosexuality, were used against him by many opponents, in an election campaign widely regarded as one of the dirtiest and most violent in modern British history. Tatchell was assaulted in the street, had his flat attacked, and at one stage had a death threat and a live bullet put through his front door letterbox in the middle of the night. Although the Bermondsey seat had long been a Labour stronghold, the Liberal candidate, Simon Hughes, won the election. During the campaign, allegations were made that some Liberal canvassers stirred up xenophobia and homophobia on the doorsteps, playing up the fact that Tatchell was a foreigner born in Australia, and making an issue of his homosexuality. Members of the Liberal Gay Action Group campaigned wearing lapel badges emblazoned with the words, "I've been kissed by Peter Tatchell" as a protest against the perception that he was attempting to hide his sexuality (see Bermondsey by-election, 1983). One of the Hughes' campaign leaflets has been condemned by some for claiming the election was "a straight choice" between Liberal and Labour, however this phrase is regularly used by many parties within the UK—Hughes has since apologised for what may be perceived as an inadvertent slur. Hughes later admitted to his own bisexuality in 2006.
In the mid- and late-1980s, Tatchell worked as an author, writing books including The Battle for Bermondsey (the story of the by-election), Democratic Defence and a ground-breaking guide to surviving with HIV and AIDS, AIDS: A Guide to Survival. His book Europe in the Pink gave an introduction to the different laws on homosexuality through the European Union. In 1990 Tatchell sought (unsuccessfully) the Labour nomination for Hampstead and Highgate, being defeated by actress Glenda Jackson.
===Green issues===
In February 2000 he resigned his membership of the Labour Party, citing its treatment of Ken Livingstone, and in support of Livingstone he fought unsuccessfully for a seat on the London Assembly as an Independent Green Left candidate. On 7 April 2004, Tatchell announced that he had joined the Green Party but that he did not envisage standing as a candidate in any future election. However, in 2007, he was selected as the party's candidate for Oxford East.
Then, on 16 December 2009, Tatchell announced that he was withdrawing as the Green party candidate due to brain damage incurred on three occasions (when assaulted while protesting in Brussels in 2001, when assaulted while protesting in Moscow in 2007, and in an accident on a bus in July 2009).
Tatchell opposes expanding nuclear power in Britain and worldwide; instead he supports concentrated solar power. In his column in Tribune, he pointed out the adverse effects of climate change both at home in England and worldwide: "By 2050, if climate change proceeds unchecked, England will no longer be a green and pleasant land. In between periods of prolonged scorching drought, we are likely to suffer widespread flooding." "Unless swift remedial action is taken, climate chaos will devastate large parts of the world. The poorest countries, with the least wealth and resources to cope, will be hit the hardest."
For many years, he supported a green-red alliance. In the late 1980s, he co-organised the Green and Socialist Conferences. More recently, he helped launch the Green Left grouping within the Green Party. He also urged for the formation of co-operation and links between trade unions and the Greens. On 27 April 2010, he urged Green Party supporters to vote for the Liberal Democrats in constituencies where they have an incumbent MP or a strong chance of winning.BBC News: Live coverage - General Election 2010, 27 April 2010, 16:03
===Iraq War===
Tatchell opposed the Iraq war and the occupation of Iraq by the United States. He had previously advocated military and financial aid to opponents of the Saddam government in order to assist them to overthrow it; specifically suggesting that anti-Saddam organisations be given "tanks, helicopter gun-ships, fighter planes, heavy artillery and anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles".Iraq: the third way - Peter Tatchell in The Guardian. 19 March 2003 He suggested that "A democratic Iraq would be a beacon for human rights throughout the Middle East; giving the Arab people their first taste of freedom in a region that is dominated by semi-feudal Islamic fundamentalist dictatorships, notorious for their brutality, nepotism and corruption."ANTI-WAR MOVEMENT IGNORES SADDAM'S CRIMES - petertatchell.net. 30 September 2002 While opposing western intervention, he further advocated "regime change from within, by and for the people, in neighboring countries such as Saudi Arabia, Iran and Syria." Writing in the New Statesman, Tatchell reported that on 12 March 2003 he ambushed Tony Blair's motorcade in an anti-Iraq war protest. He forced the PM's limousine to stop, and then unfolded a banner that read "Arm the Kurds! Topple Saddam". Footage of his ambush was shown on ITN News the same evening. Later in his New Statesman article he wrote that in terms of the political struggle within Britain (as opposed to struggles against absolute tyrants like Hitler and Saddam where violent resistance can be the lesser of two evils): "I remain committed to the Gandhian principle of non-violence".Diary - Peter Tatchell - New Statesman, 24 March 2003. Since the war he has signed the 'Unite Against Terror' declaration, arguing that "the pseudo-left reveals its shameless hypocrisy and its wholesale abandonment of humanitarian values" by supporting resistance and insurgent groups in Iraq that resort to indiscriminate terrorism, killing innocent civilians. In 2002 he reiterated his support for Iraqis bidding to overthrow Saddam, noting that "Saddam's repression is, if anything, getting worse. In November 2001, the death penalty was extended to include the offences of prostitution, homosexuality, incest and rape." Despite the introduction of the death penalty, many gay Iraqis say they rarely faced overt persecution during Saddam's time. This led Tatchell to write in 2006 that "Under Saddam Hussein discreet homosexuality was usually tolerated."
In 2003 Tatchell wrote in The Guardian that he supported giving "massive material aid" to Iraqi opposition groups, including the "Shi'ite Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq" so as to bring the downfall of Saddam. But in 2006 Tatchell noted that SCIRI had become markedly more fundamentalist and was endorsing violent attacks an anyone who did not conform to its increasingly harsh interpretation of Islam. He claimed that "the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), which is the leading political force in Baghdad's ruling coalition [wants] to establish an Iranian-style religious dictatorship. [has a] goal of clerical fascism" and has engaged in "terrorisation of gay Iraqis", as well as terrorising Sunni Muslims, left-wingers, unveiled women, and people who listen to western pop music or who wear jeans or shorts.Peter Tatchell, "Iraq - Ayatollah Sistani Says Death to Gays; Sistani fatwa encourages terror against queers. Shia Badr Corps execute sodomites, Sunnis and others. UK fetes Sistani and hosts Badr's political wing, despite anti-gay murders.", 15 March 2006.; News story about protest- Marc Shoffman, "Iraqi Ayatollah sparks outrage after decreeing death to gays", Pink News, 17 March 2006.
===Baluchistan===
In 2006, he raised his concern for the Baloch people, who are facing military operations in their homeland Balochistan in Pakistan. From 2007 to 2009, he campaigned in defense of two UK-based Baloch Muslim human rights activists, Hyrbyair Marri and Faiz Baluch, who were framed on terrorism charges and tried in London at the behest of the Pakistani president Pervez Musharaff. Both men were acquitted in 2009. He has also helped expose British and U.S. collusion with the suppression of the Baloch people, including arms sales to Musharraf, which were used to bomb, strafe and attack Baloch towns and villages.Peter Tatchell, "Balochistan: UN Speech", delivered to Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization; Human Rights in Pakistan conference that was held at the United Nations in Geneva Thursday 11 March 2010 parallel to the 13th session of the UN Human Rights Council. The conference was co-hosted by UNPO and Interfaith International. (Footage of the speech available at )
===Activities in Moscow===
From 25 to 27 May 2006, Tatchell attended the first Moscow Pride Festival at the invitation of Nikolai Alekseev whom he met at London Pride in July 2005. Tatchell also appears as one of the protagonists of the documentary Moscow Pride '06 which features this event.
In May 2007, Tatchell went to Moscow to support Moscow Pride and to voice his opposition to a city-wide ban on the planned gay pride march. He went there at the invitation of Russian LGBT activists. On 27 May 2007, Tatchell and other gay rights activists were attacked. Tatchell was punched in the face and nearly knocked unconscious, while other demonstrators were beaten, kicked and assaulted. A German MP, Volker Beck, and a European Parliament deputy from Italy, Marco Capatto, were similarly subjected to punches before being arrested and questioned by police. Tatchell later said "I'm not deterred one iota from coming back to protest in Moscow."
On 16 May 2009, the day of the final of the Eurovision Song Contest, which was being held in Moscow and was widely covered by the world's media, Russian gay rights activists staged a protest in Moscow in defiance of the city's mayor, Yuri Luzkhov, who has long banned gay demonstrations and denounced them as "satanic". Tatchell was among the 32 campaigners who were arrested by police when they shouted slogans and unfurled banners urging gay rights in Russia.
==Campaigns==
===OutRage!===
Tatchell took part in many gay rights campaigning over issues such as Section 28. Following the murder of actor Michael Boothe on 10 May 1990, Tatchell was one of thirty founding members of the radical gay rights non-violent direct action group OutRage! and has remained a leading member. The group fuses theatrical performance styles with queer protest. As the most prominent OutRage! member, Tatchell is sometimes taken to be the leader of the group, though he has never claimed this title, saying he is one among equals.See, e.g., Ian Lucas, "OutRage! - an oral history", Cassell 1998.
In 1991, a small group of OutRage! members covertly formed a separate group to engage in a campaign of outing public figures who were homophobic in public but LGBT in private. The group took the name 'FROCS' (Faggots Rooting Out Closeted Sexuality) and Tatchell was the group's go-between with the press, forwarding their news statements to his media contacts. Considerable publicity and public debate followed FROCS's threat to out 200 leading public personalities from the world of politics, religion, business and sport. With Tatchell's assistance, members of FROCS eventually called a press conference to tell the world that their campaign was a hoax intended to demonstrate what he claimed was the hypocrisy of those newspapers that had condemned their campaign despite having themselves outed celebrities and politicians.Ian Lucas, "OutRage! - an oral history", Cassell 1998, pp. 63-71
Some of the activities of OutRage! have been highly controversial. In 1994 it unveiled placards inviting ten Church of England bishops to "tell the truth" about what Outrage! alleged was their homosexuality and accusing them of condemning homosexuality in public while themselves leading secret gay lives. Shortly afterwards the group wrote to twenty UK MPs, condemning their alleged support for anti-gay laws and claiming they would out them if the MPs did not stop what they described as attacks on the gay community. The MP Sir James Kilfedder, one such opponent of gay equality,http://www.scotsgay.co.uk/text/sg3.txt who had received one of the letters, died two months later of a sudden heart attack on the day one of the Belfast newspapers planned to out him. In a comment in The Independent in October 2003, Tatchell claimed the OutRage! action against the bishops was his greatest mistake because he failed to anticipate that the media and the church would treat it as an invasion of privacy.
On 12 April 1998, Tatchell led an OutRage! protest, which disrupted the Easter sermon by the Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, with Tatchell mounting the pulpit to denounce what he claimed was Carey's opposition to legal equality for lesbian and gay people. The protest had a lot of media coverage and led to Tatchell's prosecution under the little-used Ecclesiastical Courts Jurisdiction Act 1860 (formerly part of the Brawling Act 1551), which prohibits any form of disruption or protest in a church.Clare Garner, Stars of stage and pulpit will support `indecent' Tatchell, The Independent, Monday, 30 November 1998.Clare Garner , Protest in the cathedral `political', says Tatchell, The Independent, 1 December 1998. Tatchell failed in his attempt to summon Carey as a witness and was convicted. The judge fined him the small sum of £18.60, which commentators theorized was a wry allusion to the year of the statute used to convict him.Tatchell defends Mugabe 'arrest', BBC News, 6 March 2001.Ben Summerskill, "The Observer Profile: Peter Tatchell: Just a zealous guy", The Observer, 23 February 2003.
Some in the LGBT press have dubbed him "Saint Peter Tatchell" following further OutRage! campaigns involving religion.
A number of African LGBTI leaders signed a statement condemning the interference of Tatchell and OutRage! in African issues, which led Tatchell to respond in the comments sections with the argument that he favoured working with the radical LGBTI groups in Africa rather than the more conservative leaders who had signed the statement. Tatchell also pointed out that the African statement contained no concrete evidence to confirm the allegations made by African activists, that many African activists had refused to sign it and that many African activists continue to work with him. Peter Tatchell and OutRage! went on to publish a refutation of the allegations.
===Age of consent laws===
In 1996 Tatchell led an OutRage! campaign to reduce the age of consent to 14 to adjust for studies that showed nearly half of all young people—gay and straight—had their first sexual experiences prior to 16 years old and to counter them from being "treated as criminals by the law". The campaign positioned there should be no prosecution at all if the difference between the ages of the sexual partners was no more than three years—and providing it is backed up by earlier, more effective sex education in schools. He was quoted in the OutRage! press release as saying "Young people have a right to accept or reject sex, according to what they feel is appropriate for them".OutRage! press release, 21 February 1996 Leo McKinstry, in The Sun called it "a perverts' charter".Leo McKinstry, "Gays Homing In on Kids", The Sun, 24 February 1996
In a 1997 letter to The Guardian, Tatchell defended an academic book about 'boy-love', calling the work "courageous" before writing:
::The positive nature of some child-adult sexual relationships is not confined to non-Western cultures. Several of my friends – gay and straight, male and female – had sex with adults from the ages of nine to 13. None feel they were abused. All say it was their conscious choice and gave them great joy. While it may be impossible to condone paedophilia, it is time society acknowledged the truth that not all sex involving children is unwanted, abusive and harmful.
Tatchell has since reiterated that he does not condone adults having sex with children. On his own website, under Age of Consent, he writes: "My articles arguing for an 'age of consent' of 14 are motivated solely by a desire to reduce the criminalisation of under-16s who have consenting relationships with other young people of similar ages. I do not advocate teenagers having sex before the age of 16. But if they do have sex before their 16th birthday, they should not be arrested, given a criminal record and put on the sex offenders register." 
In the Irish Independent on 10 March 2008 he repeated his call for a lower age of consent to end the criminalisation of young people engaged in consenting sex and to remove the legal obstacles to upfront sex education, condom provision and safer sex advice. In the early 1990s, he supported a relaxation in the then strict laws against pornography, arguing that porn can have some social benefits, and he has criticised what he calls the body-shame phobia against nudism, suggesting that nudity may be natural and healthy for society.
===Zimbabwe===
Part of Tatchell's political activism and journalism in the 1970s had involved the Second Chimurenga in Rhodesia, in which he had supported the black liberation struggle, including the Zimbabwe African National Union and its military wing. Mugabe's denunciation of male homosexuality in 1995 led Tatchell to help organise a protest for LGBT rights in Zimbabwe by gays and lesbians outside the Zimbabwe High Commission in London. Two years later, he managed to sneak through police security disguised as a TV cameraman to quiz Mugabe during the "Africa at 40" conference at Central Hall, Westminster. Mugabe thanked him for his support for the liberation struggle and told him that allegations of human rights abuses were grossly exaggerated. Mugabe became agitated when Tatchell told him that he was gay. Mugabe's minders summoned Special Branch guards who ejected Tatchell from the building. On 26 October 1997 a letter from Tatchell to The Guardian argued that the United Kingdom should suspend aid to Zimbabwe because of its violence against homosexuals.
At this point, Tatchell researched the Gukurahundi attacks in Matabeleland in the 1980s when Mugabe had sent the Fifth Brigade of the Zimbabwe army against supporters of the Zimbabwe African Peoples Union. He became convinced that Mugabe had broken international human rights law during the attack, which is estimated to have involved the massacre of around 20,000 civilians. Then in 1999, two opposition journalists (Mark Chavunduka and Ray Choto) were tortured by the Zimbabwe Army. The arrest in London of Augusto Pinochet seemed to him a precedent that human rights violations could be pursued against a head of state, thanks to the principle of universal jurisdiction. On 30 October 1999 Tatchell and three other OutRage! activists approached Mugabe's car in a London street and attempted to perform a citizen's arrest. Tatchell opened the car door and seized Mugabe. He then called the police. All four OutRage! activists were arrested, on charges including criminal damage, assault and breach of the peace; these charges were dropped on the opening day of their trial. Mugabe responded by describing Tatchell and his OutRage! colleagues as "gay gangsters", a slogan frequently repeated by his supporters, and claimed they had been sent by the United Kingdom government.
On 5 March 2001 Tatchell, believing Mugabe was about to visit Brussels, went to the lobby of the Brussels Hilton and attempted a second citizen's arrest on 5 March. This time, Mugabe's large corps of bodyguards pushed him away roughly and were seen punching him to the floor. Later on that day, Tatchell was briefly knocked unconscious by Mugabe's bodyguards and was left with permanent damage to his right eye. The protest drew world-wide headlines, as Mugabe was, by then, highly unpopular in the Western world for his land redistribution policy. Tatchell's actions were praised by many of the newspapers that had previously denounced him, and by many black Zimbabwean democracy, trade union, student and church activists.
Tatchell subsequently failed in his attempt to bring a legal case against Mugabe in Bow Street Magistrates' Court, trying to secure an international arrest warrant against the Zimbabwean dictator on charges of torture. The magistrate rejected the application, arguing that Mugabe had immunity from prosecution as a serving head of state.
In late 2003 Tatchell acted as a press spokesman for the launch of the Zimbabwe Freedom Movement, which claimed to be a clandestine group within Zimbabwe committed to overthrowing the government of Robert Mugabe by force. The civic action support group Sokwanele urged Tatchell to check his sources with the group, speculating that it may be an invention of supporters of the Zimbabwe government in order to justify violent action against its opponents. This speculation proved to be unfounded. The ZFM was not used as a pretext for violent suppression. Indeed, the Mugabe regime dismissed the ZFM as a "hoax." However, two Central Intelligence Organization members were spotted and turned away from the ZFM launch, as shown in the film "Peter Tatchell: Just who does he think he is?" by Max Barber.
===Music industry===
Tatchell has called for the enforcement of the laws against incitement to violence and murder, and has organised protests outside the concerts of singers whose lyrics he claims urge the killing of 'queers'. A long-running target of his criticism has been reggae artists whose lyrics encourage and glorify violence, including murder, of lesbians and gay men. Tatchell's campaign began in the early 1990s when Buju Banton's song "Boom bye-bye" was released and has continued to date. Banton's song urges listeners to shoot gay men in the head. He has picketed the MOBO Awards ceremony to protest at their inviting performers of what he terms "murder music". Tatchell received death threats and was labelled a racist. Tatchell defended himself by noting that the campaign was at the behest of the Jamaican gay rights group J-Flag, and the UK-based Black Gay Mens Advisory Group, with which he works closely. He also pointed to his life's work campaigning against racism and apartheid, and stated that his campaigns against "stop murder music" and state-sanctioned homophobic violence in Jamaica were endorsed by black Jamaican gay rights activists such as Jamaican Forum for Lesbians, All-Sexuals and Gays (J-FLAG), and by many straight human rights activists in Jamaica (homosexuality is illegal in Jamaica due to the country's socially conservative government, see LGBT rights in Jamaica). The campaign has had positive effects with seven of eight original murder music singers signing the Reggae Compassion Act, which says that signatories will not "make statements or perform songs" that incite hatred or violence.Leah Nelson, "Jamaica's Anti-Gay 'Murder Music' Carries Violent Message" Intelligence Report, Winter 2010, Issue Number: 140.
In December 2005, UK singer Robbie Williams won £200,000 damages from The People newspaper and the magazines Star and Hot Stars after they published false claims that he was secretly homosexual. Tatchell commented publicly that "[Williams'] legal action has created the impression he thinks it is shameful to be gay".
===Anti-imperialism===
While still at school, Tatchell campaigned in favour of better treatment of, and full human rights for, the Aboriginal people of Australia.(Tatchell, 1983) p.13 He believes that Australian cities should be renamed with their original Aboriginal place names, to sever ties with the colonial era. For example, he wants the Tasmanian capital Hobart to be renamed Nibberluna, arguing that this would be a fitting tribute to Australia's Aboriginal heritage, which has been discarded and disrespected for too long.New Statesman article from 2004
His anti-imperialist activism began in 1968 and involved campaigns against the war in Vietnam. He participated in the mass Vietnam Moratorium protests in his home city of Melbourne in 1970. The same year he founded and was elected secretary of the inter-denominational anti-war movement, Christians for Peace. Later, on moving to London in 1971, he was active in solidarity work with the freedom struggles in Mozambique, Angola, Guinea Bissau, Namibia, Eritrea, Oman, New Hebrides, Western Sahara, Palestine, East Timor and West Papua. From the early 1970s he was also involved in campaigns against the dictatorships in the Soviet Union, East Germany, Indonesia, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Philippines, Iraq, Iran, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Chile. He is currently active in solidarity campaigns for democracy and human rights in Darfur, Western Sahara, Palestine, Iran, Somaliland, Iraq, West Papua, Zimbabwe, Baluchistan, Pakistan, Uganda and against the persecution of Irans Arab minority (see The Times 10 October 2006).
A long-time anti-apartheid activist (from 1969), his lobbying of the ANC in 1987 contributed to it renouncing homophobia and making its first public commitment to lesbian and gay human rights. Later, in 1989 and 1990, he helped persuade the ANC to include a ban on anti-gay discrimination in the post-apartheid constitution (he assisted in drafting model clauses for the ANC). See: Sex and Politics in South Africa (Double Storey Books, Cape Town, 2005, pp. 140–149).
In 2002, he bought an unsuccessful legal action in Bow Street Magistrate's Court for the arrest of the former U.S. Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, on charges of war crimes in Vietnam and Cambodia.
===Criticisms of racism===
In the 1970s and 1980s Tatchell was involved in anti-fascist campaigns, first against the National Front and later, after its formation, against the British National Party. He campaigned with Rock Against Racism and the Anti-Nazi League, and was involved in the anti-apartheid movement from 1969 until the end of the white minority regime in 1990; being a regular protester and speaker at the 24/7 non-stop, four-year-long picket outside South Africa House.Galloway Activist Urges: Assault Tatchell: Respect Member Stirs Homophobia, Violence and Xenophobia Against Gay Activist, UK Gay News, 16 January 2006.
OutRage!'s protest against Chief Rabbi Immanuel Jakobovits, who supported the idea of eugenics to eliminate homosexuality,"If we could by some form of genetic engineering eliminate these trends, we should—so long as it is done for a therapeutic purpose"—letter to the Jewish Chronicle, 16 July 1993 led to accusations that Tatchell was being antisemitic. OutRage! leaflets citing the similarity of Jakobovits ideas for the eradication of homosexuality to those of Heinrich Himmler were distributed outside the Western and Marble Arch Synagogue on the Jewish New Year in September 1993. Rabbi Julia Neuberger, who had campaigned for gay rights, said "Drawing a comparison between Lord Jakobovits and Himmler is offensive, racist and ... makes OutRage appear antisemitic". She stated that the action and leaflet would "alienate Jews who are sympathetic to gay rights".Jason Bennetto, "Is this comparison odious?", The Independent, 31 October 1993
Members of the Rastafari movement accused Tatchell of racism and extremism, saying, "He has gone over way over the top. It's simply racist to put Hitler and Sizzla in the same bracket and just shows how far he is prepared to go."Alicia Roache, Staff Reporter. "Black Music Council Defends DJ's", The Sunday Gleaner (sosjamaica.org). 13 December 2004. Tatchell denies equating Sizzla with Hitler.
===Opposition to Israel's occupation===
For nearly four decades, Tatchell has opposed Israel's presence in Gaza and the West Bank. He has campaigned for Palestinian human rights and in support of an independent Palestinian state. In May 2004, he and a dozen other OutRage! members, including gay Arabs, joined a London demonstration organised by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign. Their placards read "Israel: stop persecuting Palestine! Palestine: stop persecuting queers!" (the latter a reference to the arrest, jailing and torture of homosexuals by the Palestinian authorities). The OutRage! presence was greeted with hostility by some other demonstrators, and Tatchell claims they accused him of being a Mossad agent sent to disrupt the march, of being a racist or a Zionist, a supporter of Ariel Sharon, or an agent of the Central Intelligence Agency or MI5.Gays attacked at Palestinian Rights Protest (Peter Tatchell press release)
===2008 Olympics===
In April 2008, Tatchell attempted to disrupt the procession of the Olympic torch though London. As a protest against China's human rights record he stood in front of the bus carrying the torch along Oxford Street while carrying a placard calling on Beijing to "Free Tibet, Free Hu Jia" (the name of a recently jailed human rights activist). Tatchell was taken away by police but was not charged.Scott Anthony "Police forced to call in reinforcements as protesters disrupt Olympic torch relay", The Guardian, 6 April 2008. Retrieved on 4 September 2008. In an interview Tatchell called on the world to boycott the opening ceremony of the Olympics, or to take other visible action.
===Anglican and Catholic churches===
Tatchell has been heavily critical of the Catholic Church and Pope Benedict XVI, whom he has described as "the ideological inheritor of Nazi homophobia".Antonio Fabrizio , "Interview: Peter Tatchell's 40 years of campaigning", Pink News, 15 December 2007. "He'd like to eradicate homosexuality, but since he can't put LGBT people in physical concentration camps, is doing his best to put them in psychological concentration camps."
Channel 4 indicated in June 2010 that Tatchell would be the presenter of a documentary film examining "the current Pope's teachings throughout the world". The announcement sparked criticism from some prominent British Catholics including the Conservative politician Ann Widdecombe, who said that Channel 4 appeared to be trying to "stir up controversy". Tatchell stated as part of the announcement that the documentary "will not be an anti-Catholic programme".
With respect to Anglicanism, he has stated that "it's very sad to see a good man like the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, going to such extraordinary lengths to appease homophobes within the Anglican Communion".Irish Times, p 17, 25 July 2008
On 15 September 2010, Tatchell, along with 54 other public figures, signed an open letter, published in The Guardian, stating their opposition to Pope Benedict XVI's state visit to the UK.
===Islam===
Tatchell is critical of Muslim fundamentalism, and first wrote on the growth of Islamic fundamentalism in Britain in 1995. However, Tatchell has condemned Islamophobia in his writings, saying "Any form of prejudice, hatred, discrimination or violence against Muslims is wrong. Full stop". He has described the Qur'an as "rather mild in its condemnation of homosexuality". Tatchell also points out that much of his prison and asylum casework involves supporting Muslim prisoners and asylum seekers—heterosexual, as well as LGBT. In 2006, he helped stop the abuse of Muslim prisoners at Norwich jail, and he has helped secure parole for other Muslim detainees.Sue Simkim, Anna Thomas-Betts, "Prisoners or Detainees?" Independent Monitor, The Association of Members of Independent Monitoring Boards, March 2008, Issue 93, pp. 12–15. Half his asylum cases are, he reports, male and female Muslim refugees. Two of his highest-profile campaigns have involved Muslim victims of injustice—Mohamed S, who was framed by men who tried to kill him and jailed for eight years, and Sid Saeed, who brought a racist and homophobic harassment case against Deutsche Bank."Gay Muslim Appeals Against Conviction", UK Gay News, 8 May 2006.Jamie Doward, "Fallen City star claims gay bigotry: Deutsche Bank faces allegations of sexual discrimination against vice-president", The Observer, 20 February 2005.
Tatchell has described Sharia law as "a clerical form of fascism" on the grounds that it opposes democracy and human rights, especially for women and gay people. He was the keynote speaker at a 2005 protest at the Canadian High Commission over Ontario's arbitration law, which already permitted religious arbitration in civil cases for Jews and Christians, being extended to Muslims. Tatchell argued there should be no separate systems of arbitration for any religion.OutRage! press release In 1995 he wrote that "although not all Muslims are anti-gay, significant numbers are violently homophobic ... homophobic Muslim voters may be able to influence the outcome of elections in 20 or more marginal constituencies."
Tatchell describes the umbrella group Muslim Council of Britain as "anti-gay", asking how "they expect to win respect for their community, if at the same time as demanding action against Islamophobia, they themselves demand the legal enforcement of homophobia?". He noted that the MCB had joined forces with right-wing Christian fundamentalists to oppose every gay law reform from 1997 to 2006. The opposition of MCB Chairman Sir Iqbal Sacranie to homosexuality and registration of civil partnerships led Tatchell to observe "Both the Muslim and gay communities suffer prejudice and discrimination. We should stand together to fight Islamophobia and homophobia". Tatchell subsequently criticised Unite Against Fascism for inviting Sacranie to share its platforms, describing him as a bigot and a "homophobic hate-mongerer." This was in response to Sacranie's denunciation of gay people as immoral, harmful and diseased on BBC Radio 4. When the MCB boycotted Holocaust Memorial Day, partly because it included a commemoration of the gay victims of Nazism, Tatchell wrote that "the only thing that is consistent about the MCB is its opposition to the human rights of lesbians and gay men".
A colleague of Tatchell's, the Islamic theologian Muhammad Yusuf, a research fellow with Interfaith Alliance UK, withdrew from a planned lecture on "an Islamic reformation that reconciles Islam with democracy and human rights, including human rights for women and gay people" after he received threats from Islamist fundamentalists. Yusuf said that "senior Islamic clerics" told him they could not guarantee his safety if he went ahead. The lecture was to raise funds for the Peter Tatchell Human Rights Fund.
Tatchell chose Malcolm X as his specialist subject when appearing on Celebrity Mastermind, explaining that he considered him an inspiration and hero (his other inspirations are Mahatma Gandhi, Sylvia Pankhurst and Martin Luther King). However, his endorsement of Bruce Perry's biography in an article calling for black gay role models has led to criticismPeter Akinti, the editor of Black In Britain, described the claim of homosexuality as "shocking" and "inappropriate", due to Perry's claim that Malcolm X had male lovers in his youth.According to biographer Bruce Perry's book , Little (Malcolm X) occasionally engaged in sex with other men, usually though not always for money. In a Michigan boarding house, he raised rent money by sleeping with a gay transvestite.( p. 77 ) Later, in New York, Little and some friends raised funds by being fellated by men at the YMCA where he lived.( p. 77 ) In Boston a man paid Little to undress him, sprinkle him with talcum powder, and bring him to orgasm.(Perry, pp. 82–83.) Perry notes that Little's motives appear to have been financial, but he could have earned money in other ways.( p. 77 )
Following the hanging of two teenage boys, Mahmoud Asgari and Ayaz Marhoni by Iranian authorities, Tatchell reiterated his long-standing view that the Islamic Republic of Iran is an "Islamo-fascist state". Tatchell insists the two youths appear to have been hanged merely for being gay. He bases this opinion on information from gay activists inside Iran and from gay friends of the hanged youths who were with them at a secret gay party before they were arrested. The Iranian government and state-licensed media claim the youths were guilty of rape of a 13 year old boy at knifepoint. Tatchell observes that trumped up charges are routine in Iran. Left-wing political oppositionists are, for example, often had up on false charges such as spying, adultery, drug taking, sodomy and alcoholism. No claims by the Iranian government or judiciary should ever be taken at face value, he says. International human rights groups Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch preferred campaigners to focus on the propriety of hanging two teenagers rather than the disputed connection to gay sex. Faisal Alam, founder of American Gay Muslim group Al-Fatiha, argued in the magazine Queer that Iran was condemned before the facts were certain, and in 2003 the United Nations Committee Against Torture noted that "from different and reliable sources that there currently is no active policy of prosecution of charges of homosexuality in Iran". This is disputed by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission. They confirm that the death penalty exists for homosexuality in Iran and that gay and lesbian people suffer persecution, including arrest, torture, imprisonment and execution by slow strangulation. This is corroborated by the Iranian Railroad for Queer Refugees (formerly the Persian Gay and Lesbian Organisation), most of whose members are based inside Iran and regularly provide reports of homophobic beatings, torture and imprisonment by state agents.
In 2004, then-Mayor of London Ken Livingstone criticised Tatchell for perpetuating Islamophobia over comments he made concerning the pending visit of the Muslim scholar Yusuf al-Qaradawi. Two years later, Livingstone stated that he "probably shouldn't" have called Tatchell an "Islamophobe", but defended his actions at the time by saying "in politics you engage with people which you have profound disagreements with...", giving then-Mayor of Moscow Yury Luzhkov's support of London for the 2012 Olympics as vital to the bid's success in spite of Luzhkov's regular bans of Moscow Pride.
Concerning the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy, Tatchell spoke at an event whose organisers termed a "Rally for free expression" defending the publication of cartoons of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, and in support for free speech in general.Gays in Eurabia - Muslim immigrants to Europe are threatening the rights of gays, women and free speech - 20 April 2006. Tatchell had expected "thousands" to attend the event, which was held on 25 March 2006, but police estimated only 250 people attended.
Tatchell's speech at the rally included the following: "As well as challenging religious-inspired tyranny, let us also say loud and clear that we defend Muslim communities against prejudice and discrimination. Let us declare that we deplore the homophobia, race hate, Islamophobia and antisemitism of the British National Party."
Speaking to the Guardian following the release of the Borat film in the UK, Tatchell criticised Sacha Baron Cohen for his double standards and ‘self-censorship', saying "he regards Christians and Jews as fair game, he never gives Muslims the same doing over".
In February 2010, Women Against Fundamentalism defended Tatchell against allegations of Islamophobia and endorsed his right to challenge all religious fundamentalism: "WAF supports the right of Peter Tatchell and numerous other gay activists to oppose the legitimisation of fundamentalists and other right wing forces on university campuses, by the Left and by the government in its Preventing Violent Extremism strategy and numerous other programmes and platforms".
====Yusuf al-Qaradawi====
Ken Livingstone's invitation of Yusuf al-Qaradawi to address a conference on the wearing of the hijab led to a four year rift between Livingstone and Tatchell, who described Qaradawi as "rightwing, misogynist, anti-semitic and homophobic" and as someone who claimed to have liberal positions in order to deceive Western politicians.An embrace that shames London New Statesman — Peter Tatchell — Monday 24 January 2005 Tatchell cites Qaradawi's books and online fatwas where he advocates the execution of apostates (Muslims who turn away from their faith), women who have sex outside marriage and lesbian and gay people. He notes that Qaradawi also supports female genital mutilation and blames rape victims who dress immodestly. Tatchell highlighted the fact that 2,500 Muslims intellectuals signed an open letter in 2004 that condemned Qaradawi as an apologist for terrorism and human rights abuses. Livingstone issued a dossier in defence of Qaradawi as a moderate, and accused Tatchell of writing about the conference without attending it. The dispute became bitter with Tatchell leading a demonstration against Qaradawi and with Livingstone claiming that Tatchell has "a long history of Islamophobia", and had "constructed a fantasy world in which the main threat we face, worse than the far right, is Islamic fundamentalist hordes... [taking] him into a de facto alliance with the American neo-cons and Israeli intelligence services who want to present themselves as defending western "civilisation" against more "backward" civilisations in the Middle East and elsewhere."Tatchell's Islamic Conspiracy Theory - What Next journal. Ken Livingstone - February 2005. Tatchell strenuously denied the accusations, pointing out that he has never said any of the things that Livingstone accuses him of saying. Imaan, a gay Muslim organisation, initially supported the campaign against Qaradawi, signing a joint letter to the Mayor Of London with OutRage! and over a dozen other community groups, including the National Union of Students and Hindu, Sikh and Jewish organisations. The letter condemned Livingstone for hosting the Islamic cleric.
====Muslims and gay rights====
Tatchell wrote in the Guardian that certain Muslim leaders, whom Tatchell describes as appearing "to be representative of the majority of British Muslim opinion", of having "intolerance" to gay people. He said people such as Hizb ut-Tahrir were extreme fundamentalists who had an "agenda for clerical fascism," He notes that its constitution explicitly rejects democracy (non-Islamic parties would be banned) and human rights (non-Muslims would have fewer rights and freedoms). Tatchell further claims that "The suppression of critics within the Muslim community is already excessive", adding "the MCB went out its way to expose Irshad Manji as a lesbian in a seedy bid to discredit her ideas." Tatchell had himself previously outed religious figures he viewed as hypocritical and homophobic, but he felt that Manji was neither hypocritical nor homophobic, so the MCB's action in drawing attention to her sexuality was, he said, unjustified.
In February 2007 the Mayor of Moscow, Yuri Luzhkov, visited the Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone for an annual meeting that also involved the Mayors of Berlin and Paris, with the mayor of Beijing present as well. PlanetOut Inc.'s Gay.com website reported: 
Livingstone issued a statement saying "I have already, and continue, to condemn all these and assert the basic human and civil right of gays and lesbians to peacefully demonstrate", but added "'It is clear that there is a concerted attack on gay and lesbian rights in a series of East European countries fed by diverse currents. In Moscow the Russian Orthodox church, the chief rabbi and the grand Mufti all supported the ban on the Gay Pride march with the main role, due to its great weight in society, being played by the Orthodox church. The attempt of Mr Tatchell to focus attention on the role of the grand Mufti in Moscow, in the face of numerous attacks on gay rights in Eastern Europe, which overwhelmingly come from right-wing Christian and secular currents, is a clear example of an Islamaphobic campaign."Mayor of London supports rights of gays and lesbians to peacefully demonstrate throughout Eastern Europe including Moscow - Mayor of Londons Office - 28 February 2007. Tatchell responded saying Livingstone's remarks are "dishonest, despicable nonsense", adding "The Grand Mufti was not singled out", he further said the Mayor had brought his "office into disrepute" and "has revealed himself to be a person without principles, honesty or integrity."Gay Pride Parade Wars: Livingstone Attacks Tatchell and Alexeyev Attacks Livingstone - UK Gay News - 1 March 2007.
Following the vote by the Knesset, the Israeli legislature, in 2007 in favour of bills to ban lesbian and gay pride parades in Jerusalem, the Lesbian and Gay Coalition Against Racism criticised Tatchell saying "Peter Tatchell and others who have distinguished themselves by the speed of their quite proper defence of lesbian and gay rights when these have been attacked by Black, Arab, Muslim forces or regimes have still refused to condemn with equal force the official attacks on lesbian and gay rights by the highest institutions of the State of Israel." Tatchell was in and out of hospital at the time, as a result of the injuries he received at the hands of far-right assailants in Moscow. On his partial recovery, he issued a strong statement condemning the religious Jewish fundamentalists who had promoted the pride-ban bill.Peter Tatchell, "Don't Boycott World Pride in Jerusalem – Tatchell", UK Gay News, 19 June 2006 .
====Adam Yosef====
In December 2005, the Muslim journalist and Respect party activist Adam Yosef came under criticism for an article in Desi Xpress opposing registered civil partnerships and retracted it. His next column identified Peter Tatchell, British National Party leader Nick Griffin and Omar Bakri Mohammed of Al-Muhajiroun as the top three "hate filled bigots", saying that Tatchell needed "a good slap in the face" and his "queer campaign army" should "pack their bent bags and head back to Australia". Tatchell denounced a "naked appeal to homophobia and xenophobia" echoing "the racist, xenophobic language of the BNP", and Yosef apologised, claiming the "slap in the face" remark was a "figure of speech". Yosef denied any racism and said the Australian mention referred to "the Islamophobic riots which recently gripped Sydney" (the Cronulla riots). Desi Xpress staff expressed regret to Tatchell and gave him a right of reply.
In October 2009, Yosef pledged his formal support to Tatchell's general election parliamentary candidacy, calling for the left to "embrace a mutual personal and political commitment towards equality and human rights".
===Environmental issues===
For over 20 years, Tatchell has written and campaigned about environmental problems like global warming, resource depletion and climate chaos, pointing out that they often have a disproportionately negative impact on developing countries. In the late 1980s, he was co-organiser of the Green and Socialist Conferences, which sought to bring together reds and greens in a new political alliance. He has also championed energy conservation and renewable energy; in particular tidal, wave and concentrated solar power. On 24 May 2009, he appeared on the BBC Daily Politics programme to oppose the Elephant and Castle regeneration scheme, which he said will bring few benefits to local working-class people. However, his main campaigns remain centered on human rights and "queer emancipation". In August 2008 Tatchell wrote about speculative theories concerning possible atmospheric oxygen depletion compared to prehistoric levels, and called for further investigation to test such claims and, if proven, their long-term consequences.Peter Tatchell The Oxygen Crisis, The Guardian, Comment Is Free 2008-08-13)
===Animal rights===
Tatchell is also an active supporter of animal rights campaigns, saying "human rights and animal rights are two aspects of the same struggle against injustice". He is a patron of the Captive Animals Protection Society, a charity campaigning for an end to the use of animals in circuses, zoos and exotic pet trade. He is also a patron of Animal Aid and works with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA).
===Cornwall===
Tatchell has also campaigned on the issue of the Constitutional status of Cornwall. In November 2008, The Guardian carried an article by him entitled Self-rule for Cornwall, in which he said -
:" Like Wales and Scotland, Cornwall considers itself a separate Celtic nation – so why shouldn't it have independence?"
Tatchell concluded his article with the question...
:"Cornwall was once separate and self-governing. If the Cornish people want autonomy and it would improve their lives, why shouldn't they have self-rule once again? Malta, with only 400,000 people, is an independent state within the EU. Why not Cornwall?"
This article received the largest number of comments, over 1,500, to any Guardian article, according to This is Cornwall. While some of the comments were supportive, Tatchell found himself "shocked and disgusted" by the anti-Cornish sentiment shown by many people.
==Columnist==
Tatchell has written numerous articles in newspapers and magazines related to his various campaigns, and to highlight prejudice where ever he has seen it. He was highly critical of the media coverage of the Admiral Duncan pub bombing, claiming print and TV new outlets focused almost solely on the one straight victim, rather than the two other deaths and the dozens of maimed patrons.
==Awards==
In 2006, New Statesman readers voted him sixth on their list of "Heroes of our time".New Statesman Library – Articles by Peter Tatchell
He was named Campaigner of the Year in The Observer Ethical Awards 2009.
He has also won London Citizen of Sanctuary Award 2009, Shaheed Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti Award (for reporting the Balochistan national liberation struggle) 2009, Evening Standard 1000 Most Influential Londoners 2009 and 2011, Liberal Voice of the Year 2009 and Total Politics Top 50 Political Influencers 2010.
In 2009, he was awarded a Blue Plaque in recognition of his more than 40 years of human rights campaigning. It was unveiled by Sir Ian McKellen on the side of his block of flats in September 2010, with speeches of congratulations from the local MP, Simon Hughes, and Catholic priest, Father Bernard Lynch.
In 2010, Peter Tatchell was recommended for British New Year's honours to become a member of the House of Lords. He turned it down.
In 2012, he won the Irwin Prize (which is awarded to the "Secularist of the Year" by the National Secular Society) in recognition of his lifelong commitment to the defence of human rights against religious fundamentalism. The Prize was presented by Nick Cohen.
==Bibliography==
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==See also==
* Capital Gay
* Green Left
* Hall-Carpenter archives
* LGBT Network
* List of LGBT rights activists
==Footnotes==
==References==
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==External links==
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* Archived collection of his Talking With Tatchell online TV interviews on www.18doughtystreet.com.
* Interview with The Third Estate.
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* WAF statement on Tatchell
* Catalogue of the Tatchell papers held at LSE Archives
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