Urges Lansing’s Sister City St. Petersburg, Russia to condemn and resist enforcing the new law.
“Safeguarding the rights of others is the most noble and beautiful end of a human being.” – Khalil Gibran
LANSING, MI — Chong-Anna Canfora, candidate for Lansing City Council’s 4th Ward issued the following statement about the recent events in Lansing’s Sister City, St. Petersburg, Russia:
Lansing showed real leadership and showed who we are in 2006 by passing a human rights ordinance designed to protect the rights of all residents from discrimination on personal attributes, including the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity or expression.
Lansing’s Sister City, St. Petersburg Russia, has recently engaged in mass beatings and arrests of LGBT citizens and now tourists that visit their city just for being gay.
By enforcing this new law passed by their country, St. Petersburg and Russian officials are standing against the tide of equality and violating the human rights of their citizens, and they are suppressing free expression and speech.
As a black and asian woman who is married interracially, and as the mother of two beautiful mixed race sons, I suspect that if the sister-city in question were practicing racial apartheid, city officials would take it seriously and they would move to take decisive action to show that’s not who we are. This new policy adopted by St. Petersburg targets a sexual minority group and it is as equally abhorrent and dangerous.
The purpose of a Sister City relationship is to promote friendships and cultural exchanges. Russian LGBT activists have asked us to take a stand by severing sister-city ties with St. Petersburg to show who we are as a city and to stand in solidarity with their LGBT citizens.
Let’s show we are and stand by the principles outlined in our human rights ordinance and raise the bar for any city that wants to be affiliated with Lansing.
This is why I urge the City of Lansing to pass a resolution to sever sister-city ties and to call on Sister City St. Petersburg to condemn the new law and to refuse to enforce it. There is a common saying that reads: “All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men and women to remain silent.”
We will be on the wrong side of history if we stand silently by while Russia and St. Petersburg continues to target and persecute sexual minorities for simply existing and for being visible.
Chong-Anna Canfora
Candidate, 4th Ward Lansing City Council
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Dear Editor,
As a candidate for Lansing City Council At-Large and as American who believes in human rights, I think it’s obvious that the city of Lansing must immediately rescind its sister city relationship with St. Petersburg, Russia.
The goal of the Sister Cities Commission is to promote appreciation of other cultures and community understanding in order to foster a more peaceful world. Are the citizens of Lansing supposed to “appreciate” the city of St. Petersburg (and the entire Russian government’s) hateful, violence-encouraging policy of repression? Is this something our community should “just understand”? I think not. The very least we can do is show our support for the victims LGBTQA community in St. Petersburg by taking this one small step. I would have to assume that during the era of apartheid our city would not have been “sisters” with Johannesburg, South Africa, for instance.
With all due respect to Mayor Bernero, his claim that we shouldn’t “burn bridges” is weak at best. I applaud Councilwoman Jody Washington for being a leader on this issue to promote human rights.
Ted O’Dell
Candidate, At-Large
Lansing City Council
This was printed in the July 28, 2013 – August 10, 2013 Edition
