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Swedish high jumper re-paints rainbow nails

Swedish high jumper Emma Green Tregaro has repainted her nails after being warned by the IAAF that the rainbow colours she sported in qualification in support of gay rights were a breach of regulations.

Swedish high jumper re-paints rainbow nails

Russian pole vault gold medallist Yelena Isinbayeva has provoked a furore at the World Athletics Championships over her outspoken anti-gay remarks, which she later tried to play down saying she was “misunderstood” and opposed to discrimination against homosexuals.

And she had called Green Tregaro “unrespectful” to Russia after painting her nails in the colours of the rainbow flag that symbolises support for gay rights while competing in Moscow, a move that garnered acclaim elsewhere in the world.

Anders Albertsson, general secretary of the Swedish athletics federation, said before Saturday’s high jump final that they had talked with track and field’s governing body, the IAAF, over the issue and Green Tregaro had revarnished her nails.

“We have been informally approached by the IAAF saying that this is by definition, a breach of the regulations. We have informed our athletes about this,” Albertsson said.

“The code of conduct clearly states the rules do not allow any commercial or political statements during the competition.”

Albertsson added that he had not put pressure on Green Tregaro to change the colour of her fingernails, but “understood from Swedish media her nails are now red”.

“If she knows she might be breaking the rules, that’s a decision she takes,

we don’t have any objections on how they paint their fingernails,” Albertsson

said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law in June that punishes the dissemination of information about homosexuality to minors. But activists say

it can be used for a broad crackdown against gays.

Fears it could be used against participants at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics have sparked calls for a boycott of the event in some quarters and Russian officials have said all athletes will have to obey the law at the Games.

AFP/The Local/pvs

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GAY

Germany to compensate gay soldiers who faced discrimination

Chancellor Angela Merkel's government on Wednesday agreed a draft bill that would compensate gay soldiers who faced discrimination in the armed forces between 1955 and 2000.

Germany to compensate gay soldiers who faced discrimination
A German flag is sewed to the uniform of a Bundeswehr soldier in Dresden. Photo: DPA

Under the proposed law, which needs to be approved by parliament, soldiers
who were convicted by military courts for being gay, demoted or who otherwise
saw their careers damaged because of their sexual orientation, would receive a
“symbolic amount” of €3,000.

“We cannot erase the suffering inflicted upon these people,” Defence Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer told the RND newspaper group. “But we want
to send a signal” and “turn the page on a dark chapter in the history of the
armed forces”, she said.

The compensation would apply to soldiers from the Bundeswehr, which was
created in West Germany in 1955, and to troops from former East Germany's
National People's Army, founded in 1956.

READ ALSO: More Germans identify as LGBT than in rest of Europe

The defence ministry estimates that about 1,000 people would be eligible
for a payout.

Military court judgments against soldiers for engaging in consensual gay sex acts would also be quashed under the draft bill.

It took until 1969 for homosexuality to be decriminalised in West Germany, but discrimination against gay service people continued for much longer, including after Germany was reunified in 1990.

Gay soldiers could expect to be overlooked for promotions or removed from positions of responsibility, with senior officers often deeming them a “security risk” or a bad example to others.

That ended with a law change in 2000 that officially protected gay, lesbian
and bisexual people from discrimination in the armed forces.

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