LGBT asylum in the UK: Barriers facing LGB&T asylum seekers

LGBT asylum groups support hundreds of LGBT asylum seekers every year, but there are still no accurate statistics as to the number of LGBT asylum seekers currently in the UK.

According to refugee experts, many of the LGBT asylum seekers that they work with come from Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Jamaica, Uganda, Nigeria, Syria, Pakistan, and South Africa.

Phil Woolas, Minister of State for borders and immigration, courted controversy earlier this month when he posted an article on labourlist.org which celebrated the Labour government’s work with LGBT refugees and claimed that LGBT asylum seekers could march at London Pride “free from fear.”

"BE DISCREET"

However in the same article Woolas spoke of the “be discreet” policy - expecting LGBT asylum seekers to go back to the country where they are fleeing from and be discreet about their sexuality. Woolas stated: “The Court of Appeal has found, in line with our policy that whether a gay claimant can reasonably be expected to tolerate behaving discreetly is something that must be considered on the individual merits of the case."

LGBT asylum campaigners like Paul Canning of LGBT Asylum News and the UK Lesbian and Gay Immigration group were quick to pick up on Woolas’ comments and drew attention to improvements that urgently need to be made in UK asylum policy and to protect asylum seekers when in the UK.

UKLGIG diplomatically welcomed Woolas' statement, but said that they would "modify and question some of his comments", based on their experience of supporting LGBT asylum seekers throughout the asylum process, and forwarded a series of recommendations.

UKLGIG highlight the lasting dangers of “be discreet”, they state “such an argument does not acknowledge that fears of repercussions along with internalised homophobia and shame usually are the - very damaging - reasons for such ‘keeping quiet’ or ‘staying in the closet’.

Kerry Maskell Project Coordinator of the Lesbian Community Project in Manchester works with many asylum seekers in the city who identify as lesbian and bisexual.

Maskell backs up UKLGIG’s stance and stresses the dangers of effectively telling people to go home and be discreet; "It is mentally damaging and stressful to have the freedom to be yourself and then have to go back to living a lie.

“Also, the ‘be discreet’ argument can often mean that people will feel forced to marry in order to protect themselves. I’m sure that many heterosexual people would not like the idea of having to pretend to be gay to fit in and certainly wouldn’t like having to marry and/or have sex with someone to hide their sexuality.

“We see people who have just arrived. They come in scared and quiet, afraid to talk to others or about themselves. We see them gain confidence and become vibrant wonderful people. Why would anyone want to take that away from them and put them back to being the people they were when they arrived?"

SAUDI ARABIA

A female asylum seeker from Saudi Arabia who Maskell has recently worked with has been told to go home and be discreet. She fled the country when her sister, who was also gay, disappeared from a safe house in her own country. She does not know what happened to her sister, only that she is dead.

Maskell said: “Our group member fled the country with her two sons, who are not aware of her sexuality. She does not want to tell her sons or fully ‘come out’ until she knows that she can stay in the country as she fears, if people find out, she will be killed if she is sent home. She was told in court that, as she is not out in this country, she may as well go back to her own country and not be out there! She did win her case but the Home Office appealed against it and she now has to go through the whole process again.”

UGANDA

Canning highlights the case of Ugandan gay asylum seeker John Bosco. In Uganda gay people face a prison sentence from 11 years to a life-long sentence and in 2005 same-sex marriage was criminalized. Despite an organised anti gay campaign against Bosco in his homeland he was deported back there in September 2008. After a long and frustrating campaign Bosco has now won leave to remain in the UK.

The case of Prossy Kakooza who also fled Uganda has been well documented, she came to the UK in July 2007 after her family discovered she was a lesbian. She was arrested, ill-treated in custody, and then her family tried to kill her before she managed to escape. Kakooza was finally granted asylum in the UK 17 October 2008, 15 long months and 3 court cases after first applying.

The UK aren’t the only country who operate the “be discreet” policy. An Iranian refugee who has now been granted asylum in the UK originally escaped to Turkey, where he was sent back to Iran and told to be discreet.

However, Jacob Matthews from the Manchester based LGBT asylum support group Gay in the UK points out that the UK are currently lagging behind other EU member states in terms of LGBT asylum. He says: “countries such as Sweden and the Netherlands have reputations of a fairer asylum system for LGBT asylum seekers and refugees.”

MORE TIME & BETTER INFORMATION

Another recommendation UKLGIG encouraged Woolas to take on board was to monitor the quality of the country information used in assessing asylum applications by LGBT persons more rigorously.

In October 2008, the independent governmental Advisory Panel on Country Information published a very critical review of the quality and quantity of information on LGBT issues within the country of origin information (COI) prepared and used by the UKBA in their decision making.

JAMAICA

UKLGIG highlighted the case of a Jamaican lesbian, who was told to go back to her homeland because she would be in no danger as she was over 40 and therefore no longer sexually attractive.

In Jamaica same sex relationships are illegal for men (punishable by ten years hard labour), for women homosexuality is legal but not surprisingly in a country that views male homosexuality as a criminal offence, lesbian and bisexual women struggle. Maskell adds: “My volunteer’s girlfriend is Jamaican. She was living in this country for 5 years as an ‘out’ lesbian. She has now had to return to her own country and is finding life very difficult. She is depressed and is finding it very hard not to be herself.”

CLEARER INSTRUCTIONS FOR IMMIGRATION STAFF

Another recommendation from UKLGIG is that there needs to be clear instructions on LGBT issues on asylum policy instruction. UKLGIG have been requesting such an instruction from the UKBA to guide their staff for a long time. They are considering the option of getting a full inclusion (not merely a mention) of LGBT issues in the existing gender API instead.

Matthews also feels that there should be clearer instructions for staff involved in the immigration process. Mathews comments: "I think refugee law should specifically state persecution on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity as grounds for making an asylum claim. I think the current category of 'other social group' is too vague, and results in asylum claims on these grounds being disregarded."

IMPROVED TRAINING

UKLGIG also suggest UK Border Agency workers need more comprehensive training around LGBT issues in order to achieve fair decision making. UKBA have invited UKLGIG to make presentations to case workers on LGBT asylum issues, and the group recommend that Woolas monitors the progress of this training and ensures that it reaches staff throughout the borders agency.

TRANSLATORS & SOLICITORS

Maskell also suggests that a number of improvements are needed to create a fairer asylum system for LGBTs, she says: “Many of our women tell us that, during their initial interview, their words are not translated correctly, they are told that they are not allowed to say they are gay or it is best not to mention it as the translators employed will often be of the same country of origin or hold the same religious beliefs as those in the country they are fleeing.

“They should also put them in touch with solicitors who are ‘gay friendly’ and aware of the rights of gay people (one of our women was told by a solicitor that she shouldn’t talk about her sexuality as it was ‘against god’!). It is hard to get legal help as many solicitors, specialising in gay issues, do not accept legal aid clients and, as asylum seekers receive no money from the government, they cannot afford to access specialist help.”

Given the government’s strong record on granting LGBT rights and equality, LGBT asylum is an area in need of urgent attention. A process must be in place where cases are given the time to explain their circumstances and build up trusting relationships with case workers and solicitors, where refugee’s evidence is taken seriously and case workers are given detailed information about the homophobic and potentially fatal situations these people are trying to escape.

LGF online has given Mr Woolas’ Office the opportunity to comment on this issue, as soon as we receive a response it will be added to this story.

LGBT ASYLUM SUPPORT GROUPS

UK Lesbian and Gay Immigration Group
To contact UKLGIG, click here.

Gay in the UK (MANCHESTER)
Meets at 6pm on the first Monday of every month at Refugee Action, 23-27 Edge Street, Manchester M4 1HW. For more information: lgbtisocial@yahoo.co.uk contact Anna Webster on 0161 831 5455.

Lesbian Community Project (asylum group)
To contact LCP and find out more, click here.

Organization for Refuge, Asylum & Migration, new refugee advocacy organization with a focus on LGBTs that launched in June. Visit www.oraminternational.org.

LGBT IRAQI FUNDRAISER (LIVERPOOL)

Source

Beatings, persecution fuel bids for residency: Massachusetts Church helping immigrant gays

He calls Worcester County home now. For him, it is a place of safety and opportunity.

But the 27-year-old Jamaican man remembers being threatened and harassed nearly every day in his home country. Four times he was beaten by angry crowds.

Visiting a friend in Montego Bay in 2005, he watched in horror from an apartment window as a group of men descended on his friend. They kicked him, punched him, and beat him to the ground. When police officers arrived, they stood and watched as the beating continued.

“I thought, ‘Is this the time I’m going to be killed?’ ” he remembered. “When the police came, it didn’t make any difference. Luckily, I was able to get out of there. My friend ended up in the hospital.”

Jamaica is one of 80 countries in which homosexuality is illegal, and one of 72 countries where the crime is punishable with prison time. If a gay man or lesbian is attacked, there is little recourse in the courts or to the police. (Homosexuality was illegal in some parts of the United States until 2003, when a Texas anti-sodomy law was struck down as unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court).

Another gay man had built a prosperous life for himself in his native Uganda. A banker and a businessman, he also owned a small bar.

One day, he was dragged off by a pair of armed men and tortured for two days. They wanted him to give up the names of his bar’s gay customers. The government later demolished the bar.

“The government is anti-gay. It’s in the constitution,” he said with a shrug. “So many people die. So many people.”

A third gay man fled his native Lebanon after he was attacked several times. One beating sent him to the hospital with a broken neck and other serious injuries.

Being gay is doubly problematic for him, because, as a Muslim, both his country and his religion forbid it.

“You can’t report things to the police, because I was afraid if they found out I was gay, they’d put me in jail,” he said. “I felt like nobody can protect me in my own country. The attitude is that people like me shouldn’t be alive.”

All three have found safety in Worcester County, drawn by friends or relatives already here, or by referrals to free legal aid from Lutheran Social Services of Worcester to help them apply for asylum, which is protection offered by the United States government.

Once they arrive, they discover there is an existing support network for gay immigrants created by Hadwen Park Congregational Church in Worcester.

Before agreeing to tell their stories, all three men asked that their identities be shielded, fearing that they might become targets of violence or discrimination in their new home.

The Jamaican and Lebanese immigrants have received asylum and are here legally; the Ugandan’s case is pending, and he has been given permission to stay while he waits for his trial.

“In some countries, being gay is illegal, and in others there is such hate from people that they aren’t protected,” said Lisa Laurel Weinberg, a Lutheran Social Services lawyer who has applied for asylum for seven gay immigrants, including a lesbian from Uganda who was raped repeatedly by police in an attempt to “correct” her back to heterosexuality. “In most of those cases, it creates a climate of lawlessness against gay people.”

As recently as 1990, U.S. immigration authorities could deny permanent residency to an immigrant who was discovered to be gay under a category called “sexually deviant.” Asylum on the basis of sexual orientation became available in the U.S. in 1994.

There are no national figures available on how many gay men and women receive asylum in the U.S. each year. Immigration Equality, a national gay-rights group based in New York, recently estimated that each year fewer than 1,000 immigrants receive asylum based on their sexual orientation.

Gay immigrants view Massachusetts as a gay-friendly state, and its federal courts have a reputation for being much more likely to grant asylum for sexual orientation.

For the past year, Hadwen Park Congregational Church has provided gay immigrants with food and money for clothes and rent, as well as spiritual and emotional support. Lutheran Social Services, which helps many immigrants apply for asylum, established a program to help gay immigrants apply for asylum.

The program is supported by a $22,000 grant from the Greater Worcester Community Foundation.

The church’s program is unique in the United States, church members believe; the Lutheran Social Services asylum program for gay immigrants is one of only a handful nationwide.

As gay immigrants apply for asylum — a process that often takes several months — they cannot work. In some cases, they are in the country illegally; in others, they are given a temporary visa during the application process.

Because they are gay, the asylum seekers often cannot ask for help from their countrymen, sometimes even their family members, who live in the United States. As a result, Ms. Weinberg said, the immigrants needed help with everything, from basic essentials such as food and shelter, to transportation, to connecting with new friends, to spiritual assistance.

The Rev. Judith Hanlon is the pastor of Hadwen Park Congregational Church. Her church, which has a mix of gay and straight parishioners, was among the leaders locally in the fight for gay marriage. When she started hearing the stories of the gay immigrants, she said she knew her church would help.

“There’s literally no place for these people to go,” she said. “They’re alienated from everyone, even their own families in many cases.”

The church started by feeding the gay immigrants with its food pantry, then paying their rent and cell phone bills. Parishioners took immigrants on shopping trips for clothes and other essentials. Two parishioners offered to host two immigrants in their home. The immigrants started coming to the church, telling their stories, and connecting with people who don’t judge them.

The church set up the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Asylum Support Task Force, which will eventually be incorporated as a nonprofit organization separate from the church.

“We hope that this can become a national model,” Rev. Hanlon said. “We could say, ‘Here’s our plan, here’s what works, here’s what doesn’t work.’ ”

The Jamaican immigrant, who originally lived in Florida but moved to Worcester when he was referred to Ms. Weinberg, said he is “eternally grateful” for all the help he has received from the church and Lutheran Social Services. After receiving asylum in November 2008, he got a job at a local restaurant. He has since been laid off and is receiving unemployment benefits. He now is a full-time student, studying to become a medical assistant. To help pay for school, he has received a grant and has taken out a loan.

He said that other than perhaps seeing his aunt before she dies, he has no desire to return to Jamaica, and that makes him sad.

“I do cry, and I do bleed, and I was contributing to the development of the country, but I was forced to flee,” he said.

For the most part, he said, he has found Americans to be welcoming. At first, he said, the biggest shock was seeing people who were openly gay. In Worcester, he said, he has chosen to tell only a select few people — close friends, church members, and his brother.

“I’ve never felt unsafe. I’ve never felt stigma or discrimination,” he said. “I would never impose my sexual preference on anyone. It’s pretty much ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ for me. Do I go around telling everyone I’m gay? No.”

Source

For Gay Iranian Refugees, a Matter of Life or Death

Image by harrystaab via Flickr

By Joseph Erbentraut

The international media clamor surrounding last month’s Iranian election, which saw the contentious re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad result in weeks of protests, demonstrations and violence, may have died down, but the unstable atmosphere lives on for residents of the Islamic republic.

They continue to face major restrictions on free speech and threats to their safety if they choose to speak out. And they will not soon forget the street violence that resulted in the death, imprisonment and harassment of many protesters, activists and journalists--all part of the worst unrest the country has seen in thirty years.

This is particularly true for gay and lesbian Iranians, both those who remain inside the country and those who have escaped. They are familiar with oppressive treatment from their government, one which continues to outlaw homosexuality and crack down against any outward display of queerness.

When gay Iranian refugees and asylum seekers leave, they are sent to live temporarily to a number of a different places, though most end up in small Turkish towns known as "satellite cities," far from the larger cities like Ankara or Istanbul. They file a request to be granted official refugee status with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), in order to legally move West, and then they wait. In many cases, that waiting period can last up to three years, a time during which employment is difficult to find and harassment is not unusual.

"[The refugees] get stuck in Turkey for this red tape process for years - one, two or more and you can never figure out why some peoples’ process moves faster than others. They live in limbo," shared Tim Murphy, a journalist for Out Magazine who has covered the region extensively. "The atmosphere is very conservative; it’s a bizarre, unwelcoming twilight zone. You have no idea when you’ll finally be able to settle and exhale."

A report released last month jointly by the Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly’s Turkey Refugee Advocacy and Support Program and the Organization for Refuge, Asylum & Migration (ORAM) outlined some of the challenges facing LGBT refugees in the country.

"[They] are subject to a particularly caustic mix of marginalization in key areas of life, preventing them from obtaining assistance or employment, and depriving them of even the most basic security during their lengthy stay," read the report, based on interviews with 46 mostly Iranian LGBT asylum seekers and refugees. "Most live out their time in Turkey in destitution and desperation."

Refugee influx creates crisis

The report also noted that recent years have seen higher numbers of LGBT asylum seekers in Turkey, in addition to a generally higher influx of migrants leaving Africa or Asia for Europe or North America. According to sources interviewed for this story, the increased rate of asylum seekers is problematic for a number of reasons.

Hossein Alizadeh, communications coordinator for the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, recently returned from Turkey, where he was investigating the atmosphere facing queer asylum seekers. He was troubled by what he saw, noting "disappointment and frustration" among many of the people he spoke with.

According to Alizadeh, Turkey called only 3,000 refugees home as recently as 2003, before the Iraqi invasion. Today, that number is nearly 20,000, an estimated 150 of whom identify as LGBT.

"There are still refugees coming from Iran, and we get more and more coming in every time there is a political development in one country," he shared. "As more come in, the chance of the refugees finding a host country get slimmer and slimmer."

Another fear among LGBT rights activists working on the issue is that an influx of more gay refugees could result in an increased safety risk for the community. Already this year, ten transgender and gay people have been murdered within the country’s borders, the result of both the conservative environment and limited police protection.

"Turkey doesn’t like refugees," said Scott Long, director of Human Rights Watch’s LGBT Rights Program. "They have to huddle, are subject to violence, are harassed and are accused of being devil worshippers. In some ways, it replicates their experience in Iran. The more of them there are, the more susceptible they will be."

Arsham Parsi left his home of Iran to live in Turkey in 2005, when he discovered the police were seeking him out for his early efforts to organize and network with fellow Iranian gay activists. He stayed there for just over a year before seeking asylum in Toronto, Canada.

"The Iranian queer community who escapes to other countries have no other choice but to go through this process," explained Parsi, who is now executive director of the IRanian Queer Railroad (IRQR), an organization which provides support to gay Iranian refugees. "I had lots of problems [in Turkey], but I had no choice. It’s about death or life, choosing between bad and worse."

Parsi echoed the sentiments of the report released by the Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly and ORAM that major changes needed to be made to the UNHCR’s method of processing and adjudicating refugee status for gay Iranian applicants. He is currently writing an open letter urging the organization to speed up their process. He hopes that other Western groups will sign on with their cause. A similar campaign launched by IRQR earlier this year successfully expediated country assignment for a number of gay refugees.

"We need international lobbying with UNHCR," Parsi said, noting that he is contact with Iranian refugees in a number of other nations also having difficulty. "Everyone knows they are dealing with lots of refugees and they have limited resources and staff, but the important issue is that Iranian queers are particularly vulnerable. They have to process their cases urgently because they are still facing discrimination."

The challenge to the international community

Fearing danger both in their abandoned homeland and in their temporary locations, queer Iranian refugees are indeed left in a quandary. They cannot return home, where it is estimated that thousands of gays and lesbians have been killed since 1979 and daily violence and intimidation continue, but their future remains shrouded in uncertainty.

Activists on the issue hope that LGBT and human rights organizations worldwide come to the aid of queer Iranian refugees, creating an international effort to prevent continued threats on personal safety.

"Significant steps must be taken to make LGBT refugees and asylum seekers safer in Turkey and in many other places throughout the world," said Neil Grungras, ORAM executive director. "The violence and abuses will diminish only when all responsible parties begin giving the problem the intensive and serious attention it deserves."

"It’s an international challenge for the Iranian queer community," Parsi said "Where can we live freely and have our rights respected? Most [Western nations] will say that Iran is violating rights, but they should also respect those who escape from Iranian torture."

Source

Out of sight, out of mind

Image via Wikipedia

Experiences of immigration detention in the UK

Foreword by Shami Chakrabarti

Over the last twenty years, migrants and asylum seekers have become the most dehumanised group of people in Britain. Governments of both colours have stripped them of dignity and protection by turning them into faceless statistics rather than people - parents and children with hopes and fears like everyone else.

Bail for Immigration Detainees is a wonderful organisation that has worked tirelessly to help thousands of these most vulnerable people. In their report 'Out of sight, out of mind', detainees are given back their voices. The stories they tell should make uncomfortable reading for politicians, lawyers, human rights campaigners; indeed for everyone who believes in our country as a place of common decency. How can we play with our kids and sleep soundly in our beds when other families are unnecessarily imprisoned and often abused for doing nothing more than seeking a better life?

This report could make a real difference. The recent successful campaign to welcome the Gurkhas to these shores demonstrates that politicians underestimate the basic fairness of their constituents. When statistics become real human beings it is so much harder to denigrate them. Read these pages of moving testimony and then be moved into action.

Shami Chakrabarti, Director of Liberty


Human cost of immigration detention revealed in new report

A new report 'Out of sight, out of mind' released today by detainee rights charity Bail for Immigration Detainees (BID) reveals the unacceptable human cost of indefinite immigration detention in the UK and calls on the government to halt its plans to increase detention capacity.

Based on testimonies from immigration detainees, BID's report shows the devastating physical and emotional damage caused by immigration detention in the UK. People interviewed in BID's report include

• Frances, who was detained twice with her children and was not given her HIV medication for several weeks while she was in detention.
• Luisa, who claimed asylum and was detained after she fled from the men who brought her to the UK to work as a prostitute.
• Dilip, who arrived in the UK aged 14. He was wrongly told by immigration officials he could not claim asylum as a child and was later detained as an adult for nearly two years.
• David, who had been in the UK for 39 years when he was arrested for driving offences, given a deportation order and taken into immigration detention. He suffered a stroke in detention but was not taken to hospital.

According to Amanda Shah, BID's Assistant Director-Policy:

The testimonies in this report are a damning indictment of the government's arbitrary use of immigration detention. Deliberately kept out of sight behind barbed wire, the voices of detainees are seldom heard by the British public and the trauma that occurs in detention centres is a hidden national scandal.

We spoke to people who talked of wanting to take their own lives after their experiences in detention, and to British citizens whose families were ripped apart when their husbands, wives or partners were detained.

While the government likes to use the image of detention to demonstrate it is 'tough' on immigration, this report highlights the true cost of its detention policy - damaged lives and wasted taxpayers' money.

(Download: 'Out ofsight, out of mind'.pdf)

Notes for editors:

1. 'Out of sight, out of mind: experiences of immigration detention in the UK' is released to mark BID's tenth anniversary. BID is an independent charity working with asylum seekers and migrants in removal centres and prisons to secure their release from immigration detention.

2. Nearly 30,000 people every year are held in immigration detention in the UK, in eleven detention centres known as 'Immigration Removal Centres' as well as prisons and police cells. The UK Border Agency's detention budget for 2009/10 is £107.1 million.

3. Held without time limit and without automatic access to the courts, immigration detainees include British citizens wrongly identified as foreign nationals; asylum seekers who have fled to the UK seeking sanctuary; children detained with their families; the wives and husbands of British citizens; and long-time British residents who have served custodial sentences for driving offences or petty theft.

4. In May 2008 the government announced it intends to increase its detention capacity by 60%.

Gays live - and die - in fear in Jamaica

Bounty Killer via last.fm

By DAVID MCFADDEN

KINGSTON, Jamaica — Even now, about three years after a near-fatal gay bashing, Sherman gets jittery at dusk. On bad days, his blood quickens, his eyes dart, and he seeks refuge indoors.

A group of men kicked him and slashed him with knives for being a "batty boy" — a slang term for gay men — after he left a party before dawn in October 2006. They sliced his throat, torso, and back, hissed anti-gay epithets, and left him for dead on a Kingston corner.

"It gets like five, six o'clock, my heart begins to race. I just need to go home, I start to get nervous," said the 36-year-old outside the secret office of Jamaica's sole gay rights group. Like many other gays, Sherman won't give his full name for fear of retribution.

Despite the easygoing image propagated by tourist boards, gays and their advocates agree that Jamaica is by far the most hostile island toward homosexuals in the already conservative Caribbean. They say gays, especially those in poor communities, suffer frequent abuse. But they have little recourse because of rampant anti-gay stigma and a sodomy law banning sex between men in Jamaica and 10 other former British colonies in the Caribbean.

It is impossible to say just how common gay bashing attacks like the one against Sherman are in Jamaica — their tormentors are sometimes the police themselves. But many homosexuals in Jamaica say homophobia is pervasive across the sun-soaked island, from the pulpit to the floor of the Parliament.

Hostility toward gays has reached such a level that four months ago, gay advocates in New York City launched a short-lived boycott against Jamaica at the site of the Stonewall Inn, where demonstrations launched the gay-rights movement in 1969. In its 2008 report, the U.S. State Department also notes that gays have faced death and arson threats, and are hesitant to report incidents against them because of fear.

For gays, the reality of this enduring hostility is loneliness and fear, and sometimes even murder.

Andrew, a 36-year-old volunteer for an AIDS education program, said he was driven from the island after his ex-lover was killed for being gay — which police said was just a robbery gone wrong. He moved to the U.K. for several years, but returned to Jamaica in 2008 for personal reasons he declined to disclose.

"I'm living in fear on a day-to-day basis," he said softly during a recent interview in Kingston. "In the community where my ex-lover was killed, people will say to me when I'm passing on the street, they will make remarks like 'boom-boom-boom' or 'batty boy fi dead.' I don't feel free walking on the streets."

Many in this highly Christian nation perceive homosexuality as a sin, and insist violence against gays is blown out of proportion by gay activists. Some say Jamaica tolerates homosexuality as long as it is not advertised — a tropical version of former President Bill Clinton's "don't ask, don't tell" policy for the U.S. military.

Jamaica's most prominent evangelical pastor, Bishop Herro Blair, said he sympathizes with those who face intolerance, but that homosexuals themselves are actually behind most of the attacks reported against them.

"Among themselves, homosexuals are extremely jealous," said Blair during a recent interview. "But some of them do cause a reaction by their own behaviors, for, in many people's opinions, homosexuality is distasteful."

Other church leaders have accused gays of flaunting their behavior to "recruit" youngsters, or called for them to undergo "redemptive work" to break free of their sexual orientation.

Perhaps playing to anti-gay constituents, politicians routinely rail against homosexuals. During a parliamentary session in February, lawmaker Ernest Smith of the ruling Jamaica Labor Party stressed that gays were "brazen," "abusive," and "violent," and expressed anxiety that the police force was "overrun by homosexuals."

A few weeks later, Prime Minister Bruce Golding described gay advocates as "perhaps the most organized lobby in the world" and vowed to keep Jamaica's "buggery law" — punishable by 10 years — on the books. During a BBC interview last year, Golding vowed to never allow gays in his Cabinet.

The dread of homosexuality is so all-encompassing that many Jamaican men refuse to get digital rectal examinations for prostate cancer, even those whose disease is advanced, said Dr. Trevor Tulloch of St. Andrews Hospital.

"Because it is a homophobic society, there's such a fear of the sexual implications of having the exam that men won't seek out help," said Tulloch, adding Jamaica has a soaring rate of prostate cancer because men won't be screened.

The anti-gay sentiment on this island of 2.8 million has perhaps become best known through Jamaican "dancehall," a rap-reggae music hybrid that often has raunchy, violent themes. Some reggae rappers, including Bounty Killer and Elephant Man, depend on gay-bashing songs to rouse concert-goers.

"It stirs up the crowd to a degree that many performers feel they have to come up with an anti-gay song to incite the audience," said Barry Chevannes, a professor of social anthropology at the University of the West Indies.

Brooklyn-based writer Staceyann Chin, a lesbian who fled her Caribbean homeland for New York more than a decade ago, stressed that violence in Jamaica is high — there were 1,611 killings last year, about 10 times more than the U.S. rate relative to population — but that it is "extraordinarily" high against gays.

"The macho ideal is celebrated, praised in Jamaica, while homosexuality is paralleled with pedophilia, rapists," Chin said. "Markers that other people perceive as gay — they walk a certain way, wear tight pants, or are overly friendly with a male friend — make them targets. It's a little pressure cooker waiting to pop."

In 1996, when she was 20, Chin came out as lesbian on the Kingston UWI campus. She said she was ostracized by her peers, and one day was herded into a campus bathroom by a group of male students, who ripped off her clothes and sexually assaulted her.

"They told me what God wanted from me, that God made women to enjoy sex with men," recalled Chin, a poet, performer and lecturer who closes her just-published memoir "The Other Side of Paradise" with her searing account of the attack.

Even in New York City, anti-gay Jamaican bigots sent her hate-filled e-mails after a 2007 appearance on Oprah Winfrey's TV talk show to discuss homosexuality.

Chin said she doesn't know if she would have the courage to come out now as a lesbian in Jamaica.

"The tensions are higher now. People are feeling very much that they have to declare camps," she said.

Jamaican nationalism has always been tied in deeply with bugbears about masculinity, making for a "potent brew" where those who violate accepted standards of manliness are easy targets, said Scott Long of Human Rights Watch.

Long, head of a gay rights program at the New York-based group, pointed out that most other English-speaking islands in the region have tiny populations, where gays don't come out and visible activism is limited.

"(But) what stands out about Jamaica is how absolutely, head-in-the-sand unwilling the authorities have been for years to acknowledge or address homophobic violence," he said. "Most notably, three successive governments have completely, utterly, publicly refused even to talk about changing the buggery law — which expressly consigns gay people to second-class citizens and paints targets on their backs."

Prominent Jamaican political activist Yvonne McCalla Sobers noted that social standing still protects gay islanders, especially in Kingston, where a quest for privacy and the fear of crime has driven many to live behind gated walls with key pad entry systems, 24-hour security and closed-circuit television monitoring. People with power and money who are not obviously gay are often protected, she said.

"My thought is there are far more men having sex with men in this country than you would ever think is happening," Sobers said.

Many gays from poorer areas in Jamaica say they congregate in private to find safety and companionship. Once a month, they have underground church services at revolving locations across the island.

Sherman, meanwhile, is simply trying to move on with his life. But he said he will always remember how, after his attack, patrolmen roughly lifted his bloodied body out of their squad car when a man admonished them for aiding a "batty boy." A woman shamed them into driving him to a hospital; they stuffed him in the car's trunk.

"Being gay in Jamaica, it's like, don't tell anybody. Just keep it to yourself," he said evenly, with a half smile.

Source

Cameroon Catholic church “manipulates public opinion” on homosexuality

Image via Wikipedia

By Jerina Messie (French Reporter)

Gay rights organisations in Cameroon have accused the country’s Catholic Church and the media of deliberately causing confusion about the Maputo Protocol with the intention to influence the public to have negative attitudes towards homosexuality.

This comes after Cameroonian President Paul Biya ratified the Maputo Protocol, known in full as, the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights of Women in Africa, during the sixth anniversary of the Maputo Protocol on 11 July this year.

Reports say more than 20,000 people marched against Article 14, clause 2 (C) of this protocol which legalises medical abortion.

Many, partitularly religious leaders are against Article 14 as they say it also legalises homosexuality.

The media also confirmed on several reports that the protocol legalises homosexuality.

However both gay rights organizations, Alternative Cameroon and Association pour la Defense de l’Homosexualitè (ADEFHO) say there is no link between the ratification of this protocol and the possible legalisation of homosexuality in a near future.

Steave Nemande, President of Alternatives Cameroon, said this is a deliberate manipulation of the public’s opinion since nowhere in the protocol is homosexuality mentioned.

“Not only there is amalgam but also manipulation from the church”, said Nemande who also denounced a particular newspaper saying “it visibly does not understand that human rights apply to everybody.”

Concurring with Nemande, Sebastien Mandeng of ADEFHO Cameroon said “This is part of the crusade launched by the Catholic Church and a particular press against the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgeder and intersex community (LGBTI) community.

He added “They knew that by denouncing homosexuality they would attract more people to their protest” he said.

Mandeng further pointed out that the church attacks Article 14 of the protocol but “what they don’t say is that the section 339 of the Cameroonian Penal Code authorises women to have abortion under certain conditions since 1965”, he further explained.

ADEFHO and Alternatives Cameroon have launched a broad campaign in the media in order to redefine the terms of the Protocol of Maputo and clear doubts about legalisation of homosexuality.

“The aim of our campaign is to inform citizens and give them the right information. So far we have good responses and even the national newspaper has published our statement”, Nemande said.

In a joint statement issued on the 19 April 2007, African bishops said that legalization of medical abortion and the right to choose any method of contraception are particularly “incompatible with the principles of the Catholic Church, its tradition and its practices.”

The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa, better known as the Maputo Protocol, guarantees comprehensive rights to women including the right to take part in the political process, to social and political equality with men, to control of their reproductive health, and to end female genital mutilation.

It was adopted by the African Union in the form of a protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights in Mozambique on 11 July 2003.

Source

Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders Annual Report 2009 - Uganda

Image via Wikipedia

Political context

As part of the peace talks carried out under Sudan mediation and known as the "Juba process", the Government of Uganda and the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) signed on February 19, 2008 an important annex to their agreement dated June 29, 2007. This annex includes a cease-fire and principles for disarmament, demobilisation and reconciliation, as well as the adaptation of the judiciary system in order to prosecute war crimes. Following the signing of the peace agreement, the security situation improved.1

However, a final peace agreement should have been signed in April but LRA leader Joseph Kony failed to appear, thus raising questions on his commitment to the peace negotiations. Mr. Kony was given a second chance to sign a peace agreement on November 29, 2008 but, again, he made no appearance. On December 14, 2008, the situation worsened, when the military from Uganda, southern Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo lodged a joint attack, known as Operation "Lightning Thunder", on Mr. Kony and the LRA rebels. Some journalists reporting on this operation were harassed, as was the case of two journalists from The Monitor newspaper, summoned on January 7, 2009 by the police and the Criminal Investigations Department (CID), and questioned about an article they wrote on Operation "Lightning Thunder", which the Government considered prejudicial to the country's security. These journalists were held on police bond, which was cancelled after three weeks.2

Impunity was one of the issues that remained in 2008 at the heart of human rights debates in the country. Human rights defenders would like to see justice prevail, whether through the International Criminal Court (ICC) or through the traditional justice system (mato-put), to ensure that victims and survivors have an access to full and effective reparations. However, the search for domestic alternatives to ICC prosecutions to support the peace agreement initiative was criticised by the international community as undermining arrest warrants issued by the ICC against four LRA leaders3 on charges of crimes of the utmost gravity: crimes against humanity including murder, enslavement, sexual enslavement, and rape; and war crimes, including murder, intentionally directing an attack against a civilian population, pillaging, incitement to rape, and forced enlisting of children. Moreover, civil society organisations have raised serious doubts regarding the cooperation of Ugandan authorities with the ICC.

Legal obstacles to the work of human rights defenders

In 2008, independent civil society organisations continued to raise awareness on some provisions of the NGO Registration (Amendment) Act adopted in 2006 by Parliament, which could threaten their autonomy and independence. However, this Act had still not been implemented by the end of 2008, since the guidelines for its implementation have yet to be adopted.4

Under the terms of the 2006 Registration (Amendment) Act, NGOs have to renew licences on a regular basis and must provide writtenrecommendations issued by two entities deemed "acceptable" to a NGO Regulatory Body established within the Ministry of Internal Affairs, called "NGO board", composed of a very limited number of members from civil society, the majority of the board members coming from different ministries including of Internal and External Security ones. Without a clarification on the concept of acceptability, this provision could be used to silence more critical NGOs. Another provision of the Act stipulates that organisations are prevented from making direct contact with local people in rural areas without giving a seven days notice in writing to the district authorities. This is likely to further undermine their work, particularly activities of human rights monitoring. The Amendment Act also expands the powers of the Ministry of Internal Affairs to regulate the dissolution of NGOs.

After a meeting held in January 2008 between Government and NGO representatives, a committee composed of representatives from both sides was formed to renegotiate the final text of new guidelines, which are designed replace the existing ones in order to implement the 2006 Registration (Amendment) Act. The Committee met three times in 2008. Despite efforts made by NGO committee representatives to address concerns, the latest version of the text still gives broad powers to the "NGO board" to control the operations of NGOs in Uganda. At the end of the year, the new regulations were forwarded to the Minister of Internal Affairs for his signature.

Sedition laws and other criminal laws also continued to be a tool against journalists who were seen as critical of the authorities. In particular, the provisions of the Anti-Terrorist Act of 2002, which criminalises any attempt by a journalist to meet or speak with persons or groups regarded as terrorist and punishes such initiatives with death penalty, still seriously hinder the capacity of journalists who wish to denounce human rights violations in particular in northern Uganda, where the Government continued to use the war on terrorism to curb its internal conflict and rebellion.

Human rights defenders at risk when denouncing torture and extrajudicial killings

In a context where security and war on terrorism continued to prevail, the space for human rights defenders remained limited in 2008, and the latter still faced legislative obstacles, in particular when touching upon issues such as torture and extrajudicial killings. Indeed, the legislation criminalising torture had still not been adopted by the end of 20085 and individuals and NGOs denouncing such cases continued to be at risk in 2008. For instance, in October 2008, the Coordinator of the Human Rights Network for Journalists, Mr. Sebagala Wokulira, escaped a kidnapping attempt after an interview at Metro FM, during which he had asserted that hundreds of people were being detained and tortured in military "safe houses".6 At the end of the year, he was still hiding as he feared for his security.

Harassment of human rights defenders working on LGBT rights

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) activists continued in 2008 to be exposed to arbitrary arrests and judicial proceedings, as well as to be subjected to ill-treatment whilst in detention, primarily at the hands of the Ugandan police due to homophobic attitudes. For instance, in June 2008, three activists, Usaam "Auf " Mukwaya, Onziema Patience and Valentine Kalende, were arrested by the police force at the 2008 HIV/AIDS Implementers' Meeting during a peaceful protest to highlight the current failure by the government to offer HIV/AIDS prevention programmes and treatment to LGBT persons in Uganda. They were released on bail after having been charged with "criminal trespass" on June 6, 2008. On August 15, 2008, the prosecution withdrew the case. In September 2008, two other defenders, George Oundo, Co-chairperson of the Sexual Minorities in Uganda (SMUG), and "Kiiza" Brendah, were arrested and arbitrarily detained for a week and then released on bail, after being charged for "involvement in indecent practices". They were mistreated whilst in detention and interrogated by the police in order to identify other LGBT individuals, thus raising serious concerns about the security of other LGBT human rights activists.

On a positive note, on December 22, 2008, the High Court of Uganda gave its final judgement in the case of Ms. Victor Juliet Mukasa, President of SMUG. In the night of July 20, 2005, her house had been illegally raided by Government officials without a search warrant. The High Court ruled that the Government had violated the rights of Ms. Victor Juliet Mukasa and Ms. Yvonne Oyoo (a guest at her house), and declared that Ugandan constitutional rights apply to LGBT people regardless of their sexual identity or orientation. The Government will consequently be required to pay damages to both Ms. Musaka and Ms. Oyoo for violating their rights and seizing Ms. Musaka's documents. This Court ruling gives hope that Government and law enforcement agents will better respect LGBT human rights and their defenders.

Source

Activists petition UN over violation of gays' rights in Tanzania

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By Edward Qorro

Human rights campaigners have filed a report with the United Nations, complaining against Tanzania's violation of the rights of lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender (LGBT) persons .

The report submitted this month to the Human Rights Committee of the UN, seeks to highlight the social and legal obstacles that hinder the freedom of the groups with this type of social relations.

The report was filed by three non-governmental organisations: the Centre for Human Rights Promotion in East Africa, International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, and the Global Rights.

Mr Julius Kyaruzi, coordinator of LGBTI support unit in Tanzania; Ms Monica Mbaru, Africa Programme coordinator for IGLHRC; and Mr Stefano Fabeni, director for LGBTI Initiative for Global Rights, were behind the effort.

They hoped the release of the report would raise their plight and inspire Government attention.

The three NGOs argue that Tanzania still maintained laws that invade their privacy and create inequality.

"They relegate people to inferior status because of how they look or who they love. They degrade people's dignity by declaring their most intimate feelings unnatural or illegal," read part of the report.

Because of the criminalisation and stigmatisation, they said careers and lives had been destroyed, while promotion of violence and impunity was the daily suffering by the LGBT that drive them underground to live in invisibility and fear.

Among many petitions, the three bodies are pushing for amendment of the Penal Code decriminalising private, consensual, adult same-sex sexual activity as well as reviewing the HIV and Aids (Prevention and Control) Act, 2008, to provide "access to HIV preventive information and services"to LGBT.

However reached for comment, a spokesperson in the office of the Attorney General, Mr Omega Ngole, who admitted seeing the report, said the country's laws were meant to protect the right of all and safeguard their integrity.

And a section of religious leaders and the Centre for Human Rights, expressed mixed reactions on the report.

Auxiliary Bishop Method Kilaini of the Dar es Salaam Roman Catholic Archdiocese said lesbians and gays habits were unlawful and harmful to the society and that the practices should not be tolerated.

"A man should marry a woman and the two shall form a family, so says the Bible," stressed Bishop Kilaini. However, he said gays and lesbians were part of the community, and should be treated like any other people.

Mr Muhidin Hassan, head of Pilgrimage Department at the National Muslim Council of Tanzania (Bakwata), strongly opposed the presence of such groups of people in society.

But favoured the idea of extending HIV preventive information and services to such groups. Mr Francis Kiwanga of the Legal and Human Rights Centre, stressed that every person had the right to privacy as stipulated in the country's Constitution.

He said such people should be allowed to enjoy their freedom and the right of association.

Jamaican lesbian appeals deportation as Home Office says sexuality 'is a ruse'

Image by erjkprunczyk via Flickr

A Jamaican lesbian who served time in a UK prison for drug offences is appealing her deportation order, saying she will be killed if she returns to the country.

The 24-year-old woman, known only as 'A', was convicted of conspiracy to supply class A drugs in 2005.

While serving her sentence at HMP Downview, in Surrey, she had relationships with women and now claims to have fallen in love with a fellow inmate.

Her lawyer has said she will be in danger of being killed if she is returned to Jamaica as one of her co-accused will reveal her sexual orientation. He added that her human rights will be violated if she is deported.

Jamaica is known to be one of the most hostile countries in the world towards lesbians and gays.

Gay sex between two men can carry a ten-year jail sentence or hard labour. Sex between two women is currently legal but many lesbians face persecution.

'A' was served with a deportation notice earlier this year. She is now challenging the decision of the Immigration Appeal Tribunal at London’s Court of Appeal.

However, the Home Office has said her lesbianism is a ruse in order to stay in the country and suggested she only had relationships with women because there were no men in prison.

Carine Patry Hoskins, representing the Home Office at the Court of Appeal, said: “If she wanted to be sexually active, there was no other option. There was no other choice but celibacy.”

She added that the woman had previously had relationships with men and that the lesbian relationship was “part and parcel of a campaign to be allowed to stay in the UK”.

Anisa de Jong, executive director of the UK Lesbian and Gay Immigration Group, told PinkNews.co.uk: "[We do] not comment on individual cases, and therefore we can not make any statement about whether what is reported about this case is factually correct or not.

"Our general response to the news report is that sexuality is not fixed and it is not uncommon for lesbian (or bisexual) women to have had sexual relationships with men in the past.

"This in itself does not reduce the risk they run in their country of origin where someone who is known to have had same-sex sexual relationships is likely to be perceived of - and treated - as a lesbian.

"The information we have, and our experience with clients from Jamaica, indicate that women who are known or perceived to be lesbian, are not safe, and run a high risk of experiencing violence, rape and other forms of persecution."

Source

Ramzy est libre et régularisé !

Il y a 2 semaines, nous - les Amoureux au Ban Public, l’ARDHIS, l’Inter-LGBT et SOS Racisme - vous avions alerté de la situation de Ramzy, ressortissant tunisien, interpellé à la gare de Bordeaux et consécutivement placé en centre de rétention, malgré les risques encourus en cas de retour forcé dans son pays d’origine.

Présent en France depuis près de 10 ans, il a quitté son pays afin de pouvoir vivre dans la sérénité et la sécurité son homosexualité dont la révélation conduirait à son exclusion de toute vie sociale dans son pays d’origine et le rendrait passible d’une peine d’emprisonnement ferme d’une durée de trois années (Art. 230 du Code Pénal Tunisien). En outre, Ramzy est veuf d’un ressortissant français : en effet, en 2006, son compagnon Brahim, avec lequel il était pacsé, est décédé d’un cancer foudroyant.

Gräce à la formidable mobilisation de tous, militants associatifs, simples citoyens ou personnalités politiques, Ramzy a été libéré et la préfecture de Gironde vient de lui délivrer une autorisation provisoire de séjour l’autorisant à travailler en vu de sa régularisation. Il va pouvoir se reposer pour envisager ensuite le futur avec confiance.

Nous sommes évidemment heureux et soulagés de savoir Ramzy libre et bientôt régularisé. Cependant, nous n’oublions pas que nombre de personnes lesbiennes, bi, gaies et transsexuelles subissent un retour forcé vers leur pays d'origine alors que la pratique homosexuelle y est pénalisée et réprimée (plus de 70 pays incriminent le délit d’homosexualité).

Nous rappelons les déclarations du candidat Sarkozy : "Être persécuté en raison de sa sexualité, c’est choquant et inadmissible. La France doit faire sienne cette position chaque fois qu’un homosexuel est martyrisé parce qu’il est homosexuel". Raison pour laquelle nos associations demandent de nouveau au Président de la République d’accorder protection aux personnes homosexuelles et transsexuelles et de mettre fin à la pratique des expulsions vers ces pays répressifs.

1 Dans un souci de protection, l’identité de l’intéressé a été modifiée.

2 CP inter associatif Amoureux au Ban Public, ARDHIS, Inter LGBT, SOS Racisme : « M. le Président de la République, protégez Ramzy ! », 26/06/09

3 Interview de M. Nicolas Sarkozy accordée au magazine Têtu en avril 2007.

~~~~~~~~~~

Translation: French » English

Ramzy is regulated and free!

2 weeks ago, we - love to Ban Public, the ARDHIS, Inter-LGBT and SOS Racisme - you were alerted of the situation Ramzy, a Tunisian national, arrested at the train station in Bordeaux and consecutively placed in the center of retention, despite the risks involved in cases of forced return to his country of origine.

Present in France for nearly 10 years, he left his country to live in peace and security as a homosexual whose disclosure would lead to its exclusion from social life in his home country and make it punishable by a penalty of imprisonment for a term of three years (Art. 230 of the Tunisian Criminal Code). In addition, Ramzy is a widower of a national french: indeed, in 2006, Brahim his companion, with whom he was pacsé, died of cancer foudroyant.

Thanks to the tremendous efforts of all, activists, ordinary citizens or politicians, Ramzy was released, and the prefecture of Gironde has to issue a temporary stay allowing it to work because of its regularization. It will be able to relax then to consider the future with confidence.

We are obviously pleased and relieved to know Ramzy free and soon corrected. However, we do not forget that many lesbians, bi, gay and transgendered face a forced return to their country of origin while homosexual practice is penalized and punished (more than 70 countries criminalize the crime of homosexuality) .

We recall the statements of the candidate Sarkozy: "Being persecuted for his sexuality, it is shocking and unacceptable. France must endorse that position every time a homosexual was tortured because he is gay". Why our associations ask again to the President of the Republic to grant protection to homosexuals and transgendered people and to stop the evictions to these repressive countries.

1 In order to protect the identity of the person concerned has been changed.

2 CP inter associatif love Ban Public ARDHIS, Inter LGBT, SOS Racisme, "Mr. President of the Republic, protect Ramzy! "26/06/09

3 Interview with Mr. Nicolas Sarkozy paid to Tetu magazine in April 2007.

Gay Life After Saddam

Guardian review

What terrific reporting from Aasmah Mir in Gay Life After Saddam (BBC Radio 5 Live). It looked at the grim reality for gay, lesbian and transgender people living in Iraq, and the reasons for this savage new persecution. In a "liberated" country, this group finds itself yearning for the former regime. "We used to go every Thursday by the Tigris," said one man, his voice suffused with longing, "and we'd drink and swim. It was very relaxing."

Nobody in the programme sounded relaxed: Mir spoke to those in exile, in hiding, people who had been tortured or issued with death threats for helping others escape. Their stories ranged from sad to gruesome. We heard one Iraqi man tell how his boyfriend was abducted and murdered. "They had thrown his corpse in the garbage," he explained. "His genitals were cut off and a piece of his throat had been cut out." We heard, too, about the torture: rape, and also "glue in the anus and then force-feeding laxatives".

Some of those fleeing Iraq seek asylum in Britain and there were tales of seemingly harsh treatment by the authorities. Mir couldn't explore these, as both David Miliband and Phil Woolas refused interviews for this programme. Shame on them, you were left thinking.

Listen to the show (60')

Gay Life After Saddam

Uganda May Ban All LGBT Advocacy

Uganda’s Minister for Ethics and Integrity, Nsaba Buturo, announced at a press conference on Wendesday that he would be submitting a bill before the Uganda Parliament to ban all forms of expression in support for LGBT people in that country:

He noted that once the Bill is passed into law, it will be an offence to publish and distribute literature on homosexuality or advocate for it. He also stated that it would become impossible for homosexuals to address press conferences and attract people to their cause, once the Bill becomes law. He, however, declined to reveal the penalties for offenders.

Buturo acknowledged that several donor organizations have asked for the elimination of that nation’s draconian anti-sodomy law. Many of those service organizations see the law as being a huge roadblock to their health and anti-HIV/AIDS efforts. Current law punishes homosexual acts with a lifetime sentence. Buturo was defiant against calls to ease these restrictions:

“I have been pressured by some donors to allow homosexuality, but I have told them they can keep their money and the homosexuality because it is not about charity at the expense of our moral destruction,” Mr Buturo said.

Mr Buturo said the homosexual forces are very powerful and operating through powerful governments to have their desire fulfilled but Uganda will not succumb to any pressure to legalise unnatural sex and homosexuality in particular.

Source

Gay Filipino Man Wins US Asylum Case in Landmark Ruling - Government Declines Appeal

Philip Belarmino is a happy man tonight, or at least relieved. The US Government announced today that it would NOT be appealing an immigration court judge's ruling allowing his Asylum claim on the basis that he would be persecuted if he returned to the Philippines.

“I’m really happy. I’m grateful that I’m being given this opportunity to lead a better life in America with the support of my family,” Belarmino said.

Belarmino testified in his asylum case that as a young boy, he had been molested several times, and was persecuted for being gay. He did not report the abuse because he was afraid that his very conservative parents would come to know his sexual orientation.

Belarmino would eventually come out to his parents after he initially won his asylum case on May 21, 2009.

“That was a real hurdle, it involved much struggle on my part. But it’s amazing God has his way of reuniting and mending wounds that have been there for quite a long time. It just so happened that the dialogue of understanding, compassion and love took place on my Mom’s birthday.”

Ted Laguatan, Belarmino’s lawyer, says his client can apply for a green card after a year, since he is now officially a refugee.

“As a refugee, he’s entitled to work, he’s entitled to stay here, and he’s entitled to travel.” Laguatan said.

Belarmino is the first known Filipino to win an asylum case based on the threat of persecution due to sexual orientation. Human rights activists feel that his case will serve as a model for other gay men and women suffering similar difficulties.

A former English professor, Belarmino says the decision was liberating and gave him more confidence.

“The resurgence of that self-esteem, that integrity and the acceptance of who I really am has really encouraged me to really live my life, not the way others see me, or others may want to see me, but the way I really am. And I also can say that I’m more at peace right now because of that total acceptance,” Belarmino said.

Belarmino says he’s now ready to start over. He wants to go back to teaching, and become an advocate for human rights.

Source

How Country of Origin Information can help win asylum cases

Practical Country Specific Courses
IAS for Silver ILPA

Immigration Advisory Service (IAS) and the Immigration Law Practitioners' Association (ILPA) are pleased to offer free half-day training courses on Country of Origin Information as the IAS’s contribution to ILPA’s 25th anniversary. Courses will be held in London, Birmingham, Manchester, Cardiff and Leeds. The country courses on offer include:

• Iran
• Iraq
• Somalia
• General course on Internal Flight Alternative (IFA)
  

Courses will cover the following aspects:

• Developing a research strategy and enhancing research skills
• Identifying legally relevant country information
• Country specific source identification - areas of strength, information gaps and how to deal with a lack of information
• Source assessment
• Typical claims and how to approach them using country information
• Typical refusal letter points and means of countering them with country information
• Issues arising from case law; scope for challenge with country information; topics on which there is no Country Guidance
• Use of expert evidence and country specific expert listings
• Identifying relevant country information to support the assessment of an Internal Flight Alternative

The courses will run from August to October and participants can gain 3 CPD hours. The sessions will be seminar style with written notes, discussion and case studies. Experienced country information researchers from the IAS Research and Information Unit will conduct the training.

The courses dates are as follows:

Date
Location
Country

Monday August 24th
London
Somalia

Wednesday September 9th
London
Iran

Tuesday September 15th
Leeds
Iraq

Wednesday September 16th
Manchester
IFA

Thursday September 17th
Manchester
Iraq

Tuesday September 22nd
Birmingham
Iraq

Wednesday September 23rd
Birmingham
IFA

Wednesday September 30th
London
Iraq

Thursday October 1st
London
IFA

Wednesday October 7th
London
Iran

Thursday October 8th
London
Somalia

Monday October 12th
Cardiff
Somalia

o book a place, please download the booking form.

To download this page as Word document click here.

To obtain further information, please contact Natasha Tsangarides:

Natasha.Tsangarides@iasuk.org Tel: 020 7967 6032. Mob: 07531 381 954

Out in Africa

Dave Armstrong reports on Manchester's gay support groups that are providing inspiration for LGBT communities in Malawi and Uganda.

I first called Manchester Lesbian & Gay Switchboard (now LGF Helpline) in 1996. Within days I was using the fabulous Icebreakers social and support group for men who are new to the city and/or coming out. Within months I became one of the facilitators of Icebreakers alongside the wonderful Gary and Gywn. Within a year I became a switchboard operator.

For the past 13 years - give or take some months off here and there - I have been a volunteer at Icebreakers. We have been helping men in Manchester come to terms with and celebrate their sexuality.

But it doesn't stop there...

Being Gay in Malawi

A few years ago Icebreakers were approached by a couple of guys in Uganda and Malawi. People who were embarking on offering services similar to the LGF and Icebreakers around issues of sexuality and sexual orientation.

The group in Malawi operates with a host of volunteers providing workshops and safer sex courses in prisons across Malawi.

In June this year, I visited Malawi and met up with the leaders of the initiative in a Blantyre car park to give them some condoms and lube sent from the UK.

In Malawi homosexuality is still illegal, but progress is being made, one of the members of the G A Y group is now a member of parliament.

However, If you are gay in Malawi there is the possibility of a prison term but no precise indication of the length of sentence.

Being Gay in Uganda

Icebreakers were also approached by a remarkable man from Uganda called Frank.

Frank had seen Icebreakers Manchester and he wanted to create a similar group in Uganda, offering gay men a voice, offering gay men a life where they can be supported by others in their situation and protect gay men from the violence and hatred that they face.

In Uganda, people are publicly outed and then publicly attacked, imprisoned and tortured. Frank has had an amazing battle so far; he's run off into hiding so many times, faced eviction, death threats, but he still continues to fight. He continually challenges the prejudices that LGBT people face in Uganda.

The International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual Association’s 2009 map on LGBTI rights in the world shows that gay people in Uganda face a prison sentence from 11 years to a life-long sentence. In 2005 same-sex marriage was criminalized. LGBT citizens have been granted asylum in other countries.

In April a Ugandan newspaper published an article under the banner headline, "Top Homos In Uganda Named." This followed a recent anti-gay conference in Uganda featuring a board member from the American "ex-gay" organization Exodus International.

We may think our fight for equality is nearing its end but there is so much still to achieve.

Whenever you think that all’s well with the world and that lesbian and gay people are positive, supported and empowered please spare a thought for our brothers and sisters in Africa, who are not only faced with the highest rates of HIV in the World (one in seven have HIV in Malawi and one in eight in Uganda), but also the almighty hatred that still goes on - with no clear end in sight.

To find out more about Icebreakers Uganda and offer words of support and encouragement to Fred, click here.

Source

Iraqi LGBT to apply for charitable status, provides interim accounts

Media release

The Iraqi LGBT organisation has today provided interim accounts for its Syria operations (see below) and announced that it will resubmit an application for charitable status.

Based in the UK, the group works to aid lesbians, gays, bisexual and transgender people within Iraq as well as many who have fled for exile in nearby countries. It runs a 'safe house' in Baghdad, Iraq, where 20 LGBT people are currently housed and where previously 70 people have stayed for various periods.

The safe house will be featured in a documentary on BBC Radio this Sunday. It includes interviews with the person who runs it as well as some of those who live there.

Since it was founded Iraqi LGBT has provided safety for over 100 people, including supporting 70 people financially. It has provided support for 23 people outside Iraq including shelter, medication and food.

The reapplication for charitable status follows a change in the group's aims which removed working the requirement to work for change in Iraqi law, which resulted in a previous rejection by the UK's Charity Commission as this was regarded as 'political'. It also follows the work of the group's volunteer accountant on preparing accounts to meet charity commissioners’ standards. In addition the group has become a Company limited by guarantee (No. 06954355).

Iraqi LGBT’s accountant Josh Botham ATT ACPA ACCA IIT[dip] explained that - like others such as Amnesty International - the group has had to use circuitous routes in order to get funds to exiles, as well as pay bribes in order to secure release of people under real threat of death.

Botham said that as part of the application the group would publish full accounts on its website shortly.

Funding for the group in the past has come from the group's own members and donations including one in 2008 from the US Representative Jared Polis. He donated $10,000 (£6,853) via the Heartland Alliance to aid the project in Syria.

Polis' funding went to the Chicago based LGBT group Heartland Alliance to provide for five people to be moved from Iraq to Syria and to provide housing rent, food and other basic needs in Syria. This project ran between 1 June and 31 December 2008. Included in the cost was the living accommodation for the local administrator of the group.

Botham said that: "Providing the financial support involved a difficult money transfer process in order to avoid coming to the attention of Syrian authorities. Such an operation also meant that in order to safeguard the lives of these refugees, people were only informed on a need to know basis."

"Heartland Alliance [as grant provider] however insisted that our group should meet up with the Lebanese LGBT group, Helem, in November 2008, at that same time that some prominent members of Heartland Alliance visited Syria."

"The result was disastrous for our group, Iraqi LGBT. Some of our members were arrested by Syrian police in Damascas in (which city). With the help of a local lawyer, Iraqi LGBT managed to get these people released. However one of them was later to be deported back to Iraq."

Iraqi LGBT has experienced other difficulties in coordinating activities with Heartland Alliance. Another grant of $10,000 meant for Iraqi LGBT came to the group from the Elisabeth Morse Genius Charitable Trust, based in Chicago. Botham gave them a budget of how to allocate this money.

However communications broke down with the Heartland Alliance's representative when it was claimed that the last transfer of $4,000 had never been received by our sources in Iraq. Says Botham: “This underlines the perils of where we are working and who we are working with."

"Iraqi LGBT has supported another nine Iraqi refugees in Syria, as well as a safe house in Iraq and has had to spend money on freeing people from custody. Obviously in such situations one doesn't get a receipt."

"Between 1 June 2008 to 31 May 2009, the Polis supported project represented one sixth of the group's expenditure. Just under a quarter of the group's funding actually came from the group's founder, Ali Hili, his family and his partner."

Iraqi LGBT Chair Ali Hilli added: "We are confident that the charitable status will be accepted and will be a great help for the group. As we have been reporting for several years now, our people in Iraq are being killed and we desperately need more financial support to save them and where necessary move them out of Iraq."

"This work is dangerous and threatening. Even in London I am under real threat and have been forced to move as a result."

Donations for Iraqi LGBT can be made via PayPal. See the group's website at http://iraqilgbtuk.blogspot.com for details.

ATTACHMENT

Syria underground Railroad Project

Covering the period from 1 June 2008 to 31 May 2009

Figures in US dollars

Total funding received from Heartland Alliance $15,520

Expenditure
Telephone cards and other means of communication $413
Basic food and supplies $486
Travel costs including passports and visa’s(for 5 people, from Bagdad to Damascus by road) $3,000
Legal fees(to prevent an individual from being imprisoned in Iraq) $4,000
Rent (Damascus) $7,000
Transportation costs (inside Syria to move nine Iraqi LGBT refugees when necessary
to another safe house) $413
Other costs $208
Total $15,218
Balance left $2

Iraqi LGBT expenditure in Syria

In addition to the funding received from Heartland Alliance, Iraqi LGBT from its own resources has supported another nine Iraqi LGBT refugees who had already made there own way to Syria.

The Heartland Alliance would not allow us to include the cost of transferring the money as part of their donation. We paid for it ourselves and we have therefore listed this bank fee under our own expenditure

Figures in pounds sterling

Covering the period from 1 June 2008 – 31 May 2009
Rent, food and other amenities like electricity (For two safe houses including any bribes paid.) £8,731
Communication (mobile phones, phone cards, internet etc) £95
Bank charges £415
Total £9,241