In Abu Dhabi, teenage boys sentenced to jail over 'secret habit'

Source: The National

By Haneen Dajani

Two teenage boys who committed indecent acts on themselves were sentenced to two months in a youth correctional centre after being cleared of rape and kidnapping.

SM, an Egyptian, and RM, who is Jordanian, had been accused with two friends of kidnapping, robbing and raping a Filipino man, AJ.

The friends, AM, Jordanian, and MM, Egyptian, were cleared of those charges but sentenced to three months for homosexual acts.

The judges who issued the verdict said the boys were sentenced to two months because they practised the "secret habit" on top of AJ's naked body, so it was considered as a form of sexual assault.

"However, if a person practises the 'secret habit' in the privacy of their bathroom, they don't face penalties," one of the judges noted.

AJ had accused the boys of kidnapping him and taking him to his apartment, where they raped him and then stole Dh150 and a gold chain.

In previous hearings, the teenagers argued that AJ actually offered them money in exchange for sex. The taxi driver who drove the group to AJ's apartment testified that AJ rode willingly with them.

According to the UAE Fatwa Centre, though there is no penalty for masturbation under Sharia, it is forbidden under Islam.

"There is one exception, however, which is if the person was in a situation where he could either commit sex out of wedlock or get rid of his desire through masturbating. Then [masturbation] is the lesser of two evils," the fatwa says.

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In Abu Dhabi, a Pakistani gay murderer asks to pay 'blood money'

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Source: The National

By Hassan Hassan, Courts and Justice Reporter

A murdered man's family who asked for his killer to be executed quickly may have to repeat their request after the murderer asked for time to negotiate blood money.

The killer, FS, from Pakistan, is hoping for an agreement that would allow him to avoid execution. If he fails to agree to a deal, the family would have to repeat their request. They had earlier asked for a swift execution to avoid revenge attacks in Pakistan .

FS had his first hearing at the Abu Dhabi Appellate Court yesterday. He pleaded guilty to stabbing to death a 26-year-old Pakistani man who lived in the same labour camp in Abu Dhabi.

Prosecutors said he lured the victim to a deserted area and attempted to have sex with him.

The Abu Dhabi Court of First Instance sentenced FS last month to three years in prison for habitually engaging in homosexual acts with the victim. He was sentenced to death for the murder which took place on October 8 last year.

He pleaded not guilty to having sex with the man and asked the appeal court judge if he could negotiate with the family to pay blood money.

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Daily Express protest misses the point – and doesn't help Zac

Source: The Guardian

By Paul Canning

There's a protest happening outside the Daily Express office in London this afternoon. Any protest against the Express gets two thumbs up from me. It's a vile, nasty rag. But this one seems a tad pointless and the anger misplaced.

Last week's supreme court decision on gay and lesbian asylum seekers generated the Express front-page headline: "Now asylum if you're gay" – hence the protest. The usual suspects, including the Daily Mail and talk radio, all behaved predictably too. But a few days before the Express's front page appeared, a gay asylum seeker was being put into actual danger by the Sun.

Zac is a gay teenager from Abu Dhabi, the most conservative of the United Arab Emirates. He's been in the UK for six years but ran away last year from his family after he was rejected by them when he came out. He got help and after claiming asylum was moved to Liverpool. There he found friends and a (hopefully) long-term partner – a new, happier and safer life. His asylum claim as a gay man under threat if he returned home was rejected by the Home Office, as most have been, but his appeal is on track.

In Dubai this week another gay man was sentenced to three years in jail. In Abu Dubai a few years ago 25 men were arrested in a raid on a party and threatened with hormone treatment – which was only stopped after US state department protests.

Zac also has a talent: he can sing. And like many teenagers he tried his hand with The X Factor talent show. He passed the initial audition and had been called back for further trials in Manchester last week.

But, it appears, someone connected with Talkback Thames, the show's producers, contacted the press and on 3 July a nasty story about Zac appeared in the Sun. He was only told about it two days later and after being told in the same phone call to prepare five songs for another audition later the same day. After he called the Sun and they told him the information had come from The X Factor, he was dropped.

The Sun's story uses his real name. Association of his family's name with homosexuality puts Zac in real danger as his father has already tried to kill him. Where, I wonder, could the Sun have discovered his name from?

For the record, Talkback Thames denies passing his name to the Sun.

Perhaps today's protesters at the Express should, if concerned to help an actual gay asylum seeker, travel a bit further east to News International's HQ, or four miles west to Talkback Thames. The pointlessness of demonstrating outside the Express building is underlined if you read the protesters' statement railing against homophobia in the media and invoking protests to the Press Complaints Commission. It doesn't appear to have been drawn up in discussion with anyone working with actual gay asylum seekers, but they have got the National Union of Journalists on board.

Have we learned nothing from the death of a gay pop singer, his slagging off in the Mail and the waste of time trying to complain using section 12 of the PCC's editors' code (Discrimination)?

Use of this section will always bang up against principles of free speech and I'm not so sure that's a bad thing. There's a vengeful tendency in the gay community, which I understand, but the line in law and ethical codes should be about provoking violence.

No, what the tabloids did with the gay asylum supreme court decision, which I suspect Lord Rodger deliberately created for them, should be complained about under editors' code, section 1, (i) – "inaccurate, misleading or distorted information" – because every single one of the tabloids took the judge's "right to Kylie and cocktails" comments out of context (as did even some foolish gay commentators). Read the whole thing. He used the comments deliberately "as stereotypes" to say that being gay is about more than sex.

Being "discreet", as the Guardian's Michael White and the Home Office perceive it to be, is not just being quiet about sex or not showing affection in the street. It's about suppressing everything about yourself – a near impossibility. As was put to the supreme court, the analogy is of Anne Frank in her attic being "discreet" – and yet still "found out".

Lord Rodger chose his language deliberately to make that point. "Discretion" is never expected of "straight" people: this is about equality and whether Britain believes in it or not. This sailed over many heads, including the TalkSport presenter who invited me on, ignored what I explained and carried on about gay "privileges". Legally, the supreme court's ruling is a landmark for LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) rights.
So if you want to make a homophobia point to the PCC about the Mail, Express and Star on gay asylum, mention section 1, (i) of the code.

If you want to help gay asylum seekers more directly, you can support a charity that works on their behalf and you can demand real change, not just promises, from the coalition government.

If you want justice for Zac, send Talkback Thames a message. And maybe schedule another demonstration?

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Did X Factor 'out' a gay asylum seeker, putting him in danger?

By Paul Canning

The production company for hit TV show X Factor passed the real name to the Sun newspaper of a contestant who is a young Middle Eastern gay asylum seeker, he has claimed in comments published by Manchester's Lesbian and Gay Foundation (LGF) and then Pink Paper.

The Sun subsequently ran an inaccurate article belittling the asylum seeker and this was then picked up in the Middle East, which has put him in danger.

The asylum seeker known as Zac told LGF:

“I was shocked that the paper used my real name and age. I rang them and they said a press release had come from the X Factor’s marketing company.”

LGBT Asylum News has confirmed that the conversation with Sun journalist Chris Robertson took place in the presence of a worker for the Young Person's Advisory Service (YPAS) in Liverpool, of which Zac is a client.

YPAS LGBT Youth Co-ordinator Kieran Bohan told us that Zac had been called by the X Factor 5 July to inform him about the article which was published 3 July. Zac then went to YPAS and Robertson was called. He told Zac that the article was based on a press release.

It is common practice for entertainment news stories to be based in part or entirely on material supplied by public relations companies or departments.

Zac had also been told by X Factor to prepare five songs for an audition in Manchester however later in the day he was called and told that they didn't want him after all. Kieran said that it is his belief that the story was placed "in order to drop Zac."

LGF says that Zac did give his personal details as part of the audition process and “signed a lot of papers” but was assured that his personal information wouldn’t get published.

X Factor producers Talkback Thames have denied that The Sun received a press release, telling us:

There was no press release issued to the sun by the x factor. We did not disclose personal information about this contestant.

The Sun would not discuss the origins of the story with us.

The story published in The Sun was picked up by two news websites in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) as well as social media. This would put Zac in danger of persecution including possible physical harm if his case is rejected and he is returned. But a source in Dubai (via Gay Middle East) suggested to us that the most serious risk to Zac would be that the mention of the family name in the media in connection with homosexuality could also cause problems for family members or cause family members to cause further harm to Zac - even though he now lives in Liverpool.

The Middle East based website 7 Days was one outlet which picked up on The Sun's article, saying “it is unclear why he doesn’t want to return to the UAE” but Zac says:

“They make it sound ridiculous, they don’t realise the harm. I wish I could go back, but as a gay man it’s not safe. I would be killed by my father. The government would jail me, if I didn’t change my behaviour on release. I’d face the death penalty. My religion says I would be killed for having relations with a man.”

"If I went back, I would be arrested at the airport because the paper printed my real name and sexuality. The police would say change, they would beat me, anything could happen. I could be put to death.”

Dan Littaneur, Gay Middle East (GME) Editor, told us:

"If Zac is deported to Abu Dhabi he is very likely to be in serious trouble with the authorities; article 80 of the Abu Dhabi Penal Code makes sodomy punishable with imprisonment of up to 14 years."

"GME has received various reports and there are also news articles that have revealed how the law is typically enforced including imprisonment, forced hormonal and psychological treatments. Most of the inhabitants of Abu Dhabi are strict Sunnis followers of the Maliki school which believe that sodomy merits death by stoning."

"Being gay is seen as one of the worst crimes and offenses against the faith, honour and integrity of not only the accused person but for all his family members and those who have dealings with them."

"A source of GME in the Emirates commented that due to these facts, Zac will be most definitely be socially ostracised and may face abuse, both psychological and physical from his family, the authorities and the general public. He will be unlikely ever to find employment, and his movements will be restricted and monitored. Worse still he would always be in danger of being put to death in some of the other Emirates which uphold the UAE Article 354 of the Federal Penal Code states, "Whoever commits rape on a female or sodomy with a male shall be punished by death.""

"In my view as well as sources of GME within the Emirates, not granting asylum and deporting Zac to Abu Dhabi would mean loss of freedom as well as a serious threat to his well being and even his life."

In 2005, twenty-six young men were arrested at an Abu Dhabi hotel. They initially faced government-ordered hormone treatments.

In January we reported on the arrest of two gay men in Dubai. According to court documents one of the defendants was entrapped by a 'cybercrimes investigator' in an online chat room. One of the men was sentenced to three years imprisonment.

A source in Kuwait (via Gay Middle East) told us that online entrapment by the state in common in countries around the Gulf. "In Oman, for example, they use it to blackmail foreigners into extending their work contracts," he said.

In 2007 Dubai police initially treated sixteen year old French Swiss boy Alexandre Robert who had been kidnapped and raped as a suspect. The worry that a case was being built against Alexandre as an illegal homosexual led his family to leave the country on the advice of the French consul. His mother subsequently set up the website boycottdubai.com

Zac told LGF that the Sun's report was full of inaccuracies. It claimed that he was desperately using the show to stay in the UK and describes him as a “failed asylum seeker” who has had his application “rejected”.

“They say my case has failed, but it hasn’t. They say I ought to be on my way back to the Middle East, but I’ve been told by the Home Office that I’m not allowed to leave the UK”.

“They say I use the programme to get asylum. I didn’t, my case is strong. I auditioned because I love singing. Taking part in the show wouldn’t change anything about my case.”

Zac's legal representative Dr Edward Mynott told us that although his original claim was rejected on the basis that he was not known to anyone who could harm him in the UAE an appeal has been lodged, the asylum tribunal has accepted that Zac is gay and last week's Supreme Court decision on the so-called 'discretion test' "has clarified the legal approach and will be relevant to any consideration of our client's case."

"Our client has never used his involvement in X Factor as a basis for his asylum claim,"said Mynott.

"Our client is shocked by the public disclosure of his personal information and we fear that the disclosure has exacerbated the risk to him." 

Zac grew up in the most conservative Emirate Abu Dhabi but came to the UK with his mother in 2004. He ran away last year when she found out he is gay, then the Home Office relocated him to Liverpool. Here he says he has grown in confidence and is a different person thanks to the support of local agencies like the Young Persons Advisory Service.

Zac told LGF:

“I miss my mum a lot. It’s hard to be without family. I’ve been sick and thought if only my mum was with me, it’s the same when I see kids at college with their parents. I wish I had her support. She’s got a good heart but when it comes to sexuality it’s all wrong.  I don’t blame her – it’s our religion. I’ve tried to change, but I can’t.”

In Liverpool, Zac says he has the “love and support” of a long term boyfriend and good friends, so was horrified to read the negative comments posted by readers of The Sun online such as, “get him out before he takes any more of the government’s money” and “next plane out good riddance”.

Zac told LGF he was dismayed and hurt by the comments:

“I’ve not done anything wrong. I know some asylum seekers aren’t for real. They make me sound like I am an animal. I’m not begging. My mother pays taxes. I would work but the government won’t let us. I try hard to save money”.

LGBT Asylum News spoke with X Factor producers Talkback Thames for comment on Zac's claims and subsequently emailed the following questions:

• Is Zac correct that his real identity was supplied by a marketing company for X Factor to The Sun?
• If this was the case was the danger to him as a gay asylum seeker from the UAE considered?
• If this was the case were any details regarding his asylum case in information released to The Sun?

~~~~~~~~

This interview with Zac was for a film and web project called 'BreakOUT'.