Claim: No gays in Chechnya

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By GayRussia.Ru

We already heard from the Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, that there are no gays in Iran, a country where homosexuality is punished by death penalty. A Chechen news agency seems to be of the same position.

"There is no such "immoral phenomenon" as homosexuality in Chechnya" said the News Agency 'The Chechen Republic Today'.

"The country does not have such completely amoral phenomena as drug addiction, pedophilia, homosexuality and prostitution, which are all alien to Chechens," writes Marat Batalov, a columnist of the agency in an article published on June 29 in 'Russians, look at the roots'.

This categorical statement recalls previous anti-gay speeches of Ramzan Kadirov, the head of the Chechen Republic who once said in June 2008:

"For a Chechen, the worst crime is to say: I'm friend with a gay! I should not even utter a word,"

In 2009, Ramzan Kadyrov also verbally attacked gay clubs in Russia which according to him aimed at "weakening the state, the weakening of the will, honor and courage."

"Gay clubs open! Every day! If it goes on like this, we will simply have no power, no spirit," he said in an interview to Rossiyskaya Gazeta.

Meanwhile, it is clear that if homosexuality is forced into resistance in Chechnya, it is as common as in any other part of the world. The invisibility of gays and lesbians do not mean their absence. The fear to be open about their sexual orientation in the Chechen Republic only force gays and lesbians to keep as discreet as possible. Those who can choose to emigrate in Moscow but the Russian capital is not a very welcoming place for people from the Caucasus.

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In Poland, refugees left without protection unless they're Christian?

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Source: ECRE

The Belgian Refugee Council (CBAR – BCHV) have published a report highlighting that Poland does not always grant refugee status, even when it should, because of a very strict interpretation or sometimes misinterpretation of the refugee definition. The interpretation applied by the Polish authorities is often not in line with UNHCR guidelines, UNHCR handbook and the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR).

The majority of all asylum applications in Poland come from Russian nationals (80%), mainly Chechens, followed by Georgia (11%), Armenia (1%), Belarus (1%), Ukraine (1%) and other nationalities (6 %). In 2010, Belgium received on average 58 asylum seekers every month who had entered the EU through Poland. According to Eurostat figures, in 2010, Belgium requested Poland under the Dublin system to examine 1,254 asylum applications. France asked Poland to assume responsibility for 1,302 people. Germany, Austria, the Netherlands and Switzerland did the same for 1,124, 818, 748 and 307 people respectively.

On the positive side, in addition to refugee status and subsidiary protection, Poland can also grant 'tolerated stay permits' for an indefinite period of time, based on articles 2 (right to life), 3 (prohibition of torture), 4 (prohibition of slavery and forced labour), 5 (right to liberty and security), 6 (right to fair trial) or 8 (right to family life) of the European Convention on Human Rights and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

The report is based on a mission to Poland in September 2010 under the direction of MEP Bart Staes, aiming to assess the situation of asylum seekers in Poland particularly in the context of those who have been sent back to Poland from Belgium under the Dublin Regulation. In 2010, only 14.6% of the 6,500 applicants who sought asylum in Poland were granted international protection.

In January, a ruling by the ECtHR put into question the assumption upon which the Dublin system is based, that is, that all EU Member States respect fundamental rights and that is therefore safe to automatically transfer asylum seekers between EU countries.

Poland's foreign minister returned from a trip to Tunisia 17 May with 16 Christian refugees who had found their lives upturned by turmoil in North Africa.

Poland described the move as a gesture of symbolic support for Christians in Africa and as an act of solidarity with Tunisia, which has been overwhelmed by refugees fleeing the violence in neighboring Libya.

"Poland looks after the rights of Christians in the world. This is our gesture of solidarity with persecuted Christians," Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski told the refugees as they prepared to board the plane to Poland a day earlier.

One analyst described the move as a clear call to the rest of Europe to take in more refugees and have more open borders. Marcin Zaborowski, director of the Polish Institute of International Affairs, said that Poland believes "Europe should be more open" and that the government is urging greater openness as it prepares to take over the rotating presidency of the European Union on July 1.

The Foreign Ministry described the six adults and 10 children as political refugees from Eritrea and Nigeria who had been in refugee camps in Libya until they fled the civil war there to Tunisia.

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Refugee surge forces Berlin camp to re-open

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Source: Monster and Critics

A surge of asylum seekers arriving from world trouble spots, including Afghanistan, Somalia, Iraq and Iran, has forced Berlin authorities to re-open a huge refugee housing site.

Only recently, government officials had considered putting the 22,000-square-metre Marienfelde Refugee Camp up for sale.

The refugees stay in plain apartments in 10 centrally heated housing blocks. During the Cold War it was the first place to stay for people escaping communism while they were starting new lives.

Between 1949 and 1990, 1.35 million people passed through the camp. Even after democracy took hold in their homelands, eastern Europeans kept arriving, along with refugees from further away.

But in recent years, the numbers dwindled and a decision was taken to close the camp. But its closure a year ago proved premature and the camp has now been re-activated. Some 125 refugees have shown up at the Marienfelde camp in the past two weeks.

Hundreds more are anticipated in the coming months.

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