Sweden is continuing to try to remove Syrian asylum seekers, despite the appalling human rights situation in that country.
The attempted removals have led to protests by opposition Social Democrats.
Four Social Democrat leaders wrote to the the Svenska Dagbladet daily:
“The Foreign Ministry (Utrikesdepartementet) has for a long time discouraged people from visiting Syria and is now advising Swedes to leave the country.”
“If the ministry doesn’t deem the country to be safe for Swedes, then why is it acceptable to deport politically active refugees there?” they wrote.
They described it as hypocrisy to stand up for human rights and support cries for democracy on the one hand, and at the same time decline to offer protection to those who have fled a violent regime.
At least 3,500 people according to a new estimate by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), 200 of them children, have been killed during the demonstrations in Syria.
“In the light of this it is both surprising and worrying that the Swedish state is pursuing a restrictive asylum policy where politically active people are forcibly deported into the hands of a regime which uses its entire military superiority to strike down a mainly unarmed and peaceful opposition movement," the Social Democrats wrote.
The website Human Rights 666 reports that threats from Syrian agents were directed at those present Tuesday trying to stop the removal of a Syrian asylum seeker and political activist Fars Mahmoud by Sweden. Activist Mikael Johansson, who runs the website, says:
"How can it be that anyone even consider to send an individual back to a country that is exposing dissidents for punishments that we only believe exists in the world of American movies. Fars Mahmoud was active in a Kurdish movement in Syria – an organization that the regime is brutally persecuting. The Party’s spokesman Mashal Tammo was brutally murdered by the regime’s agents in the town Qamishli 7th of October."
Amongst those present at Stockholm Airport trying to stop the removal of Mahmoud was a local Stockholm city councillor. He confirmed the presence of Syrian Embassy staff with Airport staff and asked that the removal be stopped as a result, but at the time of writing there is no confirmation that it was stopped.
A large group of asylum-seeking Kurds in Stockholm have gone on hunger strike with some sewing their lips together in a desperate attempt to try and stop their removal to Iran
The men and women, who are also with their children, have been refusing food since 25 September.
They are political activists who have worked hard for human rights and for introducing democracy in Iran. As a result of their activities and their membership in various Kurdish political parties, they were forced to flee Iran and take refuge in Sweden.
Despite having been in the country for up to eight years, and despite having photos and documents from the Nations High Commissioner for Refugees that confirm the obvious threat to their lives, the Swedish Migration Board has rejected their applications to stay in Sweden.
Their condition is deteriorating for every hour that passes - five men have already collapsed from hunger and been taken to the hospital.
One of those who sewed his lips together said:
“I am not treated as a human being. Most of us here have the same problem. The Migration Board does not understand our situation, they refuse to listen. We want to know why we have been refused a residence permit. Everybody here would rather die of starvation than be sent back.”
“We have begged and shouted, but the Migration Board has not listened. Now we will silence our voices, perhaps then they will listen”.
One of the photos pinned to a tent in which they are staying shows an Kurdish teacher in Iran, Farzad Kamangar, surrounded by some twenty children. Kamangar was executed three months ago for having taught the children to read and speak Kurdish. Another picture shows another Kurd, Shirin Alanholi, who was executed because she wanted freedom and democracy in Iran.
The Iranian Penal code detains and prosecutes political refugees who are returned to Iran.
Iranian refugees in Greece have also gone on hunger strike in protest at their treatment and sewn their lips together. Refugees in Athens and other Greek cities have suffered repeated and violent vigilante attacks.
"Safe at Last? Law and Practice in Selected EU Member States with Respect to Asylum-Seekers Fleeing Indiscriminate Violence" examines the application in particular of Article 15(c) of the EU's Qualification Directive (QD), under which Member States are required to grant subsidiary protection to persons fleeing ''serious and individual threat to a civilian’s life or person by reason of indiscriminate violence in situations of internal or international armed conflict."
The research has focused on the practice of six EU Member States who received together 75% of EU asylum claims in 2010: Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden and the UK. The study looked in particular at the assessment of claims for protection by Afghans, Iraqis and Somalis.
The study found, among other things, that the approaches to application of Article 15(c) of the Qualification Directive are significantly divergent between the six Member States examined. In some cases, it would appear to be applied in such a narrow manner that protection is denied to many persons which Article 15(c) was originally intended to cover. In some States, it is applied to an extremely small percentage of people fleeing situations of violence and armed conflict overall.
In addition, it appeared that States are not granting refugee status under the 1951 Refugee Convention to some people fleeing indiscriminate violence who, in UNHCR's view, would be entitled to it. It is found moreover that the added value of Article 15(c ) QD compared to Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) is not clear; that approaches to assessing the level of violence required to trigger
application of the provision vary widely; and that the concept of a "real risk" is interpreted in a way that imposes a heavy burden on applicants to show they are exposed to individual risks.
Based on these findings, UNHCR puts forward nine recommendations to Member States and the EU in order to ensure that protection is granted to persons fleeing indiscriminate violence.
With the achievement of LGBT rights in Sweden, Stockholm Pride has turned its gaze abroad - this year it is holding an international solidarity, event and has invited a dozen African activists to come here - at the risk of their own lives.
In Mugabe's Zimbabwe homosexuality is regarded as a Western disease. And the regime hates the Western world. State Homophobia gives carte blanche to those who want to harass homosexuals, bisexuals and transgender people, says Miles Tanhira of the Zimbabwean LGBT organization GALCK.
"It's hard enough to live under a dictatorship, but to be a LGBT person makes it worse. Apartheid Opponent Steve Biko said that the oppressed seek to become the oppressor. People under a harsh government always finds a weaker person to subdue, in our case, vulnerable minorities such as LGBT people."
Miles Tanhira says that he risks becoming a target by doing this interview, conducted via the Internet. Last year, police stormed GALZ premises and arrested several people.
"Right now Zimbabwe is on the development of a new constitution and a stream of politicians use the gay issue in order to dupe people and take attention from the real issues. The media makes fun of LGBT people, and some artists have been squawking. As if that were not enough, there is the influence of American conservative churches on homophobia."
Stockholm Pride, together with RFSL and a number of Swedish embassies invited a dozen activists from countries where homosexuality is criminalised. Here they will meet with politicians and participating in panel discussions and networking.
Chan Mubanga, trans-rights activist from Zambia, is another of those who come here.
"There is a window to see what's out there, with decriminalization, gay marriage and cultural tolerance. I also hope to learn from other activists about how they challenged their governments, and I will lobby the international community to put pressure on African leaders to protect sexual minorities," he says in a chat when SvD get in touch with him on Facebook.
This year there is a presidential election in Zambia, and Chan Mubanga notes that both the ruling party and opposition uses the hatred against LGBT people in their campaigns. State-controlled media and charismatic church leaders constantly demonize homosexuality.
"The hatred is fueled by the draconian laws that the British left behind. Homosexuality was a crime only when the Christian missionaries came - and a false idea that homosexuality is 'un-African'," he says.
After persecution in Arkhangelsk 'Kim' tries for a new life in Murmansk - where she meets 'Olga'. She loses her job and is persecuted again. They take up a Moscow job offer only to end up in a mob-run brothel where they service policemen who rape and torture them. Finally they escape and head back to Murmansk. After they hear that the mob is after them they head for Finland ...
On the Finland border, a guard checked our documents and let us in. At last we left the hell on earth called Russia; tired, sick, but full of hopes for new life. Ehhh….
We decided to apply for asylum in Sweden; we (and not only we) were sure that there is one of the most tolerant to LGBT people countries, hoping to be understood and get help.
So, we headed to Stockholm by hitchhiking, because we had no enough money for a train or a bus ticket even. In two days we reached Solna Migrationsverket [the Swedish National Migration Board] in Stockholm.
The first bad surprise in Sweden we got there: the reception center for asylum seekers was closed. It appeared that is no 24/7 asylum reception in Sweden. So, we spend weekends like homeless beggars: bushes instead of room, a bench and pieces of cardboard instead of bed, old papers for blanket, and bags for pillows. This all considering our health (you know already from Part I), and ambient air temperature 0°C (ZERO). You can ask, what was a necessity to live at the street, why not to ask just a first police officer for assistance, this is their service. So, remember our misadventures in Russia, especially with local police … sufferings never pass immediately, as physical as moral. Really, police offices appeared near asylum reception centre sometimes, and some people were going in and out, but nobody paid attention to us. And, we were simply afraid.
On Monday, we got into asylum reception centre at last. Well, we really got rather nice attitude there. An officer registered us with IDs we had (we succeed to preserve our travel passports after all troubles in Russia) and gave us tickets to Märsta asylum centre.
Sweden has told a trans Russia woman she's really a gay man and they can safely return her to Russia.
In December 2010, a Russian transgender woman, Lydia, from Arkhangelsk in North-Eastern Russia, and her partner Anton Schteinberg applied for asylum in Sweden.
According to Schteinberg, who runs a blog where she has written about their case, she was treated by the Swedish Migration Board (Migrationsverket) as a gay man and told that it was possible for her to be safely returned to Russia as Russia was considered safe for gay men, so long as they lived 'discretely'.
Schteinberg says that although evidence was supplied from a leading Swedish expert on transgender people, Dr Cecilia Dhejne of Karolinska Universitetssjukhuset, this was not taken into account by Migrationsverket. Dhejne told the authorities:
"Sammanfattande bedömning utifrån egen undersökning och intyg enligt ovan som jag har läst är det min bedömning att rubricerad person har lidit av transsexualism och att hon fått behandling med könskorrigerande kirurgi. Hon har dock inte fått juridisk fastställelse som kvinna av ryska myndigheter. Hade rubricerad person varit svensk medborgare hade Socialstyrelsens Rättsliga rådet kunnat besluta om ett juridiskt könsbyte till kvinna. Det är min uppfattning att rubricerad person ska betraktas som kvinna och att hon har lidit av diagnosen transsexualism som hon nu fått behandling for med kvinnliga könshormoner."
{Google translation]: "Overall assessment based on self-examination and certificate as above that I have read, it is my assessment that entitled person has been suffering from transsexualism and that she received treatment with gender corrective surgery. She has not been a legal determination as a woman of Russian authorities. Had headed person was a Swedish citizen had been the Board's Legislative Council could decide on a legal sex change to woman. It is my opinion that the entitled person is regarded as a woman and that she has suffered from the diagnosis of transsexualism as she received treatment for the female sex hormones."
However in Migrationsverket's decision on the case Lydia is consistently referred to as a man, including in the decision on her partner Anton.
Migrationsverket say that because homosexuality is no longer illegal in Russia, 'discrete' homosexuals can live safely:
Jamaican LGBT leader Maurice Tomlinson reports that a Swedish film crew that visited Jamaica recently to record a documentary on the island's human rights situation "got a first-hand look at our notorious homophobia and police excesses."
On Saturday, May 21, the crew went to an inner-city community in Kingston to interview two gay men. The vehicle in which the men and the crew were travelling was set upon by an angry mob armed with machetes and other weapons demanding that the gays leave the area. No one was hurt, and the crew managed to capture the faces of some of their attackers on film.
When the crew tried to record some images in downtown Kingston on Wednesday, May 25, a policeman confiscated their equipment on the grounds that they did not have a permit. At the police station, colleagues convinced the confiscating cop to return the crew's camera equipment. The cop also apologised and advised that he was only trying to prevent foreign crews portraying Jamaica in a negative light.
Says Tomlinson:
"Sadly, such arbitrary action has only reinforced the perception of wanton extrajudicial behaviour on the part of our police."
A leaked diplomatic cable published today said that the problem of corruption in the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) was so severe that the Police (Civilian) Oversight Authority (PCOA) had turned to the American Embassy for help.
When ‘Cable gate’ – Wikileak’s publication of the US embassies’ reports to the US State Department Washington - hit the headlines in November and December 2010 I was wondering whether there is anything in it for migration and migration policy researchers. So far, I am not aware whether anybody else has already gone through the documents, so I had a quick look. Unfortunately, only a fraction of all cables – 2000 out of 251,000 - are already published on Wikileaks’ website (http://213.251.145.96/cablegate.html).
In short, migration and refugee issues only play a very minor role in the set of documents I have sifted through. And where these are mentioned this is mostly in the context of terrorism, general threats to regional stability and security or with respect to Muslim minority communities. The first impression from these cables is that from the US American consular perspective migration as such is not considered a major issue and is not causing great anxiety whilst Muslim migration and minorities and to some extent border security are issues of concern.
Worldwide: Some reference to migration can be found in the already notorious ‘reporting and collecting needs’ issued by the Secretary of State Hilary Clinton. For instance, the request for West Africa lines out to collect information on ‘population and Refugee Issues’, including ‘population movements in the region, and governments' involvement and response, indications of actual or potential refugee movements within or into the region, locations and conditions of refugee camps and informal refugee and internally displaced persons (IDP) gathering sites and transit routes’ government capability and willingness to assist refugees and IDPs, health and demographic statistics of refugees and IDPs, dynamics and impact of migration and demographic shifts’ (2009, http://213.251.145.96/cable/2009/04/09STATE37566.html). And also in Hungary information is requested on ‘demography, including ...migration’ and ‘plans and efforts to respond to declining birth rates, including through promotion of immigration’ (2009, http://213.251.145.96/cable/2009/06/09STATE62393.html). Similar requests were sent to many other countries.
Despite widespread protests, Sweden deported 20 people back to Iraq 19 January after they had been denied asylum, police said.
Deportations to Iraq also took place in Denmark.
"In total, 26 people were deported, 20 from Sweden and six from Denmark" on board a plane travelling to Baghdad on Wednesday, the Stockholm police said in a statement.
Ahead of the deportations, human rights groups and the UN refugee agency UNHCR had called on the countries to rethink the move, insisting it was too dangerous to send the rejected asylum seekers -- reportedly some of them Christians and homosexuals who risk persecution -- back to Iraq.
"The deportations were in accordance with expulsion orders from the Swedish National Migration Board (Migrationsverket), immigration courts and ordinary courts, which were handed over to police authorities," police said.
Earlier on Wednesday, police detained 25 people who protested outside an asylum seeker detention center near the Swedish capital. The protesters were reportedly part of a group of up to 100 people trying to block the mass deportation.
The Iraqi ambassador in Stockholm wants Sweden to stop the forced deportations of Iraqis who have been denied asylum in Sweden. Sweden´s Minister for Migration and Asylum Policy, Tobias Billström, on the other hand sees no reason to stop the deportations.
Since almost three years ago when Sweden signed a treaty, almost 5,000 Iraqis have volontarily returned to Iraq but 800 Iraqi asylum seekers have been forced to return to their home country.
In an interview with Sveriges Radio yesterday, the Iraqi ambassador in Stockholm Hussain Al-Ameri questioned how the Swedish authorities have interpreted the memorandum of understanding between Sweden and Iraq.
"The Iraqi government is ready to accept those who come back volontarily but there are some question marks around forced deportations", Hussain Al-Ameri said to Sveriges Radio in the programme Konflikt.
But Sweden's Minister for Migration and Asylum Policy sees no reason to stop the forced deportations and mentions also that Iraq has not requested a renegotiation of the memorandum of understanding between the two countries.
"The co-operation between Swedish and Iraqi authorities has worked very well", Billström says to Newspaper Svenska Dagbladet (SvD).
In the bilateral treaty between Iraq and Sweden, it says that Iraqis which according to Swedish authorities do not need protection and do not want to return volontarily can "be ordered to leave Sweden". But the return shall be made "step by step, in a humane way and in ordered procedures.
Minister Billström says to SvD that Sweden does grant asylum to persons who are judged to be in need of protection, but also that those who are not will leave the country.
"Just like any other country, Sweden must have the right to decide who can reside on its territory", says Billström to Svd.
The deportations to Iraq are made with specially chartered planes. In November 2010, a plane with 30 Iraqi asylum seekers was stopped after a request from the European Court of Justice. In mid-December, the deportations started again when 20 Iraqis was flown to Baghdad.
According to Svenska Dagbladet, the next plane with Iraqis will depart the 19 January. Selam Albear Alsousi and Vivyan Hikmat and their three children, a Catholic family from Baghdad, fear for their lives if they are not granted asylum in Sweden.
!If we are forced to return to Baghdad, we would be killed. The situation is very dangerous right now for Christians in Iraq", says Vivyan Hikmat to SvD.
The family was denied asylum in November but the Euopean Court of Justice intervened. Since then, the deportation was temporarily cancelled after a decision in the Euorpean Court. The family is now awaiting a new decision from the Migration Board.
"We are still worried. It is impossible for us to return to Iraq", says Vivyan Hikmat to SvD.
A 25-year-old gay Iranian man, living now in Turkey as a recognized refugee
By Paul Canning
In the first large-scale report by a major international human rights organisation on the situation of Iranian LGBT, Human Rights Watch has said that it cannot be ruled out that Iran is sentencing sexual minorities who engage in consensual same-sex relations to death under the guise that they have committed forcible sodomy or rape.
The issue of executions has been the subject of international debate with activists including Peter Tatchell criticised over whether death penalty cases they have raised are actually gay as well as for a supposed lack of 'cultural understanding' of Iran. The journalist Doug Irelandwrote in July about the criticism by Human Rights Watch's now-resigned Executive Director of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Rights Program, Scott Long, of Tatchell and others, criticism which went as far as arguing that 'gays are not being persecuted in Iran'.
Because trials on moral charges in Iran are usually held in camera, it is difficult to determine, Human Rights Watch now says in this report, what proportion of those charged and executed for same-sex conduct are LGBT and in what proportion the alleged offense was consensual.
It is extremely difficult to obtain information about death penalty cases involving homosexuality under today’s repressive theocratic regime in the Islamic Republic of Iran, where the press is heavily censored and journalists, regime critics, and human rights advocates are routinely persecuted and arrested and where the subject of same-sex relations is officially considered a political and religious taboo. Defendants in sodomy cases are denied open trials. Last month [November 2009], Human Rights Watch, basing its finding on an Iranian newspaper report, told of the execution of two men for sodomy.
The questioning of whether LGBT actually are executed - or even persecuted at all - has led those judging Iranian LGBT seeking refuge in Western countries to argue that it is possible to 'live discreetly' without suffering consequences. This idea was comprehensively struck down by the British Supreme Court in July in a case which involved an Iranian, Mahmood.
Updated to add: Only one of the couple has been formally informed by the Swedish Migration Board that following the European court ruling they will not be removed.
~~~~~~
We reported last week that Swedish authorities had refused asylum to an Iraqi Kurdish lesbian couple, Pari and Dilsa (pictured right from a Swedish TV News report).
At the weekend news came through that the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in an expedited appeal had told Sweden that they should not be removed to the Kurdish north of Iraq.
The ECHR ruled last month that removals to Iraq should be stopped because of decreasing security but legally (under 'rule 39') individuals had to go to them to get individual removals suspended. It agreed to look quickly at over 400 petitions from Iraqis in Sweden, including the Kurdish lesbian couples.
Rulings stopping removals, however, have not always been strictly observed by EU national governments. The court can only request they be stopped.
This means that the couple are not safe because Swedish authorities believe it is safe to return them, their removal has only been stayed and it remains unclear whether Sweden will defy the ECHR or the court's ruling will expire. UNHCR believes that new flights are being organised.
Their lawyer, Simon Andersson, tells LGBT Asylum News that:
Neither the decision from Migraitonsverket nor the Migrations court is very well motivated.
It was not questioned that they were in fact lesbian, but the migrations office (and the migrations court) considered the situation in [Northern Iraq] (the Kurdish areas) to be safe, as long as one lived discrete there.
It is common as we reported on Sunday, looking at a new report on the state of LGBT Asylum in the EU, for countries to hold that LGBT asylum seekers can 'tolerate' living repressed lives amidst fear of discovery and therefore it is safe to return them. It was this approach which the British Supreme Court overturned in July.
However, despite denials, evidence from Iraq shows that honour killings in the Kurdish North are common, may be increasing, and the couple are under specific threat.
Pari's family is powerful and connected to the government. When she refused to be married off to a relative and confessed that she loved a woman death sentences were issued by her clan. Dilsa says her brother has already been murdered for helping her to flee. No 'discretion' will save them.
A 2009 Amnesty International report “Trapped by Violence: Women in Iraq” said there has been a marked increase in violence against women perceived to have shamed their families.
State protection is unlikely as those committing crimes with an “honourable motive” are treated more leniently in Iraqi law, according to an April report by Amnesty. Iraqi courts interpret provisions of Article 128 of the Penal Code as justification for giving “drastically reduced” sentences to defendants who have attacked or killed LGBT they are related to if they say that they acted to “wash off the shame”.
Amnesty in April said that LGBT people in Iraq - including Kurdistan - were living under a “constant threat” and that Muslim clerics were making frequent public statements condemning homosexuality. Human Rights Watch has said that Iraqi security forces have targeted gays and lesbians.
How you can support Pari and Dilsa
Pari and Dilsa's lawyer is urging concerned people to write to the Swedish Migration Board at migrationsverket@migrationsverket.se quoting their case file numbers: 10817385 and 10907415.
A new report by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights titled 'Homophobia, transphobia and discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity' has condemned the use by the Czech Republic of 'phallometric testing' during the asylum procedure. This practice tests the physical reaction to heterosexual pornographic material of those who file a claim for asylum on the basis of their homosexual orientation.
The Agency says that it believes the practice could be in violation of Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights which prohibits torture and human or degrading treatment, and of Article 8, (respect of one’s private life), “since this procedure touches upon ‘a most intimate part of an individual’s private life’”.
The Agency also considers this practice to be particularly inappropriate for asylum seekers, since “many of them might have suffered abuse due to their sexual orientation and are thus specifically constrained by this kind of exposure”.
Any practice susceptible to impose a duty to conceal one’s homosexuality in the country of origin should be aligned to the same requirements used for assessing persecution on grounds of religion or political opinion, and should be based on the possibility expressing a fundamental trait of one’s personality (as sexual orientation is) freely, including through one’s conduct and relationships.
The report says that although none of the EU Member States explicitly objected to considering sexual orientation as a source of persecution for the purposes of granting the status of refugee, as of 2010 the inclusion of that ground of persecution remains only implicit in the legislation of five Member States (Estonia, Greece, Malta, Portugal, and the UK). This means that the definition of a ‘particular social group’ does not explicitly mention the ground of sexual orientation.
Since 2008, four additional Member States have made it explicit that a ‘particular social group’ includes a group defined by the sexual orientation of its members: Finland, Latvia, Poland, and Spain. The total number of Member States which explicitly refer to sexual orientation is now 21. The FRA says it is "noteworthy how Latvia has legislated positively in this area, despite the ongoing problems with freedom of assembly" for LGBT.
The report notes that in several states LGBT asylum cases have been rejected on grounds similar to those adopted in the UK prior to July's Supreme Court ruling: persecution by non-state actors was not recognised; LGBT were told they could avoid persecution by 'discretion' or relocation. It notes such cases in Spain, Romania and the Czech Republic.
Case law collected by the FRA shows that in some Member States there is a tendency to deny requests for international protection on grounds that there would be no persecution in the country of origin if the applicant had concealed his/her homosexuality or had abstained from any ‘external manifestation’ of it. Several decisions consider that by living openly as a LGB person, the applicant takes upon him/herself the risk of the negative consequences of his/her conduct, and cannot claim international protection.
The Italian Court of Cassation in two instances instructed a lower judge to assess whether in the country of origin the crime consists in homosexuality ‘as such’, and in this case persecution would be established, or only in the ‘ostentation’ of homosexual practices, thus implying that refraining from any conduct would be both possible and tolerable, as homosexual identity without ‘external manifestation’ would not be captured by the prohibition.
This duty to live in chastity, or to ‘practice’ in hiding, also became an important element for some decisions in Belgium, France, Germany, and Ireland, where persecution was not established since the applicants had not sought to ‘ostensibly manifest’ their homosexuality and it was deemed possible for them to live their sexual orientation ‘discreetly in the private sphere’ in the country of origin.
The report notes that "sexual orientation is a personal characteristic protected under the [European Convention on Human Rights] ECHR, not a shameful condition to be hidden."
France, the Netherlands and Denmark, however, have "adopted more sensitive and factual approaches."
In the Netherlands, the Aliens Circular specifies that LGB claimants should not be required to hide their sexual orientation in their country of origin. On 27 June 2009 an addition was made to the Aliens Circular the effect that whenever homosexual acts are criminalised in the country of origin, the applicant should not be required to have invoked the protection of the authorities there ... Since November 2008 the Dutch Aliens Circular has also specified LGB people from Afghanistan and Iraq to constitute a ‘risk group’; consequently a lesser degree of evidence regarding the gravity of their persecution is required of them.
In order to prove sexuality, the report says that Hungary has been reported as using psychiatrists. According to information provided by the Czech Ministry of the Interior they might use 'phallometric testing' for sexual orientation asylum cases "where inconsistencies appear in his interview". This procedure came to light in a German court regarding the claim of a gay Iranian.
The test is performed by a professional sexologist and, in principle, only with the person’s written consent, and once that person has been informed about the technique of the examination. Although a refusal to undergo the test may result in questioning the claim made by the person concerned about his homosexuality, conversely, where a person passes the test and shows no reaction to visual representations of heterosexual sex, his allegations about his homosexuality are considered proven.
The report notes the dubious nature of the process, how it would fail for bisexual people and how it "is particularly inappropriate for asylum seekers, given the fact that many of them might have suffered abuse
due to their sexual orientation and are thus specifically constrained by this kind of exposure."
The report notes widespread reports of stereotyping of what constitutes a homosexual person by migration/border agencies. For example the Swedish media have reported that according to two externally conducted studies, administrators and decision-makers at the Swedish Migration Board have prejudiced ideas of LGBT people. The Minister responsible has been reported as conceding that many Swedish authorities still view LGBT asylum as a new and unknown issue. Since the inception of a project called ‘Beyond the border’, 300 employees of the Migration Board have been trained in 'norm criticism'. The Minister emphasised that correct information is crucial to guarantee the quality assurance of the asylum process.
The report notes that some EU Member States rely on lists of ‘safe’ countries of origin that are drawn without reference to the specific risks of persecution by State organs or non-State actors, on grounds of sexual orientation.
For instance, since the decision adopted by the French Office for the Protection of Refugees and Stateless Persons (OFPRA) on 20 November 2009, the list used in France is made up of 17 States (Armenia, Benin, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Cape Verde, Croatia, Ghana, India, Macedonia, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritius, Mongolia, Senegal, Serbia, Tanzania, Turkey and Ukraine). Persons originating from these countries are not entitled to temporary benefits or a residence permit, they have their claims fast-tracked and the lodging of appeals does not have suspensive effect, i.e. they can be deported before the National Court for the Right of Asylum (CNDA, formerly the CRR) hears their appeal. Yet some of these States have explicit homophobic legislation: this is the case in Benin, Ghana, India, Mauritius, Senegal and Tanzania.
Update, December 6: Melanie Nathan reports that she received a note from their advocate, Amine Kakabaveh. a Swedish MP:
I have a Good News , the girls have got a decision from the European court that Sweden should not deport them. I’m very happy for that. I will thank you and everyone who has been engaged in their case. Unfortunately there are several other cases of women who are victims for the same inhuman politician decisions. Please, be in touch when you have time. Thank you once again from me and the girls for the very successful campaign.
The Kurdish women Pari and Dilsa have one wish: to live together.
But soon they deported to Iraq, where homosexuals are persecuted and killed.
"It is like sending them straight to the cemetery", says MP Amine Kakabaveh (V).
They live in a small room in one of the Migration Board flats. The decision from the Immigration Court that they be sent out of the country for more than a week, gnaws.
"As a prison"
"It's like a prison without doors or windows. We are so afraid that we can barely sleep or eat, "says Dilsa.
The two women who are in their 30s was hit in Iraq five years ago. But they had to sneak by their emotions. Paris family belongs to one of the most powerful Muslim clans in the country with governmental power. Being a lesbian in the environment was an impossibility.
"It is not against the law because of that they do not believe it exists, "said Amine Kabavah.
Death row of the clan
When the Pari was married off to a relative, she refused and confessed that she loved a woman.
Death sentences were issued by the clan. First Pari would be killed, then Dilsa.
With the help of his mother managed to Pari flee to Sweden in 2006.
While hiding Dilsa at a friend in Iraq. Friend's brother raped her, and she became pregnant.
"I fled to Sweden three months of Pari and here I had an abortion", she says, while she dries her tears. Dilsa brother helped her get out of the country.
Want to get married
When they reunited in Sweden, they wanted to realize a dream: to marry. But the missing documents and they were told that they must obtain a passport.
Dilsa brother in Iraq arranged a passport for his sister, afterwards he was murdered.
If they killed my brother, what will they do to me?
According to the Migration Board, the person liable to be persecuted because of their sexual orientation get protection in Sweden.
"Why not become so in this case, I can not answer because there is privacy, "said press officer John Rahm.
Facebook group in support of the lesbians girls from Iraq
Following two deportation order of lesbians girls from Iraq, I have taken the initiative to start a Facebook group that advises us all to join in. The presentation is as follows:
Stop the deportation of LGBT people
I have been in contact with two young lesbians girls from Iraqi Kurdistan who have fled forced marriage to a safe haven in Sweden. But the Migration Board's refusal to give them any sanctuary.
One of the girls' brother has already had killed because he helped his sister to escape a forced marriage. The other belongs to a powerful clan family. Being a woman and LGBT persons are apparently no reason to get asylum despite the fact that every day is murdered girls in different parts of the Middle East (and especially in Iraq). There is nothing to get in order to ensure the girls' freedom, neither in konstiatutionen in Iraq or in the laws in force in Iraqi Kurdistan. Even religion, family and social context is for these girls' disadvantage.
If you are opposed to the Migration Board show the girls in similar situations, you should join this group.
The organization behind the petition is neither whore or subdued.
Which rich countries are doing the most to help poor ones? Rich and poor nations are linked in many ways—by foreign aid, commerce, the environment, and more. Each year, the CDI rates rich-country governments on how much they are helping poor countries via seven key linkages: aid, trade, investment, migration, environment, security, and technology. The CDI then takes the average for an overall score.
To see if countries live up to their potential to help, scoring adjusts for size. So small countries can beat big ones. Scores are on a standard scale and 5 = average.
The migration component of the CDI compares rich countries on how easy they make it for people from poor ones to immigrate, find work or get education, send home money--and even return home with new skills and capital.
Governments worldwide continue to neglect the needs of transgender people with regards to HIV and AIDS. The early results of the AIDS Accountability International Survey on Transgender Issues indicate that almost no countries collect or analyse health data on transgender people thus making them more vulnerable.
Dr. Per Strand, Research Director at AIDS Accountability International’s Cape Town office says:
“This is not an unexpected finding, but if governments don’t correctly monitor and evaluate their epidemics they will make mistakes in their policy, implementation and impact and that is very much what we are seeing is happening for transgender people.”
Senior Researcher Phillipa Tucker explains:
“The lack of focus on the issues being faced by transgender people leaves them vulnerable, not only to HIV infection, but also to other issues such as health risks in operative surgery, side effects and interaction of drugs, relationship vulnerability, income generation, stigma and discrimination and many other aspects that place them at greater risk in the face of HIV.”
These notes on the workshops Jane Carnall attended at the ILGA-Europe conference are as accurate as she could make them but absolute accuracy is not guaranteed: if anyone feels misrepresented or misreported, contact janeATequality-network.org and updates/corrections will be made.
Lunch was a brisk and busy affair - the food was better than the Bel Air hotel's grasp of queuing theory. (Two buffets, side by side, and 250 delegates all trying to eat at once.) But I had an interesting conversation with a delegate who was to speak at a workshop on Saturday about Islam and sexual minorities - he had also picked up on the rather one-way comment about "Muslim youths and gay youths" in the morning's plenary session, not quite right for the theme of the conference "challenging our prejudices".
After lunch I went on to the 2:30 panel, one of the smaller workshops on the Mezzanine floor, LGBT Asylum Seekers in Europe: improving decision-making standards.
Four speakers, three organisations: the first was Neil Grungras, ORAM (Organisation for Refuge, Asylum, and Migration), the first migration organisation focusing exclusively on refugees fleeing sexual and gender-based violence world-wide. ORAM is based in the US (San Francisco).
Grungras spoke about how many of the difficulties such refugees face are based on the way basic processes about asylum seekers are framed to assume you are heterosexual and your gender identity is cis.
Forms that asylum seekers have to fill in ask if they are male or female, if they are married, if they have a family: there is nowhere on the forms to come out.
That training of the interviewers for asylum seekers does not include training on LGBT issues.
The European Court of Human Rights has a good policy but the policy is not disseminated to people in the field.
The interviewers and adjudicators are not encouraged to reach out to people seeking asylum and encourage them to feel safe about coming out - and if they do come out, the questions intended to "prove" that this person is gay tend to be about sex acts, and humiliate the applicant.
Grungras pointed out that we as an LGBTI community do not want people to tell us where we fit into, what boxes we fit in, but this is what the asylum process is designed to do - to find out what box the applicant can be fitted into, what boxes the adjudicator can tick. He said that often interviewers come from the same homophobic background which the asylum seeker is fleeing - that even without intending to be abusive, interviewers use abusive or insulting language to applicants very often - example, a gay man from Iran was asked by an interviewer, for how long had he been a male prostitute? - because the interviewer knew of no other word to describe a male homosexual.
After the shooting of a black man waiting at a bus stop in the city of Malmo on Tuesday 19 October, Swedish police have been forced to issue a stark warning to all black or dark-skinned residents: they could be at risk from an apparently racist killer.
The 28-year-old shot this week has survived the shooting - the bullet just missed his spine. He is one of eight men who have been shot over the past year, ever since a young couple were targeted last October.
A 20-year-old white Swedish girl called Trez West Persson was sitting in a car in Malmo with a male friend from an ethnic minority when they were shot at by a stranger. Persson was killed and her friend survived.
It was only after the shootings continued that a pattern began to become clear.
"If you have dark skin you should be extra cautious," Lars-Haakan Lindholm, a police spokesman, said this week. "If you are in the risk group - that is, being coloured - then you should avoid lonely places like bus stops at night."
Research from the Institute of Race Relations, including a review of 38 asylum and immigration related deaths in Europe over 18 months, shows the human cost of EU moves to slash budgets for refugee integration and accelerate the pace of removals - thereby undermining international conventions.In its report, Accelerated removals: a study of the human cost of EU deportation policies, 2009-2010, the IRR has documented the deaths of 28 men, 8 women and 2 boys, mostly asylum seekers, from January 2009 to 30 June 2010, in ten EU countries, Norway and Switzerland.
The vast majority of the deaths were either suicides linked to fear of deportation, or deaths that could have been avoided if asylum seekers were afforded proper medical care. Cuts to legal aid budgets and reduced access to justice, the targeting of specific nationals for charter-flight removals, overcrowding and appalling conditions in detention centres where hunger strikes are rife, are also placing individuals under abnormal levels of stress that are deleterious to health and undermine the will to live.
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