Worries on Canadian refugee rule change, impact on LGBT

Image via Wikipedia

Source: Xtra

By Dale Smith

The Canadian Council of Refugees (CCR) is worried proposed government changes to Canada’s refugee regulations could mean refugees who have been persecuted for being gay will not be allowed to apply.

Janet Dench, executive director of CCR, says the new rules would mean gay claimants and other marginalized refugees would be excluded or face much bigger hurdles.

The Department of Citizenship and Immigration (CIC) recently published the proposed changes in the Canada Gazette. The changes would limit refugees sponsored under the groups of five (G5s) and community sponsors (CS) categories.

Refugees entering under the G5 category are sponsored by five or more Canadian citizens or permanent residents who act as guarantors for the claimant. Meanwhile, community sponsors include both for-profit and non-profit organizations willing to sponsor refugees and provide funds for them after they are in Canada.

The government would instead bring in refugees recognized by either the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) or a state.

This follows a move to cap the number of refugees brought into the country by sponsorship agreement holders (SAHs). These are usually religious, cultural or humanitarian groups that have signed multiyear agreements with the ministry in order to be able to sponsor refugees more than once.

The government instead pledged to bring in more government-assisted refugees solely from the UNHCR list.

“Certain groups of people would be excluded,” says Dench. “In quite a lot of countries in Africa, it’s not the UNHCR that does the recognition but the state – but if that state does not recognize applications from refugees on the basis of sexual orientation, which is not by any means universally applied, then that would mean that the G5s couldn’t respond to them.”

At the moment, G5s annually sponsor approximately 40 percent of all refugees, and SAHs sponsor around 60 percent, with community sponsors submitting a handful every year.

Dench says a great strength of the private sponsorship program is that it has allowed Canadians to respond to refugees who are otherwise ignored, discounted or marginalized.

“Every time you try to build up a new requirement, there are new categories of refugees who will continue to be marginalized, and Canadians won’t be able to respond to them,” she says.

Read more »

Video: A gay Sri Lankan migrant story

Access Alliance Multicultural Health and Community Services is a community health centre in Toronto, working to improve health outcomes for the most vulnerable immigrants, refugees, and their communities.

Ranjith Kulatilake, an immigrant from Sri Lanka, has been a volunteer at the Access Alliance Multicultural Health and Community Services for the past five years. He is a founding member of "Among Friends", a three-year initiative to improve access to public services for lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and queer (LGBTQ) refugees and immigrants in Toronto.

Ranjith's story describes his journey as a new immigrant to Canada after fleeing his home country due to sexual persecution. It is a story about building new friendships amongst others facing similar challenges and dealing with the stigma of homosexuality within his community.

Related articles

• Resource: The Positive Spaces Initiative (videos) (madikazemi.blogspot.com)
• In Canada, what happened to the refugee private sponsorship route? (madikazemi.blogspot.com)

Gay South Korean wins Canadian asylum

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

Source: Yonhap News Agency

Canada awarded a South Korean man refugee status after he objected to the mandatory military service in his home country for being a pacifist and a homosexual, a local human rights group said 15 December.

The Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada (IRB) granted the status in July 2009 to Kim Kyung-hwan, 31, saying the gay conscript is highly likely to face abuse and mistreatment back home, according to the Center for Military Human Rights in Korea, which brought the story to light two years after the fact.

In South Korea, all able-bodied South Korean young men are required by law to serve nearly two-year compulsory military service.

There have been many "conscientious objectors to military service" who chose to serve prison terms instead of entering the military against their political and religious beliefs. But Kim's case marks the first time in the country that a man seeks shelter in a foreign country after rejecting military conscription due to his homosexuality, according to the rights group.

"Circumstances facing general South Korean conscripts, especially homosexual ones, are very worrisome," the group quoted IRB as saying. "The applicant should serve in the military, if sent back to his own country, and he is highly likely to face abuses there."

Delivering the approval, IRB quoted some research results that said Korea conscripts frequently fall victim to cruel treatment and harsh punishment, according to the human rights group. About 30-40 percent of draftees suffer physical punishment and nearly 60 percent of conscript deaths are suicides, it also noted.

"If a homosexual is expelled due to his sexual identity, he probably cannot enter into the public sphere such as employment or schools," it said.

Faced with a call to join the military, Kim, a student of a prestigious private university in South Korea, applied for the refugee status in Canada in 2006.

After receiving permanent resident status in the country, Kim has settled down there and is now juggling an academic course and a job, the human rights group said.

"Since I was little, I couldn't sympathize with the military and war at all," Kim said. "I have no regrets (about leaving South Korea) as I had great worries about possible human rights abuses I could have suffered as a homosexual."

Related articles

• "South Korea [is] a hard place to be gay" Pt.1 (paulscollections.wordpress.com)

Video: Two-step on LGBT rights in Montenegro

By Paul Canning

A Montenegrin actor who took part in a pro-LGBT video has received death threats.

Todor Vujošević received serious threats after starring in a video for LGBT rights in the small Balkan country.

The video shows Vujošević as one of the players in a spot where two boys kiss passionately while celebrating the success of their football team. Titled 'We are also part of the team', the spot is part of the first campaign for LGBT rights launched in Montenegro. The campaign, whose slogan is 'okay to be different!', was conducted by the Center for Civic Education (CGO ), in collaboration with the group LGBT Forum Progress, and has the support of the Embassy of Canada.

Danilo Marunović, director of the video, said that he was extremely concerned by the threats and fears that this is "just the beginning". Marunović revealed that none of the actors is actually gay, and just wanted to help in a campaign for LGBT rights. The news of the threats has attracted the interest of the media throughout the former Yugoslavia.

Montenegrin Prime Minister, Igor Luksic, has publicly supported LGBT rights, including what would have been the first LGBT Pride march in the country and which was eventually suspended by the organizers after a tear gas attack against a 'gay-friendly' concert.

The Government has promoted an international conference on the subject.

Here's the video featuring Vujošević:

Ghanaian gay refugee tells his horrific story

Sombede Korak picture by Paula Stromberg

By Paula Stromberg

Imagine if your family published a newspaper story saying you were evil, and that the story made some neighbours feel obligated to smash your skull with rocks. There are thousands of stories like this in Africa. This one is horrific but has a happy ending.

We know there’s a crisis facing lesbian, gay and transgender people around the globe.

Homosexuality is criminal in about 77 countries, including five with the death penalty, and numbers are growing. Particularly in Africa, queer people are being terrorized into the closet, prison cells or the club-wielding hands of lynch mobs. Many religious groups exacerbate this terror to mobilize against wicked Western morals and the ‘previously unknown’ foreign import – homosexuality.

Laws against homosexuality did not exist in Africa until the late 19th Century under British colonization. Nowadays, African leaders who promote gay hatred maintain the colonialist mentality. Governments cracked down on homosexuals as a way to unite Christians and Muslims in Africa.

This could seem comical, except that modern queer Africans are fleeing homelands where they’ve been imprisoned, blackmailed or tortured because of their sexuality or gender identity. Many are physically or sexually assaulted by police or religious officials.

In 2011, the Canadian Government amended the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act and other legislation claimed to improve Canada’s asylum system for refugees.

Vancouver lawyer Rob Hughes, well-known for representing gay and lesbian refugees over the past 20 years, says Canadian law allows refugee protection for those who can demonstrate a well-founded fear of persecution. They must also prove they cannot be safe in another part of their country and that their own state government is unable or unwilling to protect them.

In Vancouver, Hughes represented newcomer Sombede Korak at a refugee hearing in 2011. Korak is a gay man who recently fled West Africa. He’s from Ghana’s second largest city, Kumasi, in the centre of the country’s Ashanti Region.

Although Korak is now safely in Canada, he prefers to remain anonymous and his name here is a psudonym. This is his story.

Kumasi is the capital of Ghana’s kente cloth and gold-producing Ashanti Region. Much of Ghana’s wealth and many of its leaders come from this area. The Ashanti ethnic group is estimated to comprise 19 percent of the population, making it the largest cultural group in Ghana.

As a young Ashanti boy, Korak knew he was different. One day, after he wore his sister’s clothes on the street, his father beat him so severely it took several weeks to recover.

His adolescence was difficult, but at age 20, he met his first boyfriend. “We stole time together,” says Korak in an interview in Vancouver.    

“That same year, 2001, a male relative demanded that I date a woman and have sex to prove I was a man, not a homosexual. My family forced me into a heterosexual relationship.”

Read more »

Resource: The Positive Spaces Initiative (videos)

The Positive Spaces Initiative (PSI), now in its third phase, is part of the Creating Safe and Positive Space for LGBTQ Newcomers Initiative. This project is funded by the Government of Canada through Citizenship and Immigration Canada and runs in Ontario.

The main objective of this project is to support the immigrant and refugee serving sector to more effectively serve LGBTQ (Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and/or questioning) newcomers.

Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered (LGBT) individuals are an integral, though often invisible, part of immigrant and refugee communities. Immigrant and refugee-serving organizations have an obligation and responsibility to provide relevant, effective and appropriate services for these immigrants and refugees who are often marginalized within multiple communities.

The project says:

One of the most common misconceptions we heard throughout our provincial consultations was that LGBTQ newcomers do not exist, and there is therefore no need for LGBTQ-inclusive settlement services. From others, we were told there is little understanding about how settlement issues are experienced differently by LGBTQ newcomers. Finally, we heard that queer colleagues working in the settlement sector do not feel safe or fully supported in their workplaces. The invisibility and silencing of LGBTQ peoples daily lived experience was further bolstered by very little formal documentation of LGBTQ newcomers and settlement service providers in Ontario. It was in this context that the need for this research emerged.

Main activities to achieve the project’s objective include:

• Conduct regional and provincial consultations
• Provide sector wide training and information sessions
• Promotion of settlement services to LGBTQ newcomers
• Enhance the anti-oppression strategies within the sector, in partnership with other organizations
• To work with community partners and others to collect resources, information and tools to be included on settlement.org and etablissement.org
• Identification of safe, positive and welcoming spaces for LGBTQ newcomers

The project is now running facilitator lead training that addresses all components of service delivery within the Settlement Services for the  Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans., Queer/Questioning (LGBTQ) communities. It has also created E-Learning Modules, information and fact sheets.

Videos made by PSI









More videos

Museum curator remembers those who weren't allowed into Canada

Image by gianlucacostantini via Flickr

Source: Winnipeg Free Press

While Canada's proudly welcomed 700,000 refugees since the Second World War it has silently kept the door shut on certain groups over the years, says the curator of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights.

"It has been a little bit quiet about the people we don't allow," Armando Perla told a conference at the University of Manitoba.

War resisters, homosexual refugees and Roma refugees from Eastern Europe haven't always received a warm welcome, said the refugee from El Salvador who's working on the refugees exhibit for the new museum.

If history's taught the world anything, it's that human rights and refugee protection go hand in hand, said lawyer David Matas.

"If you say no to refugees, you're saying yes to the violation of human rights," he said at the Strangers in a New Homeland conference that ends today.

When Jews in Hitler's Germany and other parts of Europe were in danger, countries like Canada and the U.S. wouldn't take them, said Matas. Delegates who attended the Evian conference in France in 1938 to find refuge for threatened Jews expressed sympathy but failed to help. In 1939, close to 1,000 Jewish passengers aboard the ocean liner St. Louis were turned away from safe harbours and returned to Europe. An estimated 254 ended up dead in the Holocaust, said Matas.

The Nazis could see that the world didn't care about what happened to the Jews, and that sent the signal they could get away with genocide, said Matas. Doing nothing for refugees eventually resulted in the slaughter of six million people, he added.

When countries don't act, they're complicit in refugee persecution, he said.

"Today we shake our heads. It was obvious the Jews needed protection from the Nazis." That kind of hindsight hasn't improved the vision of countries that champion human rights today, said Matas.

Targets set by the United Nations High Commission on Refugees for finding safe countries for refugees to go aren't being met, even though there aren't that many in a world of seven billion people.

"What's striking is that the numbers are so low," said Matas.

For example, only half of the target of 1,351 refugees who fled Sudan found a country to call home, he said.

Thousands of freedom fighters who fled Iran and have taken refuge in the chaos of Iraq and millions Falun Gong practitioners in China are persecuted and can't get refugee status, said Matas.

Tamil refugees from Sri Lanka, those who had to flee Myanmar and Sudan are still stuck in refugee camps because so many countries don't want to help people and acknowledge the unbearable conditions of the places they fled.

"The message to the Sri Lankan government is 'Go ahead and mistreat the Tamil minority - we don't care,' " said Matas.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper recently condemned plans to hold a summit in Sri Lanka because of the country's human rights record. But Canada has failed to offer protection to Tamil refugees who fled Sri Lanka, said Matas.

Countries that condemn a country's human rights record then refuse to offer the people who've fled from it refugee status "don't really know what they're saying," said Matas.

Related articles

• Resource: UNHCR guidance note: LGBTI refugees in forced displacement (madikazemi.blogspot.com)
• 60th anniversary of Refugee Convention (madikazemi.blogspot.com)

In Canada, what happened to the refugee private sponsorship route?

David Pepper

Source: Embassy Magazine

In the summer of 2010, Immigration Minister Jason Kenney criss-crossed Canada encouraging private organizations like gay and lesbian groups to sponsor refugees to come to Canada.

"With respect to gay and lesbian refugees, I'm often approached saying: 'Look, we're aware of a case of someone in Turkey who had to flee Iran, they had a blog or something, can you help them?'

"And we do what we can on a limited basis, but I'm saying perhaps it's time for those organizations to step up and do so in a more organized fashion," the CBC reported Mr. Kenney saying at a Catholic immigration centre in Ottawa on June 29.

David Pepper heard the call. He took a sabbatical from his job at the Ottawa Police Service and hit the road for three months, paying his own way to travel to 21 Canadian cities and mobilize gay and lesbian communities to sponsor gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and queer refugees in other parts of the world. He called it the North Star Triangle Project. Specifically, he talked about Group of Five and community sponsorships. Both are ways to bring refugees to Canada in a stream separate from the government-sponsored program.

A Group of Five is an ad hoc group of any five or more Canadian citizens or permanent residents who come together to act as guarantors. They financially and emotionally support a refugee coming to Canada being resettled in his or her first year. Community sponsors do the same thing as an organization, association or corporation.

The government has pushed private groups to sponsor refugees partly to take the economic burden of settlement off the public system and partly to shore up civic pride.

Mr. Pepper gathered his own Group of Five and found a refugee to sponsor. In March, on the eve of the last federal election, Mr. Kenney announced that Citizenship and Immigration Canada would give $100,000 for a pilot project to support gay and lesbian refugees resettling in Canada.

Mr. Pepper hoped to take advantage of that program, but was told that to do it his Group of Five would need to work with a Sponsorship Agreement Holder, another kind of group that sponsors refugees.

Sponsorship Agreement Holders sign agreements with the immigration minster to assume liability for the management of sponsorships under their agreement. They are typically religious or ethno-cultural groups experienced in bringing in refugees.

His group started working with an Ottawa church that had sponsored more than 100 refugees.

But now, the Sponsorship Agreement Holder he's working with is unsure it can help. It is set to be strapped with a quota starting on Jan. 1, capping the number of applications it can make to sponsor refugees to come to Canada.

Mr. Pepper says he was told at first that his kind of sponsorship wouldn't count toward the Sponsorship Agreement Holder's quota. But in recent weeks, he's learned it could.

"They can't afford to give up one of their quota," said Mr. Pepper in an interview on Nov. 7.

He said he's talked to other groups wanting to sponsor gay refugees who are in similar situations.

"Everyone is a combination of frustrated and confused by what are really mixed messages from the government," said Mr. Pepper. "They can't make it sound simple: 'Go out and do a Group of Five and do your job as good Canadian citizens,' and then kind of muddy the waters with what really appear to be, from everyone I talk to, restrictions and contractions of our international commitments."

Read more »

Video: Gay Bosnian refugee tells his story

Source: Canadian Human Rights Museum



Dario Kosarac recounts his feelings of never totally belonging in Bosnia because his parents were of mixed Serbian-Croatian ethnic backgrounds; and never being totally accepted in the USA because he was from Bosnia and is gay. Born and raised in Bosnia, which at the time was Socialist Yugoslavia, and of parents that were different ethnic backgrounds - so Serbian-Croatian in Bosnia, which is predominantly Muslim.

Growing up, it really wasn't an issue. We were a fairly secular society; it wasn't a big deal. And then the war started and what ended up happening - it wasn't so much that we were a minority living in Sarajevo and being non-Muslim - it was more that we were not really belonging to any one group because we couldn't be identified as Serbs or Croats. And that, unfortunately, resulted in our family abandoning us - our relatives feeling like they couldn't associate with us because we weren't - we couldn't be - one or the other. And there was violence against my sister, against my family - and my mother got fired because she was not the predominant ethnic group in that area.

So then I left Bosnia to go to the US to high school and then, eventually, university. And I thought: here I'm escaping the sort of narrow-minded Balkan mindset and I'm going to go to the great America and become something bigger and greater.

As I kept living in the US, the typical sort of path to Citizenship, or being able to stay there permanently, would be - well, one of the typical paths, would be through marriage. And it so happens that I'm gay. So, again, this sort of inability to fit into the societal definition of what's accepted or normal, umm, didn't allow me to marry my partner at the time and actually stay in the country.

After ten years - again feeling like I don't belong in the society - I'm not a stakeholder, I'm just a visitor and an alien as they do call us down there. So, all this culminated in a decision, a very difficult one to actually say I'm going to move again and come to Toronto.

Once you see how it should be, once you sort of - the burden of that low level, constant low level of discrimination is taken away - you realize that's how life should be, that, you know, I shouldn't have to worry about the fact that I'm gay. And I shouldn't have to worry about the fact that my mother is Croatian and my father is Serbian. That I should have all the same opportunities - and that's what I found here.

Related articles

• Analysis: Balkan far right using attacks on gay pride for political gain (madikazemi.blogspot.com)
• Video: 'Getting Out': five LGBT refugee stories from Africa (madikazemi.blogspot.com)
• Video: In US, landmark Refugee Congress includes gay Ugandan (madikazemi.blogspot.com)
• Video: South African TV doco on LGBT refugees (madikazemi.blogspot.com)

Bisexuals need not apply: A comparative appraisal of refugee law and policy in Canada, the United States, and Australia

Image via Wikipedia

By Sean Rehaag, Osgoode Hall Law School

This paper offers an analysis of refugee claims on grounds of bisexuality. After discussing the grounds on which sexual minorities may qualify for refugee status under international refugee law, the paper empirically assesses the success rates of bisexual refugee claimants in three major host states: Canada, the United States, and Australia. It concludes that bisexuals are significantly less successful than other sexual minority groups in obtaining refugee status in those countries. Through an examination of selected published decisions involving bisexual refugee claimants, the author identifies two main areas for concern that may partly account for the difficulties that bisexual refugee claimants encounter: the invisibility of bisexuality as a sexual identity, and negative views held by some refugee claims adjudicators towards bisexuality as well as the reluctance of some adjudicators to grant refugee status to sexual minorities who differ from gay and lesbian identities as traditionally understood.

Bisexuals Need Not Apply: A Comparative Appraisal of Refugee Law and Policy in Canada, the United States, a...

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Video: A Tree of Wounded Roots

Source: Mapping Memories

A queer Mexican newcomer describes her journey to Canada and her process as an asylum seeker.

Video: The Flight of the Butterflies

Source: Mapping Memories

A queer Mexican newcomer describes her journey to Canada.

Call to support HIV+ Mexican gay refugee Canada wants to remove

Source: AIDS ACTION NOW!

Call for Immigration Canada to stop the deportation of gay refugee claimants who are living with HIV and face extreme violence if sent home!

To show support for Herberth and call for him to stay, friends of Herbeth, concerned community members, Latinos Positivos and AIDS ACTION NOW! will be holding a support vigil of at Yonge and Dundas Square on November 8, 2011 at 6pm.

Herberth Menendez is a 30 year old Mexican citizen who immigrated to Canada in 2007. He left Mexico to claim refugee status in Canada because he feared for his life due to the intense discrimination and threats of physical violence he faced for being openly gay and living with HIV. Despite having submitted detailed proof of the homophobia and HIV discrimination he has faced in Mexico, Herberth is currently in the final stages of his Pre-Removal Risk Assessment Application. His lawyer has told him there is very little likelihood of his application will be accepted.

Canada has a record of deporting immigrants from many Spanish speaking countries, including Mexico, despite the fact that they have proof they will face violence in their home country if they return.The Mexican Government continues to put up a façade for Canada that homophobic murders do not take place there. However, we sadly hear of cases very often where gay men have been assassinated in Mexico for their sexual orientation or HIV status.

Herberth left Mexico to escape persecution from his neighbors and his own father because he was openly gay and is living with HIV. He was thrown out of his family home by his father and told never to return or he would personally kill him. When Herberth found out he was HIV positive, he suffered discrimination by friends and family and dealt with the intense stigma that exists in the medical community when he sought out health care in Mexico. Nurses and doctors would disclose his HIV-positive status without Herberth’s consent in front of other patients in the clinic without any conscious effort of respecting his confidentiality.

Herberth came to Canada to try and get support and leave a climate of fear and stigma he faced in Mexico. In Toronto, he found Latinos Positivos, an organization dedicated to supporting members of the Latin community who are living with HIV. Members of Latinos Positivos have now become Herberth’s family in Canada. He has volunteered for Latinos Positivos since his arrival and in 2011, Herberth’s drag persona Ashanti Silman was crowned Miss Latinos Positivos. In this role, Herberth has performed at and supported several fundraisers for the organization and helped raise funds for and awareness of their programming. Most recently he contributed efforts towards the production of a pamphlet about HIV and stigma in the Latin community with the Centre for Spanish Speaking Peoples and Latinos Positivos.

• For more information on how to help Herberth please contact: aidsactionnowtoronto@gmail.com 

• Email you concern to Canadian Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, Jason Kenny: Minister@cic.gc.ca and to the Ontario Minister of Citizen and Immigration, Charles Sousa: csousa.mpp@liberal.ola.org

• Latinos Positivos aims to help empower Latino People Living with HIV and AIDS to move beyond their diagnosis and establish a supportive and accepting Latino community within the AIDS movement.

 

Related articles

• Is the USA closing the door to LGBT Mexican asylum seekers? (madikazemi.blogspot.com)
• Video: Mexican gay activist fleeing persecution surfaces in San Diego (madikazemi.blogspot.com)
• One trans person murdered worldwide every other day, figures show (madikazemi.blogspot.com)
• Dragging their way to expression (ahjohn.ca)

Video: A Distant Voice from the North

Source: Mapping Memories

A queer Mexican newcomer describes his journey to Canada.

Related articles

• Canada refuses asylum to Mexican gay couple (madikazemi.blogspot.com)

Canada refuses asylum to Mexican gay couple

Source: Montreal Gazette

In the fall of 2007, David Perez sat down with his longtime girlfriend in Mexico City for what he knew would be a difficult conversation.

Perez told her he had to call off their engagement because he was gay and he could no longer live with the secret.

His girlfriend was furious and told him she would rather see him dead than be with a man, he says.

Perez and his partner, Pablo Gonzalez, told their story about what happened next in an interview with The Gazette this week:

A few weeks after the conversation, after leaving work one day, Perez was bundled into a car and driven to a remote neighbourhood by his ex-girlfriend’s uncle – a police officer – and three other men.

He says the men beat him, threatened to kill him with a gun and sexually assaulted him with a flashlight.

He and Gonzalez eventually fled Mexico City and moved to Cuernavaca, south of the capital. But his girlfriend soon showed up at their door, warning Perez she would track him down wherever he went.

A few months later, after fleeing to yet another city, Pachuca, Gonzalez says he was punched in the face by a man who turned up at his doorstep looking for Perez.

The men say they never reported either incident because they had no confidence the police would intervene.

“The culture is too macho – they don’t accept homosexuality,” Gonzalez said.

The couple fled to Montreal in the summer of 2008.

In their application for refugee status, they said they fear for their lives in Mexico because the ex-girlfriend’s uncle was able to use his police connections to track them down.

However, the Immigration and Refugee Board has rejected their claim on the grounds that they could have found safety by moving to another part of Mexico.

The two men were ordered to leave Canada by Oct. 20. They’re booked on a flight to Mexico Thursday morning.

In its decision, the refugee board said it was implausible that the ex-girlfriend’s uncle had “the motivation or the power to track the men down anywhere in Mexico.”

Perez, 29, and Gonzalez, 26, disagree.

They say homophobia is widespread in Mexico, and both have tested positive for HIV since arriving in Canada.

The couple has applied to remain on humanitarian grounds. But the Canada Border Services Agency has turned down a request to delay Thursday’s removal pending that hearing, which could be months away.

In 2009, the federal government made it compulsory for Mexicans to obtain a visa to enter Canada, saying too many bogus refugee claims were being made.

Since the new visa regulation was implemented, refugee claims by Mexicans have plummeted 84 per cent – from 7,594 in 2009 to 1,201 in 2010.

Kathleen Hadekel, a lawyer and case worker with a legal clinic that helps refugee claimants, said the couple’s case is compelling given the trauma they say they’ve suffered.

After arriving in Montreal, Gonzalez said he opened a car wash business in St. Léonard, where Perez also worked. The business is now closed for good.

The couple will ask a Federal Court judge on Wednesday to delay the removal order until their application to remain here on humanitarian grounds is heard.

“I am scared,” Perez said of returning home. “But we have to follow the law.”

Update: After the couple’s refugee application was rejected, their lawyer asked the Canada Border Services Agency to delay their removal until their application to remain in Canada on humanitarian grounds is heard.

The CBSA rejected the request for a delay in the removal. However, a Federal Court judge ruled on Wednesday that the couple can stay in Canada while they contest the CBSA’s decision.

“They are thrilled; they broke down in tears,” said Kathleen Hadekel, a lawyer who has been assisting the couple.

No date for the hearing has been set.

Related articles

• Video: In Mexico, first national march against anti-gay hate crime (madikazemi.blogspot.com)
• Why is Mexico persecuting gay lawyer Jaime López Vela? (madikazemi.blogspot.com)
• Video: Mexican gay activist fleeing persecution surfaces in San Diego (madikazemi.blogspot.com)

Canada accused over visa denial to Kenyan lesbian activist

Source: thefreedominspeech

Video of Kate by Freedom In Speech, the Kenyan LGBT website for which she is a contributor.

Picture Kate Kamunde

By Paul Canning

The Canadian government has twice denied a visa to a established Kenyan lesbian activist - despite a detailed appeal from her sponsoring organisation.

Kate Kamunde was invited to join a rights training session organised by the Women’s Human Rights Education Institutes (WHRI) in Toronto. She is a poet and founded Artists For Recognition and Acceptance (AFRA-Kenya) in November, 2008.

LGBT Asylum News understands that denials of visas to activists from the 'global south' invited to conferences, to give speeches or attend training sessions like the one in Canada are becoming increasingly common as Western governments 'tighten' visa regimes.

Denials of visas to artists giving concerts or having exhibitions has become a serious problem in the UK and the US.

In August the British government denied a visa to Kasha Jacqueline Nabagesra, a leading lesbian activist in Uganda and the 2011 winner of the prestigious Martin Ennals award for Human Rights.

She had been invited to open Foyle Pride in Derry, Northern Ireland.

Nabagesra has attended numerous speaking engagements around the world. The British visa was denied on the basis that it was claimed that she had not provided "evidence of financial ties to their home country which would indicate that they intend to return home at the end of their proposed visit." That is, they thought she may become an asylum seeker.

The decision was reversed after intervention behind the scenes.

In 2009 Ugandan activist Victor Mukasa was named International Grand Marshall for Toronto Pride and invited with three other Ugandan LGBTI activists. Despite sponsor appeals and having all the necessary documentation and travel support only one of them secured a visa.

Updated to add: Just after publication of this article I was informed that Naome Ruzindana of Horizon Community Association in Rwanda has been denied a visa by Belgium - despite having previously visited that country numerous times. She had been asked for the first time for a personal bank statement. She wrote:

"Am so worried that I still have to explain my status even to the [embassy] people I think knows me well. Am so confused that we can still solicit for this to our so called partners in our respective countries."

Update, 18 October: Naome has been granted a visa, following political intervention.

Similarly to Nabagesra, Kamunde's visa was denied in part because the Visa Section of the Canada High Commission in Nairobi questioned "whether the applicant would be likely to leave Canada at the end of his/her authorised stay."

Angela Lytle, the WHRI Executive Director said:

“This being Kate’s second attempt, with our support, to procure a visa to Canada for these purposes, we felt certain that the many institutions supporting her attendance should have enabled her to secure a visa. Kate had full funding from a European funding organization and she had the support of the Kenyan National Human Rights Commission in her home country, as well as our invitation for her to participate in this program."

“We cannot fathom why her visa was denied on the standard grounds that the Canadian High Commission asserts for visa denials without ever clarifying or elaborating upon how those decisions are made."

“Kate is the first Kenyan national we have worked with who has been refused her visa twice, and so we are led to wonder deeply about the grounds upon which they made their decision.”

“WHRI have been offering globally renowned training institutes in women’s human rights at the University of Toronto for eight years, with dozens of participants who have come to Toronto from around the world to participate and then subsequently returning to their home communities to share their learning within their home organizations, institutions and communities.”

Wanja Muguongo, Executive Director of the East African Sexual Health and Rights Initiative (UHAI-EASHRI), told Melissa Wainaina for Behind The Mask:

“Foreign missions need to realise that if indeed their governments are true partners in the struggle for human rights then they need to walk the talk.”

“This process seems unduly prejudiced towards sexual minorities or towards the thought that being a minority makes an applicant more risky and this should never be a factor in their appraisals as it is discriminatory in nature.”

“The missions need to come out clearly on what else they require to allow activists to travel.”

In August in relation to Nabagesra's visa denial, I asked the Home Office (who lead on foreign policy implications of visa decisions according to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office):

Is the Home Office concerned on how the denial of this visa will be perceived internationally as undermining the government's expressed support for LGBT rights in countries such as Uganda? Support which was underlined by the Prime Minister in June?

Given that she has traveled to numerous countries and returned to Uganda to continue her work there, why would the UK believe that she would abandon this and remain in the UK as opposed to any of these other countries?

A UK Border Agency spokesperson said:

"The UK’s reputation for supporting those seeking protection on the grounds of sexual orientation is not in doubt ... However, the onus is on the applicant to demonstrate that they meet the immigration rules."

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• UK denies leading Ugandan LGBT activist a visa (madikazemi.blogspot.com)

Video: Using law to make refugees disappear

Sourse: refugeeresearch



A seminar by Audrey Macklin, Faculty of Law, University of Toronto.

Refugees have been disappearing from public discourse for many years, supplanted by the economic migrant, the fraud, the terrorist, the illegal, the smuggling customer, etc. One effect has been to prepare the political ground for laws that actually make refugees disappear by deterring their arrival and expediting their rejection. Professor Macklin discusses two recent initiatives that illustrate this phenomenon: The "Balanced Refugee Reform Act" and the "Preventing Human Smugglers from Abusing Canada's Immigration System Act".

Hosted by CERIS-The Ontario Metropolis Centre and The Centre for Refugee Studies (CRS) at York University, Toronto Canada

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• Canadian refugee law changes 'will adversly effect LGBT' (madikazemi.blogspot.com)

Video: gay asylum in Canada

Source: liemducvu

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Resource: The Iranian Queer Organization

Saghi Ghahraman

Source: Shahrvand

By Sima Sahar Zerehi

The Iranian Queer Organization better known as IRQO is likely the name that most people remember when it comes to organizing the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, and transsexual Iranians in Toronto. The group was formed in the summer of 2006 by Niaz Salimi, Arsham Parsi, Sam Kusha, Roshan Borhan, and Saghi Ghahraman. Since its genesis IRQO has spearheaded an aggressive agenda of educating, mobilizing and advocating on behalf of LGBTQ Iranians.

Today, although short one of its founding members, IRQO continues to be an active queer rights group working on multiple fronts.

Niaz Salimi and Saghi Ghahraman continue to lead the organization with the assistance of a team of dedicated volunteers including Hamid Parnian, Yegane Dudi, Parastoo Rahmani, Mahiar Fatemi, and Ramin Jafari,

“We work to combat discrimination against homosexuality within the penal code of Iran,” begins Saghi Ghahraman.

Ghahraman a slight almost girlish figure with shocking silver hair is a well-known personality in the Toronto Iranian community.  She’s the kind of trailblazer that creates controversy wherever she goes, a true iconoclast. You can even say that she has a talent for provoking people and making them question the very things they take for granted as essential truths. In short, she’s exactly the kind of person you want standing next to you when you’re fighting a battle to create change.

While today she is known by most people as a queer rights advocate, she is remembered by the founders of 'Tehranto' as a poet and writer with three published books of poetry and a collection of short stories; literary achievements that helped to give a voice to a generation’s experience with migration to Canada.

Ghahraman continues by noting that “Raising awareness about LGBT human and civil rights” is another key goal for the group.

While IRQO is based in Toronto, the organization also advocates for LGBTQs who fled Iran to claim refugee status in Turkey or other transit and or host countries.

“We provide assistance via legal and financial support until they’re granted refugee status and are resettled in a safe country,” Ghahraman explains.

Read more »

Video: Problems encountered by LGBT refugee claims in Canada

Presentation by Robert Lidstone, The University of Western Ontario, at the 'LGBT Identities, Governance, and Asylum' session at the 13th conference of the International Association for Studies in Forced Migration (IASFM) held in Kampala, Uganda, July 3-6.