EU asylum extended to transgender people

Image via Wikipedia

Source: LGBT Intergroup

Until now, EU asylum law foresaw that “gender related aspects might be considered” by national asylum authorities when examining the potential persecution of specific social groups in their country of origin.

The resolution adopted today has replaced this text, and now specifies that “gender related aspects, including gender identity, shall be given due consideration”. The text now refers to gender identity specifically, and obliges Member States to consider gender-related aspects. Before, EU countries could still choose not to consider aspects linked to the applicant’s gender in asylum claims.

The text applies to all EU Member States except the United Kingdom [and Denmark and Ireland], which opted out of EU asylum policies. The resolution was successfully drafted and negotiated by Jean Lambert, a British Member of the European Parliament in the Greens/EFA group.

This is the first time a binding EU Directive includes gender identity.

Dennis de Jong MEP, Vice-president of the LGBT Intergroup and responsible for asylum policies in the GUE/NGL group, commented:

“Around the world, transgender people can be persecuted for who they are. This reviewed Directive will recognise the danger they face, and it will commit EU Member States to taking gender identity into account in asylum claims. I hope in a future revision it will also become mandatory to consider the sexual orientation of applicants.”

Sirpa Pietikäinen MEP, Vice-president of the LGBT Intergroup, added:

“I am very proud that my colleagues from the centre-right EPP group supported this change, regardless of the views they hold on asylum in general. The European Union is only starting to recognise gender identity as a ground of persecution, but I hope today’s vote will help protect more lives.”

The binding rules will apply after they are transposed into EU Member States’ national law, except for the United Kingdom. Due to access the EU in July 2013, Croatia is also expected to adapt its asylum laws.

Related articles

• Video: How the European Union is supporting international LGBT rights (madikazemi.blogspot.com)
• Video: European Parliament welcomes recent UN developments on sexual orientation and gender identity (madikazemi.blogspot.com)
• Audio: Progress on LGBT asylum in the European Union (madikazemi.blogspot.com)
• Diplomatic leak shows 'cold' French opposition to LGBT asylum rights (madikazemi.blogspot.com)

In Australia, fears for gay refugees under 'swap deal' with Malaysia

Image by .ET. via Flickr

Source: SX News

By Serkan Ozturk

With the proposed asylum seeker swap between Australian and Malaysia due to begin shortly, the Human Rights Commission (HRC), Greens and gay and lesbian rights groups have voiced their alarm and concern that refugees who happen to identify as LGBTI may face significant discrimination and persecution once transferred.

The calls intensified after Malaysia – along with Russia and Uganda – was one of only 19 nations to have voted against a recently passed UN resolution promoting gender and sexuality rights, of which Australia was a co-sponsor of.

Gay sex is illegal in Malaysia and homosexuals face discrimination from government policies, such as a law that makes sodomy punishable by 20 years in prison.

Earlier this year, the BBC also reported how education officials in the conservative Malay state of Terengganu compelled over 60 boys identified as ‘effeminate’ to attend special religious and physical camps for counselling on masculine behaviour.

HRC president Catherine Branson told SX that as a party to the Refugee Convention, Australia has agreed to ensure that people who meet the definition of refugee under the Convention are not sent back to a country where their life or freedom would be threatened.

This is known as the principle of non-refoulement.

“Under this principle, if Australia were to return a person to a country where they were at risk of persecution due their sexuality and or gender identity, there would be a risk that Australia could be breaching the principle of non-refoulement,” Branson said.

Senthorun Raj, from the Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby, told SX that sexual and gender minorities in Malaysia not only lack recognition, but also experience considerable and serious maltreatment.

“It is extremely concerning that Australia is proposing to 'swap' asylum seekers with a country that is not a signatory to the Refugee Convention.

“If the proposed asylum swap takes place, LGBTI asylum seekers may be caught in an absurd situation where they are held for 'processing' by a Government that not only refuses to recognise their status as refugees, but also persecutes them on the basis of their sex, sexuality or gender diversity,” Raj said.

Read more »

In Glasgow, dispersal of asylum seekers is set to start in days

Watch video report from today's protest

Source: Herald Scotland

By Gerry Braiden

Asylum seekers living in Glasgow will start to be moved to other areas of Scotland as early as today, The Herald understands.

The move comes after the city council and the UK Border Agency (UKBA) failed to agree a new contract to house 1300 asylum seekers in the city.

With pressure mounting on the UKBA to reverse its stance, the leaders of all but one of the political groups within Glasgow City Council called on the agency to enter into a “genuine dialogue” over its plans.

The joint statement says: “To now have families, some of whom have been settled in the city for years, threatened with eviction and relocation with minimal notice is unacceptable.”

The statement comes as questions are raised over UKBA’s handling of the matter in the past week, particularly a letter it sent to about 600 households informing the asylum seeker residents that they could be moved with just a few days notice to somewhere else “within the Scotland region”.

The letter provoked fear and alarm among those who received it, but there are also concerns about the impact of the contract cancellation on a number of services.

Read more »

Summer update on LGBT asylum issues in the European institutions

Image via Wikipedia By Joël Le Déroff, ILGA-Europe

ILGA-Europe, the European region of the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association, has been active this summer to raise the issue of LGBT-related asylum claims in the European institutions. In the context of the on-going reform of EU law, we promoted various initiatives and meetings.

In the autumn, two directives are going to be discussed in the European Parliament (first reading), which is an important step, since the Parliament has become a full co-legislator after the entry into force of the Lisbon treaty.

Just before the beginning of the parliamentary holidays, ILGA-Europe has organised an exchange in the European Parliament, with the support of the Intergroup on LGBT rights and MEPs Sylvie Guillaume, rapporteur on the Procedures for Granting and Withdrawing International Protection Directive (“Procedure Directive”) and Jean Lambert, rapporteur on the Qualification for International Protection Directive (“Qualification Directive”).

The exchange was an opportunity to present our positions to various MEPs working on the asylum directives, and to make sure that potential supporters coming from different political groups could better coordinate themselves when the Parliament resumes its works. ILGA-Europe invited the coordinator of the gender and sexual orientation team of Belgium’s Office of the Commissioner General for Refugees and Stateless Persons (CGRA), Ms valentine Audate, to give a presentation. This proved to be very useful to illustrate the problems faced by LGBT asylum seekers during the whole asylum procedure.

In early September, ILGA-Europe has also met with Commission’s officials, to assess their availability to listen to our positions, in view of the preparation of the following steps of the legislative process. These exchanges were also an opportunity to promote some amendments to the EU legislation. For more information on the EU legislative process, please contact Joël Le Déroff: joel@ilga-europe.org.  

On a different note, following the conference on “LGBTI asylum seekers and refugees: a case of double jeopardy?”, organised in London in July, ILGA-Europe has joined the organisers to participate to the redaction of a Declaration of Human Rights for LGBTI Asylum Seekers, which will include a call for change in asylum systems in Europe and in the world.

Finally, thanks to research carried out earlier this summer, ILGA-Europe will publish soon an improved resource section on our website. Information will be available on asylum legislation in European countries, and on how to better look for and find country-of-origin information.

New government: where next on immigration and asylum?

Image by tripu via Flickr

Source: Left Foot Forward

By Jill Rutter

Outside London, immigration emerged as a potent issue of public concern during the election campaign, with the Conservative and Labour Party’s talking tough, and the Lib Dems, the SNP, Plaid Cymru and the Greens advancing a different narrative – one that stressed the positive impacts of immigration.

With the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives divided in their overall narrative and in the details of asylum and immigration policy, it came as no surprise that the coalition agreement included a clause on this issue. Both parties have agreed to support an annual limit on work visa and student immigration to the UK and both parties have agreed to end the detention of children for immigration purposes.

Although not part of the formal coalition agreement, senior Lib Dems have also agreed to drop the proposal for an amnesty for irregular (illegal) migrants with more than ten years’ residency in the UK. Some senior Lib Dem parliamentarians have suggested that the amnesty proposal was a mistake and all mention of it has been mysteriously buried deep within the Lib Dem website. The migrants’ rights lobby, including Lib Dem party members, are now asking what these concessions really mean, and how the new government’s asylum and immigration policies will shape up.

Read more »

After the UK election: where next for LGBT asylum?

By Paul Canning

As the jostling starts on exactly who will form a British government we have no idea who will be the MP(s) ending up with the key Ministries holding the fate of asylum seekers in their hands.

If we have a coalition government with mostly Conservative Ministers we could end up with a gay Home Secretary. There were many rumours after Tory Shadow Home Secretary Chris Grayling made his ill-fated and off-camera (but not off-microphone) comments on gays and Bed'n'Breakfast hotels that Nick Herbert might replace him. It wasn't Grayling's first 'gaffe'.

The precedent of Labour's silent gay and lesbian MPs would suggest that just because they're LGB they cannot be relied on to stick up for LGBT asylum seekers, but the Conservatives went into Thursday's election making a late pitch via an 'equalities manifesto' that promised to "change the rules" on LGBT asylum.

Labour didn't, and manifesto commitments are serious business. During the campaign my articles on Labour's record drew strong attacks, including from the gay MEP Michael Cashman, that suggested that - somehow - Labour would be better than the mistrusted Tories on LGBT asylum. But despite their lesbian and gay group passing a resolution promising to work on the issue nothing made it onto the actual promises list beyond vague claims, and the record speaks for itself. The UKLGIG study released in the middle of the election proved once-and-for-all that the system they'd managed is riddled with homophobia, how they might tackle it was a complete mystery.

And Labour ended the campaign with Gordon Brown making sickening comments on the pogrom in Iraq, suggesting that Iraqi gays are better off because of his government's actions and refusing to answer on how come it thought Iraq a 'safe country' to return gay asylum seekers to.

Of course the Iraq war supporting David Cameron would have had to say something similar, though possibly differently on the asylum aspect. But the Tory promise to 'change rules', plus what issue it highlighted which Labour consistently either refused to address ('go home and be discrete') or denied was a policy, plus Cameron's answer to my question which was a non-pat answer showing someone in Conservative Central Office was paying attention and reading about the issues can not but give hope - especially when the 'on side' LiberalDemocrats look to be playing a government role.

Another aspect to their credit is that when Cameron made a brief comment suggesting that they shouldn't be returned and told to 'be discrete' the right-wing mass tabloid newspaper the Daily Mail managed to translate this into "Cameron: Gay refugees from Africa should be given asylum in UK". This racist spin (he never mentioned Africa) lit up the far right blogosphere but the Mail's reaction - showing they were paying attention - didn't scare the Tories into not putting a pledge in a manifesto.

A number of LiberalDemocrat MPs who now may have some real power have long 'walked the walk' on LGBT asylum. Especially Simon Hughes who has showed up and backed Peter Tatchell and Outrage's many years of lonely campaigning. During the campaign Lynne Featherstone showed real understanding, saying: "we need to go further, and use our significant influence abroad to end this persecution because for every person that manages to flee - there [are] undoubtedly many more living in fear unable to escape."

But so have a number of Tories. During the campaign for gay Iranian Mehdi Kazemi several years ago the strongest supportive and condemnatory comments came from London's Conservative MEP John Bowis. In Parliament the Tory MP Alistair Burt who has the notorious Yarl's Wood detention centre in his constituency has been relentless is asking probing questions and damning the regime there.

The election also saw a number of new MPs who can be expected to be supportive.

Belfast Mayor and new Alliance party MP Naomi Long, who dramatically beat arch-homophobe and Northern Ireland First Minister Peter Robinson, is a long standing advocate for refugees, migrants and asylum seekers.

The Greens first MP, Caroline Lucas, has worked for LGBT asylum seekers throughout her term as an MEP and her party has strong policy.

Asylum advocates worked to ensure that candidates were educated and asked to commit on the issues. Over 1000, from all parties, signed a pledge to "remember the importance of refugee protection." Many of those were elected yesterday.

UK LGBT advocates have been discussing how to proceed, how to secure change. Exactly how we'll do it cannot be announced yet - watch this space! - but the election seems to have thrown up the greatest hope for real, meaningful change to our appalling regime we've seen in - oh - thirteen years.

Green Party manifesto includes LGBT asylum commitments

Image via Wikipedia

The UK Green Party election manifesto, launched April 16 in Brighton, one of Britain's 'gayest' cities, includes the following commitment:

"Ensure safe haven and refugee status for LGBT people fleeing persecution in violently homophobic and transphobic countries."

This follows on from its inclusion in the party's LGBT manifesto, launched in February.

Green Party leader Caroline Lucas told the launch:

“We are delighted that our general election manifesto includes strong commitments to further extend the rights and freedoms of LGBT people.”

She told LGF News:

"The treatment gay and lesbian asylum seekers receive from the British immigration system is nowhere near acceptable and we have worked very hard to support several asylum seekers who were under threat of deportation while under unimaginably enormous mental stress."

"Our co-spokesperson, who is a lesbian, is working with someone on their claim right now - this person has been turned down by the adjudicator, but I can't go into too much detail as her appeal is pending.  If she is refused leave to remain we will be fighting her case."

"Jean Lambert, the Greens's other MEP, was instrumental in getting a decision to deport a gay man to likely execution in Iran reversed by shaming the Labour government into reviewing his case."

Green Party LGBT National Spokesperson Phelim Mac Cafferty said:

"Gordon Brown’s government’s refusal to offer asylum to LGBT refugees who have suffered beatings' imprisonment' and torture on the grounds that they will not be at risk of homophobic persecution if they simply hide their sexuality and stop having gay relationships' shows that while making some progressive decisions for gay people in this country' Labour are not beyond criticism. In fact' Labour practices double standards by not making similar demands on political or religious refugees."

• Green Party manifesto (PDF)

LiberalDemocrats announce LGBT asylum priority as part of LGBT Manifesto

By Paul Canning

Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg today launched the first their LGBT election manifesto. The third priority of six is "ending deportations of gay and lesbian refugees to countries where they face persecution".

The Libdems say:

"It is inhumane for the Government to deport gay people back to the countries where they will be persecuted because of their sexuality. We believe that everyone should be treated equally under the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identification."

"We have long rejected the argument that it would be acceptable for a lesbian or gay person to be deported to a homophobic state, as long as that individual behaved in a ‘discreet’ manner."

"Liberal Democrats will not deport any refugees genuinely fleeing a country because sexual orientation or gender identification may mean that they are at risk of imprisonment, torture or even execution."

• Lib Dem LGBT Manifesto (PDF)

Correction: The Green party launched the first LGBT election manifesto in February. This included as their sixth 'core area':

"Ensure safe haven and refugee status for LGBT people fleeing persecution in violently homophobic and transphobic countries."

Switzerland: LGBT asylum seekers receive legal knock-back

Image by twicepix via Flickr

Source: swissinfo.ch

By Thomas Stephens

A motion to give legal recognition to people who are persecuted because of their sexual orientation has been roundly rejected by the House of Representatives.

The government argued that homosexuals were adequately protected by current asylum laws as members of a “particular social group”, reflecting the view of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights(UNHCR).

Wednesday’s defeat – by 125 votes to 64 – came a day after Amnesty International handed in a petition to the Federal Chancellery calling for the Swiss legal definition of “refugee” to be widened.

“We really regret that this has been rejected because it would have been a better solution for persecuted people,” Denise Graf, refugee coordinator at the human rights organisation’s Swiss section, told swissinfo.ch.

“Currently asylum law says authorities have to consider the special situation of women. We said they should have to consider the special situation of women and people who have been persecuted for their sexual orientation or sexual identity.”

Amnesty pointed out that homosexual acts are still illegal in 85 countries – predominantly Muslim and African ones, although also several parts of the United States – and punishable by death in Iran, Mauritania, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Yemen.

In many other parts of the world people sit in prison because of their actual or presumed sexuality, it added. Homosexuality was legalised in Switzerland in 1942.

Amnesty said that without legal recognition of this specific form of persecution, there was a danger that Switzerland would continue to turn away asylum seekers – even if they would then face prison, torture and death.

Graf said a few cases existed of people being granted asylum in Switzerland because of their sexual orientation, “but hardly any”.

“A study published in the specialist journal Asylum in 2007 said that between 1993 and 2005… out of 90 cases, four got asylum,” she said.

Increasing claims

The persecution of people because of their sexual orientation and gender identity is not a new phenomenon, the UNHCR noted in a report published in November 2008. But it acknowledged that only recently had a growing number of asylum claims been made by lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) individuals.

The paper concluded that “international and national developments in sexual orientation case law clearly show that LGBT persons may be recognised as a ‘particular social group’ and, as such, are entitled to protection under the 1951 Convention”.

Non-governmental organisations have never been so vocal on this issue. In 2009, Human Rights Watch released a report entitled “They Want Us Exterminated; Murder, Torture, Sexual Orientation and Gender in Iraq”.

“Not enough awareness”

The cabinet had recommended that Wednesday’s motion, put forward by Green parliamentarian Katharina Prelicz-Huber, be rejected, arguing that the current laws were adequate.

“They say that the refugee definition covers the possibility to grant asylum for people who belong to a special social group. This is also the position of the UNHCR,” Graf said.

For example in February the government said it would admit two Guantanamo prisoners – Uighurs from the Chinese province of Xinjiang – on humanitarian grounds. Switzerland had already accepted one Guantanamo inmate, an Uzbek who arrived in January and is now residing in Geneva.

“But we believe there isn’t enough awareness inside the Migration Office or the appeal instance inside the Federal Administrative Court. We are convinced that introducing this explicitly into law would really result in more training and awareness about the situation of homosexuals,” she said.

Gay wave?

The centre-left Social Democratic Party was the only one of Switzerland’s four main parties to back the motion.

“To be able to live one’s sexual orientation free of danger is a fundamental part of personal freedom and therefore a justified reason for asylum,” said Margret Kiener Nellen, co-president of the party’s commission for sexual orientation and identity.

But Hans Fehr from the rightwing Swiss People’s Party feared there was “massive potential for abuse” as a result of a lack of controls.

“Hundreds of thousands of people could stream into the country and Switzerland would turn into an island of allegedly persecuted homosexuals,” he said.

“That’s ridiculous!” Graf told swissinfo.ch. “Every case is examined individually and this wouldn’t change if we amended the law. There was a change for women and we didn’t have hundreds and thousands of women looking for asylum in Switzerland.”

Legal struggle

But it’s not only states that persecute sexual minorities – many asylum seekers are often forced to flee by their families and communities.

Graf cited the example of Christian (not his real name), who had spent months in hiding in Cameroon after being arrested in a gay bar. He was hounded out of the country by his family and in 2005 was arrested at Zurich airport for having false papers. He applied for asylum in Switzerland – without disclosing he was gay – and was rejected.

It was only after he spoke to someone from the Swiss Red Cross that he admitted the real reason for his application. In April 2009, after a four-year legal struggle, he was granted asylum in Switzerland.

The coming UK election and LGBT asylum

Image via Wikipedia

By Paul Canning

The leader of Britain's opposition Liberal Democrats, Nick Clegg, has restated his party's support for change in the UK's attitude to LGBT asylum seekers.

From an interview with The Independent:

On asylum seekers – an issue which is notoriously unpopular with the electorate – Mr Clegg was equally bullish, describing Britain’s asylum system as “the most inhumane, irrational, cruel systems imaginable”.

“It’s a moral stain on our collective consciousnesses,” he said. “The public debate has transformed asylum seekers into threats rather than human beings.”

He said Lib Dem policy would be that Britain should provide sanctuary to those fleeing persecution because of their sexual orientation: “It’s not just me that says this, it’s international law that says it.”

A party statement released alongside the interview summerised their policy as:

Guarantee any refugees genuinely fleeing a country because of persecution over their sexual orientation asylum in the UK.

Clegg has previously spoken out against "the astonishing brutality and cruelty that has become a part of our asylum system". The party passed a resolution 'Government must stop sending gay and lesbian people to their deaths' at its 2008 conference.

Apart from the LibDems, the UK Green party has good policy and has actively worked on the issue through their MEPs.

A general election in expected in the UK in May. Current polls suggest a possible hung parliament which may put the LibDems in a position to influence and achieve much needed changes in LGBT asylum policy and practice.

The UK Labour government has consistently denied its discriminatory treatment of LGBT asylum seekers — despite the numerous appalling cases documented on this website which led the widely respected NGO Human Rights Watch in 2008 to name the Home Office to its 'Hall of Shame'. Time and again only support from activists and campaigning has saved people against a government wanting to throw them back to the wolves.

Among the LGBT asylum cases — all refused asylum by the government and only won after a long legal fight by the UK Lesbian and Gay Immigration group (UKGLIG), Outrage, Iraqi LGBT, the Lesbian Community Project in Manchester and others including local communities, refugee groups and churches — are:

• Ugandans Prozzy Kazooma, who was marched for two miles naked through the streets, jailed, raped and tortured by police, Kizza Musinguzi, who was jailed for gay human rights work and subjected to four months of forced labour, water torture, beatings and rape, and John Bosco who was violently deported despite being personally targeted, with photos, by a homophobic Ugandan tabloid (Bosco was returned to the UK after a damning judicial decision and, despite Home Office efforts, subsequently given leave to remain). Another Ugandan was told by a judge in 2006 that women 'cannot be understood to be homosexual’.
• A Jamaican lesbian, who was told to go back to her homeland because she would be in no danger as she was over 40 and therefore no longer sexually attractive.
• Iraqi asylum seekers, still being told they can safely return to a country well documented to have active anti-LGBT death squads who kill gay men by filling their anuses with glue. 
• Iranians Pegah Emambakhsh, whose partner was arrested, tortured and subsequently sentenced to death by stoning, and Mehdi Kazemi whose partner was also executed. 
• An Algerian gay man who had been jailed for homosexuality. In prison, he was raped, beaten by inmates and guards and had his teeth knocked out.
  

Many others cases have been lost with people sent back to such violently homophobic countries as Cameroon and Nigeria - where a police warrant on charges of homosexuality and a solicitor's letter stating that he was likely to be sentenced to death by stoning wasn't enough to stop one gay man's deportation.

This record is news to the Labour Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, according to his statements in an interview this month with Johann Hari for Attitude Magazine:

[Q] Speaking of violence against gay people - there are some refugees fleeing countries where gay people are imprisoned or killed who make it to Britain, and they seem to face a contradictory policy. Some who are given the right to remain, but others are told to go back to their home country, hide their sexuality, and hope for the best. Do you think that’s acceptable?

[A] Asylum law is incredibly difficult, and you can’t ever have a blanket inclusion or exclusion. Every asylum case is going to be dealt with on its merits. I don’t think any party will give you an absolutist commitment on this question. But obviously, our whole party has been built on the idea that where there is persecution, we’ve got to be prepared to help them.

[Q] So your view is, if someone is from a country where they will be killed for being gay, and they make it to Britain, they’ve got a right to stay?

[A] What I’m saying is that every case is treated as an individual case. And the people who come to this country who are able to show that they are seeking asylum because the persecution that they’ve suffered is a risk to their life… that is something that we as a nation have traditionally accepted.

Notably, Brown didn't respond to Haari's question on the government's policy of expecting LGBT asylum seekers to go back to the country where they are fleeing from and 'be discreet' about their sexuality.

Last year Phil Woolas, Minister of State for borders and immigration, defended the 'be discreet' policy in an astonishing article promoting the presence of LGBT asylum seekers on the London Pride March as a Labour 'success story'. He said:

The Court of Appeal has found, in line with our policy that whether a gay claimant can reasonably be expected to tolerate behaving discreetly is something that must be considered on the individual merits of the case.

In a carefully worded response to this statement the UKGLIG said that this policy was plainly discriminatory:

Phil Woolas claims that “a degree of discretion can be required in all sexual relationships, heterosexual as well as homosexual”, which implies that the measure of discretion required would be applied equally. This is clearly not the case and in practice LGBT persons would be forced to have to live a lie.

Moreover, this reference to discretion does not reflect the realities of most LGBT asylum claims: applicants simply want a life in which they can be who they are and/or have a relationship with their partner, without fearing death, violence, rape, prosecution, forced marriage or losing their livelihood or homes. Their claims are not about seeking the right to commit ‘public indecencies’. However, within the legal, social, cultural or religious framework in many of their home countries, an (open or secret) LGBT identity or same sex relationship is often, in and of itself, considered ‘indecent’.

Kerry Maskell, Project Coordinator of the Lesbian Community Project in Manchester says:

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

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

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

Minister Woolas' attitude to people like Maskell defending LGBT asylum seekers was stated in a 2008 interview where he derided a "vested interest" of 'NGOs and migration lawyers giving false hope and undermining the legal system'.

More evidence that Woolas is operating a discriminatory and homophobic regime was in a report published last year which found that lesbian asylum seekers are not being protected by the UK Border Agency and their particular problems go unrecognised. Discrimination, abuse, harassment and violence, including rape, against them was common to the experience related by the women interviewed. They told of violence against them by people employed by the Government.

Last year UKLGIG said that:

Transmen are being detained in Yarl’s Wood – a female-only detention centre, gay men are forced to live with other detainees from their country of origin who often hold the same the homophobic views as the society they are escaping from.

Continuous allegations of physical assault and racial abuse by guards forced former Home Secretary Jacqui Smith last year to ask Nuala O'Loan, the former Police Ombudsman of Northern Ireland, to conduct an investigation. But there has been no action by Labour on reports of the homophobic mistreatment of LGBT asylum seekers.

LGBT asylum activist Peter Tatchell has helped numerous people and has extensive experience of what he calls 'Britain's homophobic asylum system'. He, more than anyone, knows how Labour has reneged on what few pledges have been squeezed out of it on LGBT asylum.

At the London LGBT Pride Rally in 2008 Labour Deputy Leader Harriet Harman was booed due to the government's treatment of Mehdi Kazemi.

Kazemi is a gay Iranian teenager who the Home Office wanted removed despite his young boyfriend having been executed. Kazemi was only saved from a similar fate because of an international campaign leading to the conservative Dutch government (which operates a humane LGBT asylum policy) extracting concessions from then Home Secretary Jacqui Smith - Kazemi had fled the UK for the Netherlands.

Questioned after Kazemi eventually won 'leave to remain', Smith refused requests for a moratorium on the return of LGBT asylum seekers to Iran, claiming:

The evidence does not show a real risk of discovery of, or adverse action against, gay and lesbian people who are discreet about their sexual orientation.

Since 2000 at least two Iranian gay asylum seekers have committed suicide rather than be returned.

29-year old Israfil Shiri, who had fled Iran when the authorities there discovered he was gay, was one. He walked into the offices of Refugee Action in Manchester, doused himself in petrol and burned himself alive.

Says Peter Tatchell:

At his asylum hearing, the adjudicator turned down his application, citing ‘lack of evidence.’ Unable to find a lawyer willing to represent him, or to produce expert evidence on the persecution of gay people in Iran, he also lost his appeal. 

Within days, the National Asylum Support Service ordered his eviction from the asylum hostel where he had been housed, turning him out in the street. Simultaneously, the government cut off his benefits. Banned from working, Shiri ended up homeless and destitute. Like many other asylum-seekers, he was forced to sleep on the streets and scrounge discarded food from rubbish bins. 

His health rapidly deteriorated. But having no address, he could not register with a GP to get treatment. 

The government has Shiri’s blood on its hands. It is enforcing an inhuman asylum system. The Home Office bears a large degree of responsibility for the suicide of this young gay man. It treated Shiri as a criminal, when in reality he was the victim of criminal abuse and neglect – both in Iran and in the UK.

As she stepped down from the London Pride stage after being booed, Tachell spoke with Harman. At a subsequent meeting with Harman and Minister Barbara Follett a "mechanism whereby [Tatchell] could report abuses and [they] would take action to put them right" was agreed. However this agreement fell apart at its first test when the two Ministers committed what Tatchell describes as "a betrayal of the trust and commitment that I thought we had established" by refusing to make any representations in the case of the deported gay Azerbaijani asylum seeker Babi Badalov.

As often happens, Badalov was called in to a meeting, seized and quickly put on a plane. He couldn't even pack a bag so was left on arrival in the Azerbaijani capital Baku with just the clothes he was wearing. Once there he was forced into hiding with fellow artists (he has been exhibited in several countries) due to 'honour' threats of death from family members. His sister had warned him over the phone never to come to the country again.

He said:

I can’t tell you how horrible it is. If I die and there’s a funeral, nobody will come: the mullah won’t come, nobody will read the Koran. [The body of a gay man] is a dirty, foul body. It cannot be touched; it cannot be washed. It must be thrown into a pit, because it’s so shameful. This attitude still exists there.

When he was being put onto the plane Badalov reported being told by a Border Agent, "you make us sick, you're going back where you belong.” He is now in Paris after fleeing first to St Petersberg.

Tatchell is not the only one who has tried to lobby Labour.

UKLGIG say that they have been asking for years for an LGBT Asylum Policy Instruction (API) which is used to guide UK Border Agency (UKBA) staff. Apart from sole case where asylum has been quickly granted, the Nigerian gay Christian leader Davis Mac-Iyalla, the one and only breakthrough which this author is aware of is that the UKBA have invited UKLGIG to make presentations to case workers on LGBT asylum issues. However the charity puts this in context:

We are very pleased the UKBA have taken this step, but more in-depth training is very much needed and we are discussing this with the UKBA at the moment. In order to achieve fair decision making, caseworkers would require detailed knowledge and understanding of not only LGBT asylum issues, but of these issues in very specific cultural contexts.

One major reason that this 'understanding' hasn't been happening is because of what UKLGIG describe as the "quality and quantity of information on LGBT issues within the country of origin information (COI) prepared and used by the UKBA in their decision making". This despite a 2006 commitment wrung from the Home Office that UKLGIG would have input directly into the process of information gathering as it relates to human rights abuses of sexual minorities globally. And again, following a 2008 independent review of COI which told UKBA what they should have already realised, rather than right this wrong themselves from their own vast resources, they looked instead to the small, under-resourced charity UKLGIG for help.

The debacle with Harman and Tatchell as well as the extensive concerns most prominently featured in the press by the Mehdi Kazemi case led the party's LGBT activist organisation, LGBT Labour, to pass a resolution at its AGM last year which highlighted problems they saw with the government's policy and practice. They proposed:

• That LGBT people should not be asked to prove their sexuality and that the Home Office and Borders and Immigration Agency respect the right of individuals to self define as LGBT.
• That the Borders and Immigration Agency employ specialist LGBT “case owners” who have received specific training in handling LGBT asylum cases.
• That the UK Government should not return people on the pretext that they will have to “hide” their sexuality on return to their home country.

As well as Labour LGBT, some Labour politicians have also expresssed concerns (though this has not included any of the party's prominent gay or lesbian MPs), which has undoubtedly helped specific cases. One Labour candidate has called for 'A fair deal for gay asylum seekers'. Yet in policy and practice terms almost nothing has changed for the better for LGBT refugees — and, as those working with LGBT refugees testify, much has changed for the worse.

Despite PM Brown's claims, case after case has demonstrated Labour's indifference on the issue of LGBT refugees. Woolas and Smith's statements on the 'discretion' policy shows that discrimination lies at the heart of that indifference. The lack of any action on advice from the likes of UKGLIG shows a consistent failure of leadership on LGBT equality in the Home Office.

Although some opposition Conservative politicians have shown support for individual cases, this website is unaware of any statement or answer to a journalist's question from the Conservative leadership suggesting that they will review current Home Office/UK Border Agency policy and practice on LGBT asylum.

[UPDATE: Cameron opposes 'be discrete' gay asylum policy?]


With only a few months to go before the election campaign, unless Labour can somehow do better than PM Brown's ignorant and bland statement "our whole party has been built on the idea that where there is persecution, we’ve got to be prepared to help", there is no reason to think that a Conservative government would do any worse.

For anyone concerned that the UK should and can do much better at providing sanctuary for LGBT fleeing persecution, execution and torture, on their policy, actions and in order to influence some real change this website's recommendation is vote Green or LibDem.

Australian Senate turns its back on Ugandan gays

Source: Blaze

By Ron Hughes

A motion that would have seen the government putting pressure on Uganda to withdraw its recently-tabled Anti-Homosexuality Bill has been rejected by the Senate.

SA Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young moved that the Senate should condemn the criminalisation of homosexuality anywhere in the world.

She also moved that the Senate should “[call] on the Government to actively encourage the Ugandan Government to withdraw its Anti-Homosexuality Bill and respect the human rights of same-sex attracted people.”

On October 14 a bill was tabled in the Ugandan parliament that widened the legal definition of homosexual acts and introduced the death penalty for the new offence of “aggravated homosexuality”. Under the latter, anyone who had gay sex with either a disabled person or anyone under 18, or anyone with HIV who had sex with a person of the same gender, could be executed.

Senator Hanson-Young also called on the Senate to “recognise the universal human rights of same-sex attracted people to live their lives free from persecution on the basis of their sexuality.”

The motion was rejected.

“Freedom of sexuality and gender identity is a fundamental human right, yet unfortunately many Governments around the world fail to recognise this,” Hanson-Young told blaze. “The Ugandan Government’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill represents a hideous abuse of the human rights of same-sex attracted people. It should be condemned by the international community and I was appalled to see the Senate vote against my motion to condemn the criminality of homosexuality and call on the Ugandan Government to withdraw its Bill.”

“Australia could be playing a leadership role in promoting an end to persecution on the basis of sexuality, yet the Rudd Government seems intent on lagging behind,” Hanson-Young continued. “I will continue to pressure the Government to lift its game on this issue.”

Gay Pledge from Green Party for Euro Poll

The Green Party is today launching eight pledges for equality for LGBT people. Joseph Healy and John Hunt from London, Lesley Hedges from Yorkshire and Humber and Chris Williams from West Midlands are standing as openly gay and lesbian Green Party candidates in the European election.

Joseph Healy introduced the manifesto: “We are proud of the record of our Green MEPs on LGBT issues, proud to have so many LGBT candidates standing and because we think that the opinions of the LGBT communities are incredibly important in this election we are also proud to launch our own specific LGBT election manifesto.”

The LGBT Greens European Election Manifesto

The Greens will continue to campaign for:

--full LGBT equality, including full partnership, insurance, pensions, employment, and housing rights. This includes campaigning to rid ALL EU member states of homophobic and transphobic discrimination in access to goods and services, such as insurance and mortgages.

--all EU member states to comply with the EU directive outlawing discrimination against lesbians gay men and bisexuals in the workplace.
--equivalent and specific protection in society and in the workplace for trans citizens.

Greens will press for policing which reflects the diversity of the LGBT communities in the EU particularly in the new Eastern states, ensuring that homophobic behaviour by police officers is considered an explicit offence which can be remedied with disciplinary action. Also working with the police in deepening their relationship with the LGBT community, including LGBT organisations: improving the rapport between police forces and the LGBT community; addressing the continued under-reporting of hate crimes, and working with authorities to bring hate crime culprits to justice.

Greens will work to legalise same-sex marriages and registered partnerships across the EU, particularly in asylum legislation

Greens will campaign to
--extend the EU definition of "family" to include LGBT partnerships
--campaign for lgbt equal access to parenting and fertility treatment.

Greens will continue to lobby Police on non-prosecution of consenting, victimless gay offences, such as cruising. Police resources should be concentrated on violent, corporate and hate crimes and active, sustainable measures to create safer communities.

Greens will support a pan European HIV Action Plan:
--to improve safer sex education.
Greens will also campaign to
--cut transmission rates by remedying the financial hole in HIV services and large inadequacies in the provision and scope of HIV services
--upgrade the standard of treatment and after-care for people who have transmitted HIV. This will include pressing the UK government to resolve the under-funding and under-staffing of sexually-transmitted infection (STI) clinics.

Greens through their MEPs will lobby the European Commission to-
require all companies doing business with the European Union, or governments and local authorities within it, to be required to have equal opportunities policies that prohibit discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and HIV-positive people; thereby enabling local authorities to take a proactive role in encouraging businesses to end homo, bi and transphobic discrimination.

8. Greens propose to celebrate queer culture and history, for example by proposing the establishment of more Lesbian & Gay Museums.

Joseph Healy continued: “It is vital that lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans people have MEPs representing our rights in Europe. Jean Lambert, our London MEP, and Caroline Lucas our South Eastern MEP have worked hard in Europe for LGBT rights to be understood as human rights.

“The European Elections are important, because so much of UK human rights policy tends to follow European directives on issues like the age of consent and anti-discrimination laws in employment.

“It is also important that the more progressive nature of Western European attitudes to LGBT people spreads into Eastern Europe. Gay Prides in Europe have been prevented or attacked in the past but this is slowly beginning to change.

“The far right is challenging the progress that has been made and we need strong voices to protect us across the whole of the European Region.

“The EU is in a strong position to give us a strong voice to oppose homophobic persecution and judicial murder across the world.

“Green Party actions are not just paper policies. Darren Johnson led the way for civil partnerships by being instrumental in introducing the London register which predated the Civil Partnership Bill and showed that there was a demand and that it could be done.

Joseph concluded:
“Jean Lambert Green MEP for the London region is a member of the European Parliament’s Intergroup on Gay and Lesbian Rights and works to ensure that LGBT people are treated fairly across Europe. She has spoken out against the deportation of gay and lesbian asylum seekers, to their almost certain death, which shamed the Labour government into allowing them to stay in the UK. She continues to oppose homophobic oppression in Europe and throughout the world.”

Lesley, meanwhile is the National Female Spokesperson for LGBTGreens. She is active in her local LGBTIQ community and works to improve public services, including health, for LGBTIQ people. “We deserve fair and equal treatment but surveys show that LGBTIQ people have less satisfaction with health and other services. We can be more open about our sexuality than ever before, yet some still face vilification in their access to health often when they are at their most vulnerable.

Lesley concluded: “We need strong laws across the European Union that make sure the lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans communities are treated fairly. That is all we are asking for yet it seems to be a step too far for some services to tackle staff who display homophobic attitudes. Our young people are subjected to bullying in schools resulting in low confidence, poor mental health and even self-harm and suicide. This has got to end.”

Source

Jacqui Smith's statement: media release by LGBT Greens

Home Secretary ‘misled’ to claim safety of LGBT people returned to Iran
Urgent review of Home Office approaches to LGBT asylum needed

23.6.8
The Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, does not consider Iranian LGBT asylum seekers to have fears of persecution if they are returned. According to Smith who has had correspondence with Lord Roberts of Llandudno published in a letter in today’s Independent, ‘evidence does not show a real risk of discovery of, or adverse action against gay and lesbian people who are discreet about their sexual orientation.’

In condemning the Home Secretary’s response, Phelim Mac Cafferty, media spokesperson for LGBT Greens stated:

“Jacqui Smith, Home Secretary, is playing a dangerous game with the lives of Iranian LGBT refugees: effectively she’s trying to rubbish the argument that LGBT people are being persecuted for their sexuality in Iran. Her claim that as long as people are ‘discreet’ a regime notorious for its treatment of LGBT people will somehow stop persecuting them is misled at best and homicidal at worst.

“Instead of this macho posturing from the Home Office on keeping asylum figures down, we desperately need a Home Secretary prepared to look the Iranian regime in the eyes and stand up for what’s right for LGBT people.

“Iranian LGBT refugees have fled from persecution and torture and we now need an urgent review of the services provided for all LGBT refugees. We need-

1. Compulsory training for all asylum staff on sexual-orientation and trans-awareness.
2. Explicit instructions to all immigration and asylum staff, and asylum judges, that homophobic and transphobic persecution are legitimate grounds for granting asylum.
3. Clearer and up-to-date guidance from the Home Office for asylum judges to reflect
the accurate scale of LGBT persecution throughout the world
4. Legal-aid funding for asylum claims need to be substantially increased."

‘Discrete’ Gays Safe in Iran: Really Ms. Smith?

UKGayNews op-ed

It was enough to make anyone with a remote interest in gay men and women from Iran seeking refuge in the United Kingdom – and their problems with the Home Office – choke on their morning corn flakes.

“Iran Is Safe for ‘Discrete’ Gays, Says Jacqui Smith”, the headline in this morning’s The Independent informed us.

Robert Verkaik, the Indy’s legal editor who was the first to highlight in the ‘mainstream’ Press the plight of the then teenage gay Iranian Mehedi Kazemi, reported that Ms. Smith, the Home Secretary, had written to a Liberal Democrat Peer that gay and lesbian refuge-seekers can be safely deported to Iran as long as they live their lives “discreetly”.

Not only that, but she also said that there was no “real risk” of gay men and lesbians being discovered by the Iranian authorities or “adverse action” being taken against those who were “discreet” about their behaviour, Mr. Verkaik reported.

Frankly, we are wondering what planet Jacqui Smith is on.

No one expects Ms. Smith to know everything concerning her department. She has “advisors”, in the form of senior civil servants.

And as the TV series Yes Minister poignantly portrayed in every episode, these mandarins have a habit of getting their own way.

Perhaps the writer of the letter to the Peer was a Daily Mail-reading official who had never come across any of the background situation reports on Iran by likes of Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch.

Scott Long, the director of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Rights Program at Human Rights Watch, wrote in The Guardian on March 31 this year:

“The UK should recognise – as the Netherlands has done – that with a law prescribing death or torture for gay Iranians, they need not demonstrate the details of past persecution. Lift the burden of proof from Mehdi and his gay compatriots. End the threat of deportation.”

He also said that current policy of the Home Office “is a disastrous evasion of the UK's responsibilities under international law”.

To coincide with International Day Against Homophobia on May 17, Human Rights Watch added the Home Office to its annual “Hall of Shame” for its policy on the deportation of gay men and women back to less than sympathetic countries, often flouting international law.

The problem with the reasoning of the Home Office is that in all but one of the half dozen cases of gay Iranian men and women seeking refuge that UK Gay News knows about, arrived here having fled because the police were actually on their trail – and not for fearing that the police might one day be interested in their sexuality.

The one exception was Mr. Kazemi who was already in the UK completing his education on a student visa when he learned that his partner had been executed – but not before he had named Medhi.

Jacqui Smith, as the LGBT Greens suggest, is “playing a dangerous game” with the lives of gay Iranian refugees.

“Effectively she’s trying to rubbish the argument that LGBT people are being persecuted for their sexuality in Iran,” LGBT Greens spokesperson Phelim Mac Cafferty said this afternoon.

“Her claim that as long as people are ‘discreet’ a regime notorious for its treatment of LGBT people will somehow stop persecuting them is misled at best – and homicidal at worst.”

Campaigning group GayAsylumUK described the remarks by the Home Secretary in the letter to Lord Roberts as being “outrageous, shameful, inhumane and anti-gay”.

The astounding thing is that, almost four years ago Ms. Smith was in charge of steering the Civil Partnerships Bill through the House of Commons back in 2004 when she was the Women and Equality Minister.

UK Gay News would hazard a guess that Her Majesty’s Government is ‘running scared’ of the xenophobic and largely homophobic tabloid press when it comes to a fair policy on gay refuge seekers.

Who runs this country? The democratically elected Government, or the self-appointed tabloids that huff and puff – and are expert at creating mass hysteria?

Australia: Ali Humayun’s bid for freedom

Source: GreenLeft

Ali Humayun, a queer Pakistani, was recently granted permanent residency after spending more than three years locked up in Villawood Detention Centre. He made the following statement to Green Left Weekly on May 23.

In 2001 I arrived in Australia as a student at the University of Canberra College doing a bridging [English] course. I had to pay $48,000 in that first year, yet I didn’t need to do that course. I had to do it to be allowed into the university.

In 2001-03 I studied at the University of Canberra and paid $12,000 per year for a course in IT. That was just tuition fees! Living on campus cost an extra $2000 per semester — just for accommodation and utilities! All this money went to the university.

My studies became hard when I became depressed. In 2002 I had sex with a girl for the first time, which spun me out. I could not stop thinking about the sexual abuse I’d experienced back in Pakistan over many years and at the hands of many men. One was a Muslim cleric who took mass every Friday in my neighbourhood.

This depression made me totally dysfunctional and stopped me from finishing my studies, even though I was undergoing counselling at the university. The academic board said they were considering expulsion, since I had failed all subjects at the end of 2002, unless I was able to provide them with reasonable cause [to allow me to continue]. My psychiatrist and I wrote to them and explained my history of sexual abuse. The academic board approved my reasons and let me off the hook, but said next time there would be no consideration.

When I started studying in 2003 the head of the International Students Department spotted me on campus and called the immigration department. The head of the [International Students] Department would not accept the academic board’s pardon.

The immigration department interviewed me for 24 minutes, cancelled my student visa and put me on a Bridging E visa. The department didn’t look at documented evidence from the University of Canberra one tiny bit.

By the time I got locked up in Villawood, it was January 2005. I rang the Department of Immigration to get them to renew my student visa many times over those two years — they never got back to me. I applied for permission to work three or four times while on that Bridging E visa, but was rejected.

Of course, to support myself, I started working by the end of 2004. Then in early 2005 I was dobbed in by someone and immigration stuck me in Villawood. After they locked me up, they asked for $25,000 as bail for another Bridging E visa.

They said they would have let me out if I had that money, but I didn’t.

I was so depressed when I got into Villawood. On my birthday at the end of January I slashed my wrist, so they put me on suicide watch and fed me tonnes and tonnes of valium. I was placed in Bankstown Hospital in February where they pumped me with pills for two weeks. No counselling whatsoever.

Then, when I’d been in detention for three and a half months they used excessive force to send me to maximum security, Stage One. I stuck to a chair and demanded to know why. They nearly broke my arm getting me to Stage One. Two Global Solutions Limited (GSL) officials, my psychiatrist and two immigration officials came to talk to me, saying they’d got a letter saying I was going to escape, and that’s why I was put in maximum security.

I’d been on a cocktail of about a dozen prescription pills a day and they took me off all these pills. They also pulled my psychiatrist, who knew I had no intention of escaping.

A few months later, in Stage One, a GSL security guard offered me heroin to help me cope. That’s how I got introduced to heroin. Throughout the course of my detention GSL officers offered me — for money — ecstasy, alcohol and marijuana. Then I met Julio, who I had liked and admired. We got together and Julio convinced me to get off the gear.

Then a former detainee who was helped by Community Action Against Homophobia gave me an email [address], so I got in contact with CAAH. Activists came to visit and the campaign kicked off. [Greens senator] Kerry Nettle took up the case. She mentioned my case in parliament. We put my case in lots of media outlets.

Plenty of people kept on coming on board: [socialist youth organisation] Resistance, lots of members of the community. It became a really personal issue to a lot of people.

My release [from Villawood] came as a surprise. Protest action does work. My release is proof.

European Parliament votes for Mehdi + Pegah

Video of the debate in the EU Parliament is now online, this covers the cases of Afghan journalist Perwiz Kambakhsh as well as Mehdi Kazemi.

It includes a very impassioned contribution by London Conservative MEP John Bowis.

The debate speakers on Mehdi were:

• Jean Lambert (UK Greens),
• Marco Cappato (Italian Lista Emma Bonino)
• Eva-Britt Svensson (Swedish Green Left)
• Raül Romeva i Rueda (Spanish Green)
• Sophia in 't Veld (Netherlands Democrats 66.)
• Bernd Posselt (German CDU), speaking for the Group of the European People's Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats - they initially opposed and then abstained.
• John Bowis (UK Conservative)
  
• Mauro Mario (Italian from Forza Italia), he dissents from the Group of the European People's Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats line.
• and Eu Commissioner Louis Michel, who expresses strong agreement with Bowis.
  

The vote:

News update

Two other major US TV Channels have now covered Mehdi, CBS, using the Associated Press story, and ABC on their main evening bulletin. As has a Malaysian newspaper.

ABC Nightly News

Statement by European Greens

The Independent reports that Chris Huhne, the Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman, has written to Jacqui Smith to urge the Government to end the return of all gay asylum-seekers to Iran.

"It seems absolutely clear that any gay or lesbian person sent back to Iran is at risk of their lives. Such returns must be stopped."

The Indie also got the following quote out of the Home Office:

A Home Office spokeswoman confirmed Mr Kazemi had exhausted all his domestic avenues of appeal and could expect to be detained pending his deportation. But she added: "Any further representations will be considered on their merits taking into account all the circumstances."

The Times reminds people that:

[We] uncovered Foreign and Commonwealth Office papers in November that showed that the British Government regularly challenges Iran about its gay hangings.

2,691 signatures on the online petition by this morning.

Both Mehdi and Pegah's cases are being picked up by the international blogosphere. A few (English language) headlines, all from blogs with real and some big audiences:

Britain Sentences Lesbian to Iranian Death; Something for the multi-culti crowd to chew on; Miserable Lie; Gay teenager is facing gallows as his asylum; Iranian Teen faces deportation and death; Gays in Britain, 2008; Read These Now or Hangings Will Continue; Netherlands and UK Turning Their Backs; Now we know why there aren’t any homosexuals in Iran; A New Dark Age Is Dawning; Britain To Send Man Back To Iran To Be Hanged; Don't Ask, Don't Tell ... Do Die; A life or death decision; British don't give a fuck if Iranians kill you; UK Will Send Teenager to be Executed in Iran;

None of which will please either the British Council or the FCO, I would imagine ...

Interview with Peter Tatchell

MEP Urges ‘EU Returns Directive’ Debate to Help Gay Iranian Asylum Seekers

Image by helen.2006 via Flickr

Source: UK Gay News

An MEP has described as “simply unacceptable” the problem often faced by asylum seekers in UK, and other EU countries, in getting the truth of their cases heard.

Green Party Euro MP Jean Lambert (London) spoke out after reading the story of ‘Ramin’ on UK Gay News website.

“Ramin’s terrifying case highlights many of the problems and questions surrounding the whole asylum system in the UK,” she said.

“All too often I hear reports of asylum seekers, from a variety of countries and backgrounds, facing an uphill struggle to get the truth of their case heard through legal representation that is simply unacceptable.

“We know of a number of other countries, not just Iran, where a homophobic culture is supported and promoted and continues to threaten the lives of LGBT citizens.

“The UK Government should be understanding of this and give asylum seekers the chance to live a full life, without fear, until situations in their homeland positively improve.

“The Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs Committee in the European Parliament are currently discussing the proposed Returns Directive, which should safeguard our Human Rights and ensure everyone has a chance to live in safety,” she pointed out.

“There are however problems with the directive and I would urge everyone interested in the subject to get involved in the debate.

Jen Lambert, a member of the European Parliament’s Intergroup on gay and lesbian rights, also spoke out against the position in the Netherlands where Dutch Immigration Minister, Rita Verdonk, is considering lifting the ban on deporting gays back to Iran.

The ban in the Netherlands was put in place six months ago following reports of the execution of Iranians involved in homosexual conduct.  But Ms. Verdonk say that the government in Tehran has given assurances that there are no executions in Iran for being gay.

“It is extremely worrying that some EU countries are willing to ignore the advice of the Human Rights Watch and signs of danger in Iran,” she said.

“There is absolutely no excuse for a modern Europe to make allowances for those countries tolerating homophobic behavior and punishment and we must to take a stand against this no.” she insisted.

“The Netherlands has agreed, under the European Convention of Human Rights, not to deport any person whose life is deemed to be in danger.  With Iran’s criminal code stating that homosexual activities are punishable by torture, lashings and death as well as continuing reports of ill treatment whilst in police custody, the Dutch Government should not even be thinking of lifting such a ban.

“If we are serious about justice then we need to ensure Europe does not see homophobic acts as acceptable and continues to protect those with their lives in danger.

“It is also of concern that the Dutch Government will be returning those of Christian faith, who also believe they will be in danger.  I would urge the Government to change its position,” she concluded.