Gay Azerbaijani artist rejected by the UK wins asylum in France

Babi Badalov

By Paul Canning

The gay Azerbaijani artist Babi Badalov today received notice that he has been granted asylum by France, just over five years since he first fled for what he thought would be the sanctuary of the UK.

Badalov is an internationally renowned radical artist and poet whose work has been exhibited across Europe. It has been explicitly critical of the Azerbaijan government and prominent members of the present and past regimes there. His art and open homosexuality led to him suffering beatings and bullying over the years that left him with only eight teeth remaining and a number of mental health problems.

“Azerbaijan is one of many countries that wants to be a member of the European Parliament," Badalov says. "It wants to be an imitation of Europe, like Russia does, but in reality everything is rotting there, worse than it was in the Soviet Union.”

“I tried to exhibit my work called ‘Mister Musor’ [Mr. Garbage] a few times, where I am standing on a heap of garbage in Lenin’s pose."

“When the Azeri President died, they put his monuments everywhere — on every central street, on every central square — giant, hi-tech posters are everywhere, posters of Heydar Aliyev. The main street in every village is named after Heydar Aliyev, while all the rest are rotting. You walk ten meters [away from the main street] and it’s all sores. People live in shit, eat bones, die of hunger. But when [current President Ilham Aliyev, Heydar's son] visits, there’s a monument to his father, and everything is fine. Lenin has been resurrected.”

Homosexuality remains an extremely taboo subject in Azerbaijan, which is 99% Muslim. This led Badalov’s brothers to threaten to kill him because of the shame which he has brought on the family.

He was violently removed from the UK in 2008 after his asylum claim was rejected by then Home Secretary Jacqui Smith on the basis that he could go and live in another part of the country and keep his sexuality a secret. He hid underground in the Azerbaijani capital Baku for two days after his sister had warned him over the phone before his removal to never to come to the country again because of death threats from his brothers. As a result Badalov fled to St Petersberg.

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UK government to refugees and migrants: our permission no longer needed to marry

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

By Paul Canning

Migrants, refugees and asylum seekers, those who are successful as well as those awaiting a decision - anyone subject to British government 'immigration control' - will no longer have to ask permission from the Home Secretary to enter into a civil partnership.

The Home Office announced on Monday that following an adverse House of Lords decision in 2008 that the rule was contrary to the European Convention on Human Rights it would be going through parliament to abolish it - It had originally been imposed by then Home Secretary Jacqui Smith without the approval of Parliament - and therefore they expect the rule to come to an end "in late 2010 or early 2011, subject to Parliamentary scrutiny."

The government had argued that the rule was necessary because of so-called 'marriages of convenience' but applicants were never investigated "because it would be too expensive and administratively burdensome."

Bizarrely, the rule has never applied to anyone getting married within the Anglican Church - which discriminates against lesbians and gays as civil partnership ceremonies are prohibited in churches. It also meant that a substantial fee had to be paid. In its decision the lords had said of this:

It was plain that a fee fixed at a level which a needy applicant could not afford might impair the essence of the right to marry which was in issue. A fee of £295, or £590 for a couple both subject to immigration control, could be expected to have that effect.

Are Gay Iranians Being Deported from European Countries on ‘Erroneous Information’?

Source: UK Gay News commentary

Published earlier this month, a new report on information used by the UK Border Agency to make decisions on asylum cases found that reports on the situation for gays in Iran are “sub-standard or erroneous”.

And in the case of deporting gays back to Iran, and a few other countries, any mistake could well be lethal.

The report deals with the situation in the United Kingdom. But one wonders if there is a similar flaw in the Norwegian system where 40-years-old gay Iranian Asghar Hedayati could well be on the brink of deportation following his application for asylum six-and-a-half years ago.

From what he claims, he has had a number of appeals to the immigration department turned down. But he has not, he says, had his day in a court of law. Certainly, he has no access to a specialist immigration/asylum lawyer, he reports.

There is no way of checking on this as the Norwegian authorities are like the UK Border Agency inasmuch as individual cases are never discussed.

On their Website, LLH (Norwegian LGBT Association) wrote last November that “gay asylum seekers need protection”. The article, in Norwegian, which can be read HERE (in English through Google translator), addresses gay Iraqis and the problems they face with asylum applications in Norway.

But if there are major difficulties for Iraqis, it is fair to assume that it is the same for gay Iranians.

It could well be that gays seeking refuge in Norway from tyranny in their home country are in much the same position as those in the United Kingdom – they are playing a game of refugee roulette.

And “Refugee Roulette” is the title of a report produced by the UK Immigration Advisory Service (IAS) which found that recommendations from a previous review on improvements to use of Country of Origin Information (COI) had not been followed up.

COI is, of course, an important part of the refugee status determination process.

The IAS report noted that in the Iran COI report there is a paragraph that talks about “a park in Tehran where homosexuals can meet”. This paragraph is regularly relied upon to refuse a claim for protection on the basis that gays can exist ‘discretely’ in Iran.

This is something that does not quite tally with gay Iranians in Terhan who were filmed by a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation television news crew three years ago is this particular park. (The video report is no longer available on the CBC’s Website, but it is now on YouTube – links are at the end of this commentary).

Meeting other gays in this park is dangerous, CBC was told. One gay Iranian said on camera it was “suicidal”

Perhaps a copy of this video should be part of the COI folder on Iran?

In UK appeal cases, the paragraph on the park is often used – and has shown to be wrong, as has the translation of the Iranian law on homosexuality, which provides for the death penalty for ‘lavat’ (sodomy).

IAS says in its report that “this point still has not been rectified and exists in the Iran COI report of August 2009”.

In December the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC), the Iranian Queer Organization (IRQO), and COC of the Netherlands launched an appeal for twelve youths under sentence of death for ‘lavat’. Their statement noted that in Iran “rather than paying attention to evidence, the judge often sentences defendants to death based on his speculations”.

With the support of Pride London, an Iranian gay man recently won asylum in UK. Just a few days earlier he spoke of his plight and what it was like to be gay in Iran to a Pride London meeting.

However, his ‘victory’ was on appeal as the Home Office said he should be returned to Iran as he only needed to keep his head down, be “discrete and not show that he was gay”.

Spain recently accepted its first gay Iranian for asylum. He had been arrested and tortured for a week by Iranian police who shouted “fags, the next day we will kill you” at him.

Now Norway is preparing to deport Iranian gay man, Asghar Hedayati, on the same “be discrete” basis which forms the apparent Home Office/UK Border Agency policy.

The ‘discrete’ theory does seem to be an amazing thing for a government to say – and UK Gay News has been in two Home Office appeals tribunals and actuall heard the “judge” (not a real judge but a chairman, apparently appointed by the Home Office) say the very same thing.

The IRS Report says that the Home Office policy documents, which have country specific guidance on particular asylum seeking groups for decision makers, are “not monitored by an independent monitoring body and arguably selected on the basis of policy considerations”.

And it is not only gay men who are treated this way by the UK government. Gay women are, as well. Remember Pegah Emanbakhsh?

“[Refugee Roulette] underlines what case workers, lawyers and campaigners have been saying for years – the system is riddled with homophobia,” says Paul Canning of LGBT Asylum News.

“Both Phil Woolas and, previously, Jacqui Smith have said that it is safe to send gays back to Tehran so long as they are “discrete”. Now we have the evidence showing that the advice they based this on was thoroughly flawed.

“Given the situation in Iran, it is high time Ministers intervened and shook up the system.

“It is sheer hypocrisy for the government to trumpet the Foreign Office’s pro-LGBT human rights strategy at the same time as we are sending gay people back to death zones like Iran, “ he suggested.

As one former UK Home Secretary famously said, the Home Office is “not fit for purpose”. And rarely does a senior politician actually tell the truth.

The bottom line to the entire situation in the UK is that, when it comes to the way gay men and women who are seeking refuge from violent persecution – even incarceration for life or death – in their own country, the government is practicing a form of ‘mental torture’ on some applicants.

• Canandian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC): Out in Iran: Inside Iran's Secret Gay World. A 20-minute report, filmed mainly in Tehran, broadcast in the Sunday Night programme on February 18, 2007. From YouTube:  Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.
• “Now I Have Lost Hope” – Gay Iranian Who Faces Deportation from Norway in Hours. A forty-years-old gay Iranian is today facing deportation from Norway – and it could be in less than 48 hours. (UK Gay News, January 24, 2010)

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.

UK Border Agency shames our nation

Source: The Guardian

How many more damning reports about the treatment of asylum and immigration applicants will it take for the Home Office to act?

By David Ramsbotham, former HM chief inspector of prisons

Last week the HM chief inspector of prisons, Dame Anne Owers, published a short thematic review of gaps in the safeguards for immigration removal. It is but the latest exposure of the government's continued failure to clean up the way in which individual applicants for asylum or immigrant status are treated by the UK Border Agency (UKBA). It follows a dossier entitled Outsourcing Abuse, handed to the then home secretary Jacqui Smith just over a year ago on behalf of a number of organisations involved with immigration issues, containing details of 48 examples of excessive use of force by "escort" contractors, resulting in injuries to individuals. As a result, Dame Nuala O'Loan was commissioned to conduct an inquiry into the evidence, so far unpublished.

Last year also saw the publication of reports by the Independent Asylum Commission. One of its recommendations, all of which were shared with the UKBA before publication, was the elimination of the "culture of disbelief" – which seemed to colour official reaction either to individuals seeking asylum, or those who cite torture as a reason for not being returned to their country of origin. The fact that the shameful situation now exposed by Owers has been known to the government for some time seems to indicate that this "culture of disbelief" is still alive and well.

Winston Churchill famously said that the way in which a country treats its criminals is one of the most unfailing tests of civilisation. The most obvious way in which any country can judge the civilisation of another is by the way in which it treats its citizens. By this, many must place the UK very low down in the civilisation pecking order – and this should greatly concern anyone who cares about our international standing and reputation.

In recent years, immigration has become an emotional as well as an electoral issue, because of the numbers of people who seek sanctuary in this country; a level of demand which seems set to increase rather than decrease as the effects of climate change bite on less favoured locations. This is all the more reason for the government to put the UKBA house in order. There can be no excuse for delaying the elimination of conduct that borders on the criminal, practised in its name, particularly as so much detailed evidence has been available for so long.

I don't know what more can be done to encourage the government to get a move on. At least, it could set and publish the publication date of Dame Nuala O'Loan's report, together with a time-limited plan for the UKBA to act on the chief inspector's shaming exposures.

On the occasion of Jacqui Smith's retirement

By Babi Badalov

hi hitler!

lieben ist tres tres bien

mayn kamp face shining und ich been very smilsih frau

sil vu plai pour moi SEX PISTOLZ

Jacqui Smith to resign as Home Secretary

In a major victory for LGBT asylum, Ugandan John Bosco defeats the Home Office

By Paul Canning

Following an eight year ordeal the Ugandan gay asylum seeker John 'Bosco' Nyombi has finally won asylum in the UK.

Despite a well-documented media and government anti-gay campaign in Uganda, which has included articles and photos of Bosco, he was deported in September last year. The UK Border Agency making it usual claim that LGBT can be safe in such countries if only they are 'discreet'. However the method of his deportation, which involved deception, violence and rule breaking, led to a historic decision by a British court following which the Home Office was forced to return him to the UK in March, where he was immediately put into a detention centre due to an 'error'.

As Bosco feared for his safety if he was returned, and also because the Home Office might use any publicity about his case against him, a court ruling meant that subsequent media reports referred to him Mister X.

On his return to Uganda, Bosco had been dumped by UK officials with no support (LGBT asylum seekers are regularly returned without their mobile phones, clothing other than what's on their backs or other basic items or given any opportunity to put their affairs in order) and was arrested. He managed to escape after paying a bribe.

As his face and situation was known through the local media's anti-gay campaigning he went into hiding. Twice during this time he was caught by Ugandan police and put into prison where he was violently beaten by both staff and inmates because he is gay.

Bosco won his return because a judge Sir George Newman, said the Home Office was guilty of "a grave and serious breach" of the law. He had an outstanding judicial review but despite this he was deceived into a meeting at a removal centre where he was instead bundled into a van and taken to Gatwick airport.

At the airport, when he resisted leaving the van, he was handcuffed, punched in his private parts to make him straighten his legs so they could be belted together. Crying, he was lifted on to the plane and flown out of the country. (Jacqui Smith has ordered an inquiry into widespread reports of violence during removals).

His mobile phone had been taken from him and he was given no chance to contact friends or lawyers, even though Home Office rules required that he should have 72 hours' notice of removal to give him a chance to make calls.

Judge Newman said he was satisfied that Bosco was telling the truth and that the actions of the Border Agency officers were "deliberately calculated to avoid any complication that could arise from Mr Bosco 's removal becoming publicly known."

Lawyers for the Home Secretary conceded in court that his removal was carried out illegally. But they argued that flying him back to the UK was pointless because the 38-year-old was bound to lose the fresh asylum claim he now wanted to make.

Rejecting their arguments, Judge Newman said: "I find it impossible to conclude, on the basis of the evidence as it now is [Bosco's situation on returning to Uganda], that there is not the real possibility that a judge might find that he is at risk if he is returned (to his homeland) by reason of his homosexuality."

As with the Ugandan lesbian Prozzy Kazooza, who was raped and tortured by the police and won asylum last year, this has now proved to be the case.

Bosco, who is a graduate and former bank manager, will now be able to return to the job he had held for seven years as a carer supporting vulnerable adults in the community in Southampton. His job has been held open by staff who had previously testified to his outstanding work.

In an email to the author Bosco said:

I was worried to death not knowing where my future will be other than death but now I can put a smile on my face.

Please I ask you kindly to pass on my sincere love and word of thank you everyone you know that supported me and prayed for me.

I will never say Britain is bad because I will include those good people helped me but Just Home office as a department they tortured me and can't understand why they had to do this to me when I obeyed all the rules.

• gayasylumuk condemns "inhumane, anti-gay" Labour government
  
  
• Human Rights Watch adds Home Office to 'Hall of Shame'

Lying border guards to deport man twice

A gay asylum seeker may be deported from Britain for a SECOND time this month – days after being flown back under a High Court ruling.

As we reported in the Pink Paper last autumn, Mr X, as we have to refer to him due to reporting restrictions, was deported to his homeland after his application was rejected, despite homosexuality being illegal and punishable by life imprisonment there.

The Home Office insisted he could be returned there as long as he was “discreet” about his sexuality.

But last month the High Court ruled that officials had deported Mr X illegally, by deceiving him into thinking he was being taken to a detention centre when he was actually restrained and carried onto an aircraft.

In February, Judge Sir George Newman said the refugee’s removal was “manifestly unlawful” and ordered the home secretary, Jacqui Smith, to “use her best endeavours” to bring him back.

He said the UK Border Agency seemed to “deliberately mislead” Mr X and deprived him of his right to seek legal advice before his removal.

Yet, just days after being brought back to Britain under what appears to be a technicality, he faces a second deportation after his latest application was crushed.

The move was predicted by lawyers for the home secretary, who argued that flying him back to the UK was pointless as the 38-year-old was bound to lose the new claim.

Speaking exclusively to The Pink Paper from his safe house on the south coast of
England, Mr X spoke of his disappointment at the latest decision: “I don’t know what to do – I’m confused. I’m gutted and have been feeling so low. You start to feel bitter when just one word changes everything. I thought that maybe they would be fair to me after all this, but they are not.”

Mr X, who claims he was beaten up by Border Agency officials when he was deported from the UK, was assaulted upon his arrival in his homeland, where he spent several days in jail.

“I was arrested at the airport and taken to prison, which was horrendous,” he told us. “There were 156 people sat on the floor in one cell with no mats, no blankets and no running water.

“Everybody got to know about my case, so everyone was calling me names. People didn’t want to sleep next to me, everyone was just looking at me like I should be dead. It was awful. The police were saying that being gay is a European characteristic. I couldn’t give any answer as it’s not a matter of copying gay things – it’s who I am.”

When Pink Paper contacted the Home Office, they refused to comment on the case because – as a rule – they don’t respond on individual cases. However, they did say: “We have a proud tradition of offering protection to those who need it. We are committed to a fair and compassionate asylum system. Crucially we have independent oversight from Courts. We will not remove anyone who has outstanding in-country appeal rights.”

Mr X has two weeks to appeal the decision.

Source

UK ordered to bring back gay asylum seeker illegally deported

The High Court has ordered the Home Secretary to secure the return of a gay man forcibly removed from the UK to his native country.

A judge condemned the failed asylum seeker's removal as "manifestly unlawful" and ordered Jacqui Smith to "use her best endeavours" to bring him back.

The judge warned that the practising homosexual, Mr X, and his homeland must not be named because he fears persecution and is in hiding.

The judge said it appeared to him that officers of the UK Border Agency, which is responsible for controlling migration, had "deliberately misled" Mr X and effectively deprived him of his right to seek legal advice before his removal.

Their actions were calculated "to avoid any complication that could arise from his removal becoming publicly known", said the judge.

In a statement seen by the court Mr X said that, last September, he was deceived into thinking he was being taken from Tinsley House immigration removal centre, located on the perimeter of Gatwick Airport, for an interview with an immigration officer.

Instead, without warning, he was taken in a van by four security men to a plane.

He said that when he resisted leaving the van he was handcuffed, punched in his private parts to make him straighten his legs so they could be belted together. Crying, he was lifted on to the plane and flown out of the country.

His mobile phone had been taken from him and he was given no chance to contact friends or lawyers, even though Home Office rules required that he should have 72 hours' notice of removal to give him a chance to make calls.

Lawyers for the Home Secretary conceded in court that his removal was carried out illegally.

But they argued flying him back to the UK was pointless because the 38-year-old was bound to lose the fresh asylum claim he now wanted to make.

Rejecting the submission, High Court deputy judge Sir George Newman ruled that the illegal actions of the UK Border Agency in removing him were "grave and serious", and justice required his return.

The judge said: "Justice requires he should, if possible, be brought back to this country so that he can make his claim as effectively as he can.

"Without hesitation, I exercise my discretion to grant the claimant a mandatory order that the Secretary of State should use her best endeavours to secure his return to the UK."

If returned, Mr X is expected to launch a claim for damages against the Government over his illegal treatment.

The judge described how he first arrived in the UK in September 2001 and worked here for some seven years before being earmarked for removal after the failure of his original asylum claim.

He had argued he feared persecution because his native country discriminated against homosexuals and he could be subjected to violence and ill treatment.

An unsuccessful attempt to remove him was made in the early hours of September 14 last year. The attempt was abandoned after he protested and refused to cooperate, saying that he was not aware of the response to fresh legal representations made on his behalf by the Refugee Legal Centre.

This somehow became known to the newspapers in the country to which he was due to be returned, said the judge.

The Refugee Legal Centre argued on his behalf that there was new evidence that he could face persecution.

But, without anybody's knowledge, arrangements were made to force his removal on September 18.

UK Border Agency officials took the "wrong-headed" decision that the new removal instructions did not trigger a fresh 72-hour notice period, said the judge.

They also wrongly thought Mr X was not entitled to notice in view of his "disruptive" behaviour when he resisted removal four days earlier.

The judge said agency officers must have known the 72-hour requirement was designed to provide an opportunity for a person being removed to have access to a lawyer for legal advice and possibly for the courts to become involved in the case.

The judge ruled that Mr X's account of how he was deceived and forced on to a plane with no chance to contact anyone was "credible".

He said he was also satisfied that the actions of the Border Agency officers were "deliberately calculated to avoid any complication that could arise from Mr X's removal becoming publicly known."

The judge added: "It seems to me they deliberately misled him to avoid him making any contact with the Refugee Legal Centre."

Mr X said in a statement seen by the court that, on his return to his homeland, his circumstances had become "quite desperate".

He had been beaten up during a period in detention and he had now gone into hiding to avoid being interviewed by the police about his homosexuality.

The judge said the evidence before him made it perfectly plain that Mr X had come to the notice of the authorities, and this had added to the risk of his human rights being breached by reason of his homosexuality.

He rejected the Home Secretary's argument that there was no point in him returning to the UK to pursue his asylum application.

The judge said: "I find it impossible to conclude, on the basis of the evidence as it now is, that there is not the real possibility that a judge might find that he is at risk if he is returned (to his homeland) by reason of his homosexuality."

Another shameful expulsion by UK Home Office

A gay Iraqi man due for deportation tomorrow has been told by the UK Border Agency to conduct his relationships "in private" on his return to Iraq, where homosexuality is punishable by death.

Campaign group Iraqi LGBT says the asylum seeker will become the seventh gay Iraqi to be returned to the country by the UK, despite the country being one of only nine in the world where homosexual people are executed.

Though a ruling was made in September 2007 allowing two gay Iraqis to remain in the UK, campaigners working on behalf of the man facing deportation tomorrow say his case was held too long ago to benefit from the change in case law achieved in 2007.

Keith Best, the director of the Immigration Advisory Service, told the Guardian that the government ought to give the asylum seeker a fresh hearing.

The United Kingdom Border Agency (UKBA) has said that the man's homosexuality did not form the basis of his original asylum application in 2001 and that his subsequent conviction for seeking to stay in the country illegally makes him an untrustworthy defendant, undermining his claim to be gay.

Sarah Teather, the Liberal Democrats' housing spokeswoman, who is the Iraqi's MP, is perplexed by a recommendation from the UKBA that the Iraqi conduct his relationships in private.

The document says: "Even if your client's homosexuality were to be established it is viewed that it would be possible for your client to conduct such relationships in private on his return to Iraq. This would allow your client to express his sexuality, albeit in a more limited way than he could do elsewhere."

Teather, the MP for Brent East, said: "Immigration ministers need to show some humanity. If this deportation goes ahead there is a terrible risk that this man will be killed. How can we possibly claim to be a country that values human rights if we are willing to endanger a life in this way?"

Best said: "This is an incredible position. They [the UKBA] cannot say that on the one hand they do not believe him to be homosexual and then recommend ways in which he can cover up his homosexuality."

In September 2007 two gay victims of attempted assassination attempts by Shia Islamist death squads in Iraq were granted asylum in the UK after having their initial applications turned down by the Home Office despite compelling evidence of homophobic persecution.

That case overturned the claim that national governments did not recognise homophobic persecution as a legitimate ground for asylum under the 1951 refugee convention.

Homosexuality has been punishable by death in Iraq since 2001, when Saddam Hussein's government amended the country's penal code. The move was thought to be an overture to the country's Islamic conservatives, whose support Saddam latterly tried to win.
Iraqi LGBT says that more than 430 gay men have been murdered in Iraq since 2003. Safe houses are reported to operate in Baghdad in which some 40 young gay men hide.

The asylum seeker is scheduled to leave the UK tomorrow on an 8.30am flight but this may be delayed since the government has yet to reply to the representations made on his behalf and he cannot be deported until that point.

Source

WHAT YOU CAN DO

Email Jacqui Smith.

Support Iraqi-LGBT

The immediate urgent priority is to Support and Donate Money to LGBT activists in Iraq in order to assist their efforts to communicate information about the wave of homophobic murders in Iraq to the outside world.

Funds raised will also help provide LGBTs under threat of honour killing with refuge in the safer parts of Iraq (including safe houses and food), and assist efforts help them seek asylum abroad. Donations to Iraqi LGBT are not tax-deductible for income tax purposes.

Investigation into claims of abuse on asylum-seekers

By Robert Verkaik, Law editor

Claims by hundreds of asylum-seekers that they have been beaten or abused by British guards during their detention and removal from this country are to be independently investigated for the first time, The Independent has learnt.

The Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, has appointed Nuala O'Loan, the former Police Ombudsman of Northern Ireland, to conduct an investigation into mistreatment allegations first reported in this paper last year. Dame Nuala, who won praise and criticism from Catholics and Protestants for her robust style in dealing with complaints against the police and led the inquiry into the handling of the Omagh bombing, has been given a wide remit to reopen cases of alleged brutality. She has also been asked to report on any failures of a system that allows private security guards to use "reasonable force" in restraining asylum-seekers.

The Home Secretary's intervention follows the publication of a detailed report in July that revealed nearly 300 cases of alleged physical assault and racial abuse in the past four years. The report, entitled Outsourcing Abuse, raised concerns about the control and use of private security firms in the detention and deportation of some of the most vulnerable people in British society.

Nearly 50 of the complainants contacted by the researchers and lawyers gave permission for the Government to reinvestigate or begin fresh investigations into their claims. Their names have been passed to the UK Border Agency.

Last night, the authors of the report welcomed Dame Nuala's appointment. Emma Ginn, of Medical Justice, which helps victims of abuse, said: "The Home Office had previously described allegations as 'unsupported assertions'. We note their change of tone now that national and global organisations have picked up on the issue."

Romain Ngouabeu, of the National Coalition of Anti-Deportation Campaigns, added: "We continue to get allegations of assaults, including one on the day we published our report."

Diane Abbott, Labour MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington, said last night: "I am very pleased to hear that Nuala O'Loan has been appointed to look into the allegation of abuse against immigrant. This is an incredibly serious matter that deserves nothing less than the most rigorous of investigations. I look forward to the results of the investigation – both in terms of justice being done and in terms of a concrete improvement in the way immigrants are treated while being detained or deported."

Many of the allegations, often supported by medical evidence, concern the use of excessive force in the removal of failed asylum-seekers on a scheduled flight. In some cases, pilots have refused to take off while the refugee is still on board, citing concerns for the safety of passengers.

Noreen Nafuna, a 38-year-old Ugandan woman, came to the UK three years ago after claiming to have been detained and beaten by the Ugandan army. Her application for asylum was turned down and she was held at Yarl's Wood removal centre in Bedfordshire before being taken to Gatwick by private security guards employed by the Home Office.

"I was carried up to the plane. I started screaming when I was brought to the top of the stairs. I was only wearing underpants and a bra. A jacket was placed over my neck and I was held around the neck so I couldn't make a noise."

In her complaint about her treatment, Ms Nafuna recounts: "Two of them sat on me. One of them placed her hands over my mouth to stop me shouting out. I was finding it hard to breathe. The plane was not full of passengers. A lady in a red suit came up with another woman. I heard her ask if I was still alive as I had stopped moving or making any sounds. They got off me then so I sat up. I was crying again. Then other passengers became aware of what was going on and told the officers to leave me alone. Everyone saw me bleeding. Eventually they called the pilot and he came up and said, 'We are not taking her.'"

Her complaint was eventually upheld by the Home Office after her legal action for assault was settled by the security company.

In another case, HM, a 16-year-old girl from Rwanda who claimed asylum after coming to Britain as a sex-trafficking victim, says she was assaulted by guards who removed her from a shower unit in a detention centre. She says she suffered bruising when she was handcuffed from behind in a semi-naked state and taken to a holding cell. Her claim was investigated and dismissed by the Home Office, although there was criticism of the way the guards had handled her.

The Home Office says that it properly investigates all complaints of such a nature but it does not recognise the large numbers contained in the report.

*In July last year, RH, an asylum-seeker from Burundi, was taken from his room in a detention centre by immigration escorts. He was handcuffed, and his legs were crossed at the ankle before being tied together with tape.

After struggling on his way to a van bound for Heathrow, he says he was beaten and kicked by the escorts before being dragged half-naked on to the plane. During the alleged assault, his handcuffs caused him to incur severe injuries to his wrists which were clearly visible.

The pilot came to investigate, and told the escorts he would not fly Mr RH out of the country in his current physical state. Other cases include that of Amos Alajaibo, a Nigerian who says he was beaten unconscious by guards after admitting he had talked to the media during a protest, and an Algerian man who was allegedly assaulted while in a wheelchair.

Suren Khachatryan, an Armenian, suffered a punctured lung after allegedly being stamped on by his immigration escorts in the back of a security van. Another detainee said he was "bound up like a parcel" by officials trying to force him on to a deportation flight. None of these complaints has been upheld.

Source

Outsourcing Abuse

A strange sympathy

Rhetoric about victims of Mugabe sits ill with the reality we Zimbabweans seeking asylum find here

By Yeukai Taruvinga

When I tell ordinary British people that I came to this country from Zimbabwe to seek asylum because of Robert Mugabe's government, they are always sympathetic. They see the humanitarian crisis, the old people and children dying of cholera - the UN reported yesterday that there were more than a thousand dead and another 20,000 sufferers. They see on the news night after night what Mugabe is doing to my country. And they see the continuing human rights crisis and how he treats those who oppose him.

Hopes were raised when Mugabe agreed to a power-sharing government with the leader of the Movement for Democratic Change, Morgan Tsvangirai. But it is evident that human rights are still not being respected. In the last two weeks prominent human rights defenders have been abducted by groups suspected of having government links. These include Jestina Mukoko, the director of the Zimbabwe Peace Project, who has not been seen since she was taken from her home on 3 December.

British politicians have expressed great sympathy towards Zimbabweans. Just last week Gordon Brown said that "we must stand together to defend human rights and democracy, to say firmly to Mugabe that enough is enough", and that it was "our duty" to support the aspirations of the Zimbabwean people. David Cameron has described Zimbabwe as the most important issue in the world today and has pressed for wider sanctions and a rescue package for the Zimbabwean people. And David Miliband has said that, "Zimbabwe's crisis is one that the world has a responsibility to respond to."

It is good to hear all this, but how does it translate into action? It is easy to condemn a government from afar. But if politicians really believe that Mugabe is illegitimate, that his repression of his own people is the most important issue in the world today, why do they behave as they do to his victims?

I got involved in supporting the opposition party when I was a student. Like many MDC supporters, I was beaten up by Mugabe's Zanu-PF thugs when I went to meetings and rallies. When they wrote threats on the walls of my family's house, my mother decided that I should leave the country.

I believed that I would be safe when I came here seven years ago, at the age of 18. When I stepped foot on English soil and claimed asylum, I did not realise that I was in for a long battle. I have been detained - imprisoned - for two and a half months, simply because I claimed asylum. I have been moved between three different detention centres, and taken without notice from Colnbrook at Heathrow, to Yarl's Wood in Bedford to Dungavel in Scotland.

You feel extremely helpless in such places: it is almost impossible to stay in touch with friends or your lawyer, and you believe that anything could happen to you and nobody would know about it. Although suspected terrorists cannot be held without trial for more than 28 days, I was locked up for more than 60 days. In Dungavel at that time there were only half a dozen women and hundreds of foreign criminals awaiting deportation. It was terrifying just to walk around the centre.

It seems to me that political leaders are reluctant to do anything to help those who make their way here. Last week Jacqui Smith said that the government's priority was to ensure that Zimbabwean refugees did not use false passports in order to get to this country. She did not say that refugees should find a fair system when they arrive.

I am still not safe. I have not been given refugee status. After my release from detention I was not allowed benefits nor allowed to work. This is the government's policy of destitution; if you have failed in your asylum claim, then you are forced to live without support. I rely on handouts and gifts from churches and friends, even for the bed I sleep in and the soap I wash with. Most of the people who help me are asylum seekers or refugees themselves, because they understand what it's like.

It is humiliating: not only can I not work, but I cannot study or learn. I am worried about the impact this is going to have on my future. I want to study and work, so that when Mugabe is toppled I and my fellow activists can be the backbone of the new country that will arise from the ashes. But all avenues are blocked to me to grow and give back to society. It is strange that this country, which expresses such sympathy for Zimbabwe's people, condemns its refugees to this kind of life - which is no life at all.

• Yeukai Taruvinga is not allowed to work; the fee for this article has been donated to Women Asylum Seekers Together in London, which she chairs

Source

• refugeewomen.com

Labour reneges on gay asylum pledge

By Peter Tatchell

Harriet Harman fails to intervene to stop Babi Badalov's deportation

"New complaint procedure is worthless," says Tatchell

London – 22 September 2008

"Government ministers Harriet Harman and Barbara Follett have reneged on their undertaking to intervene in cases where LGBT asylum seekers are being unfairly treated by the Home Office," said Peter Tatchell of the LGBTI human rights group OutRage!

"The deportation of Babi Badalov shows that the complaints mechanism is worthless," he said.

Mr Tatchell was commenting on the ministers' failure to respond to his requests to halt the deportation on Saturday 20 September of gay asylum claimant Babi Badalov, who fled homophobic persecution in Azerbaijan.

"Deporting Mr Badalov back to Azerbaijan was heartless and reckless. His life is now in danger," added Mr Tatchell.

"Babi was deported, despite being in the process of filing a new asylum claim with fresh evidence. This new evidence includes threats to kill him by one of his brothers, on the grounds that he had bought shame to his family by being gay. There are also new witness statements detailing Babi's history of homophobic persecution in Azerbaijan.

"The Azerbaijani police are unable to protect him.

"In these circumstances, his removal should have been put on hold until he had an opportunity to put forward his new evidence to an asylum tribunal," said Mr Tatchell.

In a letter today to ministers Harman and Follett, Mr Tatchell writes:

"At my meeting with you in the Cabinet Office on 3 September, you agreed to establish a mechanism whereby I could report abuses and you would take action to put them right. But you have not fulfilled this pledge.

"I sent your office an email about the asylum claim of Babi Badalov on 18 September, requesting that you make representations to the Border Agency and Home Secretary to defer his deportation pending an asylum tribunal hearing to consider Babi's fresh claim based on new evidence.

"I made the case in my email, and by phone, to your staff; urging that the Home Office should not pre-judge that Babi's fresh evidence was flawed. I requested the Home Office to use its discretionary powers to give him a new asylum hearing where he could have his fresh evidence properly scrutinised and assessed by an adjudicator. To remove Babi without such a hearing would, I argued, be a denial of natural justice - and a violation of the principles of fairness which the Border Agency claims it upholds.

"I specifically requested by email and phone that you intervene to halt to Babi's removal.

"From what I was told late on Friday 19 September by Hannah Gregory, Camelia Thomas and Maggie McNally, you declined to make any representations to the relevant government ministers - Jacqui Smith and Liam Byrne - even though they were easily accessible to you at the Labour Party conference.

"I do not know or understand why you apparently ignored my request and sat on your hands, but it looks like a betrayal of the trust and commitment that I thought we had established at our meeting on 3 September.

"I came to that meeting willing to put the government's past failings on LGBT asylum issues to one side. I wanted to work with you to get things right.

"Now, at the first hurdle, those hopes are in ruins.

"Perhaps you could suggest how we might put the hopeful conclusions of our 3 September meeting back on track?

"I am still willing to engage and seek solutions, which must in future include some fail-proof mechanism for halting the unfair treatment of genuine LGBT refugees," concludes Mr Tatchell's letter.


This is Peter Tatchell's 18 September email to the Cabinet Office, requesting the assistance of Harriet Harman and Barbara Follet, to get Babi's deportation suspended:

The Cabinet Office
Women and Equality Minister, Harriet Harman MP

18 September 2008

Hi Andrew Tsolaki, Hannah Gregory and Maggie McNally,

URGENT ACTION - Babi Badalov - due for deportation this Saturday

When I recently met Harriet Harman, she and Barbara Follett said they would examine and assist the correction of any unfair treatment of LGBT asylum applicants.

Well, here is such a case and I need your help.

Babi Badalov, a gay asylum claimant from Azerbaijan, is due for deportation this Saturday 20 September at around 8pm on Azerbaijan Airlines flight J20008 from Heathrow. He is currently detained at Campsfield Immigration Removal Centre.

He is scheduled for deportation despite him being in the process of filing a new asylum claim with fresh evidence. This new evidence includes one of his brothers threatening to kill him on grounds that he had shamed the family by being gay. There are also new witness statements detailing Babi's history of violent, homophobic persecution in Azerbaijan.

In these circumstances, his removal should be put on hold until he has an opportunity to put forward this new evidence to an asylum tribunal.

I hope you agree.

Babi is an internationally-renowned poet and artist.

I would urge Harriet and Barbara to make immediate representations to the Home Secretary or Border Agency Minister to halt Mr Badalov's deportation, pending consideration of his fresh claim based on new evidence.

Can you please liaise between yourselves and confirm to me that this will be done?

Can you also advise me when Mr Badalov's removal has been halted and how long he will be granted to prepare a new claim?

My sincere appreciation.

Please phone me if you wish to discuss this case.

Many thanks, Peter Tatchell

Call to protest Labour conference

The John Bosco Nyombi Anti Deportation Campaign has called for next weeks' Labour Party conference in Manchester to be used to put pressure on the government about LGBT asylum.

Campaign spokesperson Simon Magorian told PinkNews.co.uk that "maximum pressure should be brought to bear for a radical rethink on asylum policy."

Magorian added, following the refusal of asylum to Nyombi:

"The situation in Uganda has been deteriorating rapidly for the last two years."

"To expect people to remain obsessively secret about their sexuality is not reasonable but it does not even stand up on its own merits."

The government has argued to deported LGBT asylum seekers can be "discreet".

"This argument is palpably absurd," said Magorian.

"Now there are Ugandan newspapers like Red Pepper which print the names and addresses of gays and lesbians and demands action is taken against them."

"A protester at the recent conference on HIV was arrested and tortured by the police. The Prime Minister makes speeches demanding the campaign against homosexuals is stepped up."

"Ministers demand that they be subjected to life imprisonment, the maximum penalty under the Ugandan Penal code."

"The persecution of lesbians and gay men in Uganda is state led and executed by the forces of the state."

Magorian said that British government decisions are now predicated on refusing the maximum number of asylum applications.

He also drew attention to the case of Ugandan lesbian asylum seeker Prossy Kakooza.

"She was handed over to the police by her own family and was raped and tortured by the police," he said.

"British government officials have been refusing her asylum claim on the basis that they were 'the random action of individuals'."

"This would be a defensible argument if the men in question had been prosecuted by the authorities. They have not."

"I would like to urge everyone to write to their MPs and newspapers and raise it with their community groups.

"Please make representations to the Home Secretary Jacqui Smith."

Sources includes PinkNews.co.uk

Babi Badalov detained

The Azerbaijani artist and gay asylum seeker Babi Badalov has been detained and has been given deportation directions for this coming Saturday.

Campaigners are urgently seeking the intervention of his local MP, which they believe will stop the deportation.

Babi's campaign has already gained the support of writer and playwright Patrick Jones, Leane Wood AM, Bethan Jenkins AM, Chris Bryant MP, Cardiff Council Leader Rodney Berman and Deputy Leader Neil McEvoy.

A demonstration is also being urgently organised. A campaign organiser wrote to me that, "I've never seen him, or anyone for that matter, looking so scared".

When he was informed that he was going to be detained and deported Babi responded by saying “I feel sick”

To which the UK Border agent told him “well you make us sick, you're going back where you belong.”

As a result of beatings and bullying over the years Babi has only eight teeth remaining and suffers from a number of mental health problems.

Since arriving in Cardiff in December 2006, Babi has engaged fully with various parts of the local community and has made many friends in his new home. He is still producing poetry, is writing a book about his art/gay life experiences and is also working on a film addressing the rise of Muslim fundamentalism. This latter work, as well as many other aspects of his art, would of course be impossible in Azerbaijan.

For the first time in his life, Babi felt happy and safe in Cardiff. He felt able to openly express himself artistically, politically and with regard to his sexuality, without associated feelings of fear, shame and imminent repression.

Babi is under open threat of death by 'honour killing' but Jacqui Smith believes he can be 'discreet'.

What you can do to help Babi stay

Use this model campaign letter to copy/amend or write your own letter to the Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, asking her to allow Babi to stay safe in Cardiff.

Hand-written letters can be more effective, if you have the time. Remember to quote the Home Office ref. number: B1234623

Send to:

Rt Hon Jacqui Smith MP
Secretary of State for the Home Department
3rd Floor Peel Buildings
2 Marsham Street
London
SW1P 4DF

• Fax: 020 8760 3132 (00 44 20 8760 3132 if you are faxing from outside UK)
  E-mail: jacqui.smith@homeoffice.gov.uk
• Sign the online petition here: http://www.petitiononline.com/badalov/petition.html
• Collect signatures using this Babi campaign petition
• Distribute information about the campaign using the Babi campaign flyer

Please send any copies of letters/faxes to:

Friends of Babi Badalov
c/o Refugee Voice Wales
389 Newport Road
Cardiff
CF24 1TP

keep_babi_safe_in_cardiff@yahoo.co.uk

Insight: the hell of the asylum seeker

The Azerbaijani gay asylum seeker Babi Badalov last week sent out a plea to friends reflecting his appalling situation, caught in the fifth richest country in the world, between destitution and possible honor killing (actually more than possible, his relatives have already made threats). A situation which the Home Office, backed by the Daily Mail etc. considers 'civilised'.

Babi is currently trying to get his case reviewed having been turned down on the basis that he can be 'discreet' once he's 'sent back' (a passive way of describing what will actually happen to this remarkable artist). This is Labour. This is the direction they give to so-called 'independent' judges in asylum cases. Tell them they can be 'discreet'. One face to foreign gay people, another to British ones. 'Be open'/be discreet'. What is it Labour?

I'm sharing this plea from the heart to cut through the chaff and get to the heart of the matter. Jacqui Smith and our government are perfectly content to effectively torture tens of thousands of such people, gay and straight, old and young, in our name.

Well, not in mine.

The Nigerian gay preacher which Babi refers to is the gay Nigerian Anglican church rebel Davis Mac-Iyalla who - indeed - was granted asylum in record time. Good on Davis, but it stinks of hypocrisy.

Yes, it is capitalised and - in the original - in large text. AKA screaming.

HELL-OO HOMEOFFICBASHI JACKGUI SMITH HEAD UNITED KINGDOME MINISTRY INTERNAL AFFAIRS
I AM TIRED TIRED OF PAIN YOU GIVING ME
IT WAS 47 years ENOUGH PAIN HORROW LIFE FOR ME BACK IN MY COUNTRY
A NOW YOU MORALLY TORTURING ME
FOR 2 YEARS
HOW MUCH I SHOULD CONTINIE LIVE WORRY SCARY LIFE HERE
EVERYDAY I AM INTO FEAR
EVERYDAY I AM UNHAPPY WITH HAPPY LIFE AROUND ME
EVERYDAY I HAVE FEAR OF POST MAN WILL DELIVER TERRIBLE NEWS LETTER TO ME FROM HOME OFFICE
EVERY TUESDAY I GO SIGNING I FEEL I WILL GET HEART ATTACK
MY KNEES ARMS FEEL LIKE ELECKTRICAL SHOCK
I AM TERRIBLE AFFRAID THEY WILL DETAINE ME
WHERE I AHVE BEEN ALREADY 32 DAYS IN 4 DIFFERENT DETENTION CENTER AND THEY KEEP ME 3DAYS MORE AGINST LAW DUE TRANSPORT DIDNT COME
YOU GRANTED NIGERRIAN GAY PREACHER IN RECORD TIME
HE IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN ME
YOU MAKE SOME VERY HAPPY SOME KEEP UNHAPPY INTO WORRY FEAR
HELLO MISS SMITH
DO YOU NOW THAT I AM 49YEARS OLD
I HAVE NOT STRONG HEALTH AND WEAK HEART
DO YOU WANT ME DIED HERE?
I VERY HATE THIS INJUSTIC WORLD!!!

Do something
Home Office email (always note Babi's Home Office reference number: B1234623)
public.enquiries@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk
indpublicenquiries@ind.homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk

Any support will go on Babi's case file.

Petition