Australia's refugee bureaucrats have strange ideas about gays and lesbians

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By Senthorun Raj

When did clubbing and being sexually active become the reference points for measuring someone’s sexuality? Recent decisions by the Department of Immigration and Citizenship (DIAC) and the Refugee Review Tribunal (RRT) suggest that Western cultural stereotypes prevail in the determination of sexuality-based asylum claims.

The Refugee Convention 1951 outlines that asylum seekers must demonstrate a well-founded fear of persecution on the basis of a protected ground to be considered a refugee. The protected categories include ethnicity, nationality, religion, social group or political opinion. In Australian law, sexuality, or specifically "homosexuality", has been considered a protected identity under the category of "social group" since Morato’s case in the Federal Court in 1992.

Historically, claims made by sexual minorities have been met with resistance from decision-makers who have argued that persecution can be avoided if the asylum seeker chooses to remain "discreet". Stereotypes underlying the need for discretion are predicated on the assumption that gay men are excessively promiscuous, often seeking sex in public, and dangerous to the mores of society. These social imaginaries characterise any form of public affection as indicative of "overt sexual activity" that should be "rightly" condemned.

A 1999 case concerned a Chinese asylum seeker who was beaten and detained for three months for kissing another man in public. The Federal Court sought to dismiss the claim on the basis that Gui lacked appropriate discretion with respect to Chinese cultural norms and ought to have engaged in his display of homosexuality privately. In 2003 these discretion tests were rejected by the majority of the High Court — but the moralising rhetoric that underpins the so-called need for discretion continues to haunt current decisions.

Conversely, female applicants often face the opposite problem. Their claims are deemed to lack credibility because they do not conform to a highly visible stereotype of public promiscuity and consumption. In a 2008 case, a female applicant from Mongolia was questioned because her experiences of intimacy were not highly public or visible. The judge said:

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US State Dept human rights report picks up LGBT asylum issues in UK

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By Paul Canning

The 35th annual human rights report of the US State Department has picked up on "significant disadvantages" experienced by LGBT asylum seekers in the UK.

In launching the report April 8 Secretary of State Hillary Clinton drew particular attention to the report’s identification of abuses against LGBT people internationally:

“Because I believe, and our government believes, that gay rights are human rights, we remain extremely concerned about state-sanctioned homophobia,” Clinton said.

She hoped that the reports which cover every country bar the US itself would "give comfort to the activists, will shine a spotlight on the abuses, and convince those in government that there are other and better ways.” They may also be used to bar aid to certain countries if the US Congress passes recently introduced legislation.

Mark Bromley, chair of the Council for Global Equality, told the Washington Blade that Clinton has made LGBT rights one of the State Department's top priorities. Expanded coverage of LGBT rights was begun last year but the 2010 reports show patchy coverage across Africa and the Middle East.

State Department interest in LGBT asylum

The UK report cited last year's Stonewall report 'No Going Back' and pulled out for mention its identification of the "fast tracking" of LGBT asylum claims, repeating Stonewall's finding that LGBT have complex cases and in "denying them quickly, UKBA staff did not give applicants time to talk openly about their sexual orientation."

Home Office Minister Damien Green told the House of Commons in February that the government did not accept that sexual orientation asylum claims are complex and therefore would not exclude them from 'fast track', as it does other types of cases.

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In Mongolia, gays assaulted, police do nothing

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Source: Mongolia LGBT Centre

Two killings in as many months have shocked Mongolian LGBT community.

A gay male of forty to fifty years of age who went by a nickname S. in the community, a dentist by profession who had a practice in Zuunkharaa town, Selenge province, was found brutally murdered sometime in January 2011. Although the murder took place over two and a half months ago, no definitive headway has been made in the case, and no reports of investigation have been made public.

Another member of the community, an HIV positive bisexual male E. of forty to forty five years of age, one of the founders of a community-based non-governmental organisation working for HIV positive people, went missing at the end of February 2011. According to the reports from the community, his mutilated body was found on 24 or 25 March 2011: his right hand was cut off and his body was burnt.

Although it is obvious that these are hate crimes, police questioned only gay and bisexual males in the city in relation to the latest murder as the gay and bisexual males are immediately considered automatic suspects in such cases.

The OSCE definition of hate crime is clear: they are "criminal offences carried out against people or their property because of their real or perceived connection, attachment, affiliation, support or membership of a group. A group may be based upon characteristics such as real or perceived race, national or ethnic origin, religion, mental or physical disability, sexual orientation, or other similar factor".

Hate crimes are devastating in their effects since they instill terror and fear in the targeted community. Mongolia has no legal definition of hate crimes, nor are there anti-hate crime legislations.

Related articles

• Mongolia LGBT Centre and Jeff Sharlet Receive Prestigious LGBT Human Rights Award (iglhrc.org)
• An LGBT Centre in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia (bilerico.com)

Have Mongolian LGBT made a breakthrough?

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Source: eurasianet.org

By Pearly Jacob

When 25-year-old Zaya first discussed her attraction for women with her sister after breaking up with a girlfriend two years ago, she never expected the violence that followed.

During a heated argument at the family home in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia’s sprawling capital, her sister shouted at their father that his youngest daughter was a “pervert” and a lesbian. “When he heard this, my father beat me up so bad I had bruises and cuts all over my face and my back and could barely move. After this I left home to live with a friend,” Zaya recalled.

Her father eventually apologized to her but asked her to promise she wasn’t a lesbian. “So I told him I wasn’t and went back home. I’ve been living a lie with my father ever since.”

Despite the trauma she endured, Zaya feels many other lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people living in Mongolia have had it much worse. She proceeded to recount a series of stories of friends who have been physically attacked and even sexually assaulted.

The situation may be grim now, but there are signs that things may soon improve. Activists are hailing the recent signal sent by the government concerning LGBT rights. Their optimism is rooted in the fact that, for the first time, Mongolian officials discussed LGBT issues at a Geneva meeting of the UN Human Rights Council’s first Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of the country. At the November 2 gathering, seven member states offered Ulaanbaatar recommendations for passing anti-discriminatory legislation that would enhance legal protections for sexual minorities.

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In Mongolia, a LGBT multimedia campaign is launched against discrimination

Source: LGBT Centre

On November 16, 2010, the LGBT Centre NGO – Mongolia’s first NGO working for the human rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people – will be launching a multimedia “End Discrimination” campaign.

The campaign is aimed at ending the ongoing discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity  taking place against Mongolia’s sexuality minorities and is pushing for the enactment of a broad-based Law on Non-Discrimination.

As part of the campaign, the LGBT Centre has produced six  “End Discrimination”  public awareness advertisements that will air throughout the country from November till mid-March 2011. The advertisements  focus on six separate areas of concern: hate crimes against LGBT people, discrimination in the workplace, discrimination and violence in the home, discrimination in schools, discrimination in the health sector, and the delegitimisation of and discrimination against LGBT relationships. 

The  LGBT Centre has enlisted tremendous support from a range of respected and well-known human rights advocates from a range of different sectors who all share the one common belief: Everyone is equal. Moreover, the campaign is made possible by the funding from the US State Department under its Democracy Support Small Grants.

As part of the campaign, the LGBT Centre will also be releasing an LGBT media reference guide  and  the  official Mongolian translation of the Yogyakarta  Principles, which are principles on the application of international human rights law in relation to sexual orientation and gender identity.

The  LGBT Centre will launch the campaign on 11am, November 16, 2010, at the Press Institute of Mongolia. 16 November is a significant date as it is observed every year in many countries as an International Day for Tolerance, declared by the UN in 1995.

Mongolia's LGBTs face hate crimes and discrimination

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Source: fridae.com

By Sylvia Tan

Robyn Garner, Executive Director of the Mongolian LGBT Centre, tells Fridae more about the new documentary which highlights the under-reported threats and hate crimes taking place against the LGBT community.

The Lies of Liberty (view it at the end of this article) is a 20-minute documentary which highlights the challenges of the Mongolian LGBT community and features a transgender woman, a lesbian and a gay man who spoke of the realities of their lives. Although there are no legal prohibitions, LGBTs face possible violence on a day-to-day basis by members of ultra-nationalists parties. The transgender woman in the documentary, who related an incident in which herself and two other transgender women she knew were bundled into a car and taken to a desolate place where they were assaulted, had since received serious death threats since the documentary was shown.

Fridae speaks with Robyn Garner, co-founder and Executive Director of the Mongolian LGBT Centre, who is originally from Australia but has since called Mongolia home after moving there in 2004 to work in development communications/advocacy.

How did you come to be involved in the Mongolian LGBT Centre?

I hadn’t initially planned to become involved in LGBT activism; however I did want to outreach with the local LGBT community. That proved extremely difficult as the community, such as it was back then, was very much underground. Trying to make any contacts was an exercise in patience and trust-building. Eventually I was able to break through and meet up with some people. It was at this time that I met my now wife, Anaraa, a long-time Mongolian LGBT activist – one of only a handful in the country. She had established the Mongolian Lesbian Information Centre (MILC) and had set up a website providing information for LGBT people in Mongolia. Together we decided to take LGBT activism to new level, which we have been doing for a number of years now, locally, regionally and internationally. As part of that, we wanted to set up a LGBT human rights NGO, a process we began back in 2007. We, and our small but dedicated band of co-founders, had no idea at the time that it would take until the end of 2009 to realise that dream. But our persistence and our commitment eventually paid off and Mongolia now has its first LGBT human rights NGO.

What motivated the Centre to produce the documentary?

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