Poland announces amnesty for illegal immigrants

Image by Sem Paradeiro via Flickr

Source: Reuters

By Joanna Bronowicka

Thousands of illegal immigrants will be allowed to stay and work in Poland under an amnesty unveiled 26 December that highlights the country's transformation into a regional economic powerhouse from communist-era basket case.
Traditionally a country of emigration, Poland has become an increasingly attractive magnet for immigrants, especially from neighboring former Soviet republics such as Ukraine and Belarus, as it notches up high rates of economic growth.

Under the amnesty, economic migrants and unsuccessful asylum seekers will be able from January 1 to receive a resident card for two years that will allow them to work legally in Poland.

"Poland is becoming a more attractive country for foreigners because its growing economic position is leading it to become a destination country and not just a transition country as it has been so far," said Rafal Rogala of the immigration office.

Legalizing the immigrants will benefit the Polish economy by turning them into taxpayers, he said.

The amnesty will apply to undocumented immigrants who arrived in Poland before December 20, 2007, and to asylum seekers who were denied refugee status before January 1, 2010, provided that they have continuously resided in Poland.

The campaign is expected to be more successful than previous amnesties implemented in 2003 and 2007 because there are fewer restrictions, said Rogala.

"The idea is to reach the largest number of foreigners in order to regularize this situation in the widest possible manner," he added.

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2011 round up: Part four: Transgender and intersex rights

Anna Grodzka image via Wikipedia

By Paul Canning

I'm rounding up the year in a series of posts - in which no doubt I've missed something, so please let me know what I've missed in the comments!


Transgender and intersex rights

One of the world's most progressive transgender equality laws was passed in Argentina's parliament and in the UK a plan for comprehensive changes to ensure equality for trans people was announced. Chile also passed an anti-discrimination based on gender identity law as did California and Massachusetts. But in Puerto Rico a roll-back of legal protection was proposed.

The Pole Anna Grodzka became the first transsexual MP in Europe and only the second trans parliamentarian in the world.

Germany removed the surgery requirement for legal gender change, as did Kyrgyzstan.

Pakistan's Supreme Court created a 'third gender' category, but authorities have been slow to implement it. This caused real problems for trans people during the flooding which hit the country this year as did a similar failure to follow through on legal change in Nepal.

The first trans rights rally took place in Dhaka, Bangladesh, and new trans and intersex groups appeared in Russia and in Africa and the African groups came together to meet in Uganda.

Turkey jailed trans activists for 'insulting police' but an activist won a case against police at the European Court of Human Rights. Attacks on trans people by police in Albania drew protests.

The death of trans activist Aleesha Farhana in Malaysia after courts refused to change her gender on official documents sparked mass protests and a government concession and also increased, sometimes bizarre, coverage in local media.

The first intersex mayor in the world was elected in Australia. In September, the world's first International Intersex Organising Forum took place in Brussels.

Figures released in October showed that one transgender person is murdered somewhere in the world at least every other day.

Related articles

• A Day in the Life of the Rainbow Identity Offices in Botswana (mask.org.za)
• UK Government Launches Plan for Trans Equality (care2.com)

2011 round up: Part one: Marriage equality

Image via Wikipedia

By Paul Canning

What stood out on the international LGBT human rights front in 2011? A lot. But lets go out on a limb and pick three things.

• The repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell, the ban on lesbians and gays in the US military, in September.
• The appearance of LGBT organising, at some level, in most African countries. (See, for example, what's happening in Mozambique in a post from January).
• The death of the last known gay survivor of the Holocaust, Rudolf Brazda, in France.*

I'll be rounding up the year in a series of posts over the next week - in which no doubt I've missed something, so please let me know what I've missed in the comments!

Marriage equality

In terms of The News, international reporting, this was the year of same-sex marriage.

Same-sex marriage (or 'marriage equality' or 'gay marriage') was a leading international concern - whether in the West or raised as a chimeric threat, particularly in Africa. This year it was legalised in the second most populous US state, home to the UN and intentional media - New York state. American polls also, for the first time, showed clear majority support for marriage equality.

The immigration problems of bi-national, same-sex couples due to the Bill Clinton-era federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) drew national attention in America, but the Obama administration was criticised for being slow to act to use its powers to stop deportations of husbands and wives.

In the UK the Conservative-led government committed itself to marriage equality, there is to be a consultation next year, with Tory Prime Minister David Cameron famously saying he supported it because he was a conservative. The Scottish Nationalist government in Scotland appears likely to legalise same-sex marriage too, although there has been a strong, Catholic Church-led backlash.

In France, although marriage equality failed in the French parliament it is rumored that President Nicholas Sarkozy will announce his support in elections next year, supposedly inspired by Cameron's comments. But in Spain, lesbians and gays fear that a new conservative government may go backwards and convert gay marriages into gay civil unions.

It's been proposed by the Luxembourg government and by the Finnish government, and the Danish government permitted gay marriage in churches. The German parliament is going to vote on marriage equality next year. Civil partnerships are being mooted in Poland and Estonia - a first in a post-Soviet Union state.

Last month the governing Australian Labor Party supported same-sex marriage, though its leader does not and it is likely to fail when it reaches the parliament next year.

In July the Constitutional Court of Colombia ordered the Colombian government to legislate on same-sex relationship recognition - and that if they fail to, same-sex couples will be granted all marriage rights in two years.

Brazil's Supreme Court ruled that same-sex couples are legally entitled to civil unions, and same-sex marriage will be included in the new Nepalese constitution.

In October, in a little noticed but extremely interesting case, a Kenyan court recognised 'traditional' same-sex marriage.

In July, a court in Delhi, India, effectively recognised the marriage of a lesbian couple, whilst ordering that the state must protect them.

* NOTE: Brazda is the last known survivor of the concentration camps. Gad Beck, who managed to escape the camps and helped others survive, is still living.

Human rights defenders need solidarity from all parts of Europe when repressed by their governments

Destroyed Azeri human rights group office

By Thomas Hammarberg

The clampdown on human rights defenders in Belarus continues unabated. In early August, Ales Bialiatski, the chair of the Human Rights Centre Viasna and vice-President of the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), was arrested. He is still being held in pre-trial detention. Activists who have demonstrated for his release have been summoned by the police and one of them is awaiting trial.

Viasna has been at the forefront of human rights defence in Belarus for years. The detention of Ales Bialiatski and the current criminal investigation process are seriously jeopardising the organisation’s activities to the detriment of victims of human rights violations, who have come to depend on the assistance provided by Viasna.

Another sad example has been reported from Azerbaijan. In mid-August, bulldozers demolished a building in Baku where several human rights organisations were located, including the Office of the Institute for Peace and Democracy led by Leyla Yunus. This demolition took place in the evening, despite a court decision temporarily prohibiting the destruction of the building.

As the house was torn down without any prior notification the persons who worked there were unable to salvage any papers, computers or other working materials. It is generally believed that the action was directed towards Leyla Yunus, who has been vocal in denouncing corruption and forced evictions in Azerbaijan.

Rights that protect and enable the work 

The importance of the work of human rights defenders is recognised in international conventions. The UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders lists several fundamental rights necessary for the work of human rights defenders, such as freedom of association, peaceful assembly, expression and opinion, the right to be protected and the right to effective remedy. Many of these rights are also enshrined in other binding human rights treaties of the UN, in the European Convention on Human Rights and in the OSCE commitments.
Yet reports about breaches of these standards continue to reach me. Authorities can obstruct the work of human rights defenders by making it difficult to register organisations or by creating burdensome reporting and financial requirements. Hindering access to funding through excessively cumbersome procedures is another method which is frequently employed.

Viasna, for example, was dissolved in 2003 and has since then been denied the possibility to re-register. Belarusian legislation outlaws the operation of unregistered organisations and criminalises the activities of their individual members – a clear breach of international standards. In 2007, the UN Human Rights Committee concluded that Viasna’s dissolution was a violation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (article 22).

Denial of right to receive funding 

The Belarusian authorities are now accusing Ales Bialiatski of “concealment of profits on an especially large scale”. They are using information provided by official institutions in Vilnius and Warsaw about bank accounts established in the name of Bialiatski, to which foreign donors have been able to send contributions.

The right to access funding is protected in international and regional human rights treaties. The UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders states that everyone has the right “to solicit, receive and utilize resources for the express purpose of promoting and protecting human rights and fundamental freedoms through peaceful means”.

I know that the governments in Vilnius and Warsaw regret that the protection of human rights defenders’ integrity and work was not taken into account when information was provided to the Belarusian authorities and that they are now trying to limit the damage.

Sadly, this unintended mistake is being used in the case against Ales Bialiatski who is threatened with a long prison sentence. And he is not the only victim of policies to prevent voluntary solidarity efforts for those who suffer human rights violations.

Governments have a primary responsibility 

It is therefore particularly important that the protection of the safety of human rights defenders be reaffirmed as a crucial standard. Whenever this universally agreed undertaking is abrogated in one state, governments in other countries – including Council of Europe member states – must react.

Thomas Hammarberg is the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights

Related articles

• Azerbaijan's Eurovision welcome for gays questioned again (madikazemi.blogspot.com)
• Poland apologizes for exposing Belarusian activist (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• The snitches of Vilnius (economist.com)

Poland: more on the pluses and minuses of asylum system

Image by gibranparvez via Flickr

Via: Pambazuka

Katarzyna Przybyslawska of the Halina Niec Legal Aid Center, answers criticisms to asylum procedures in Poland made by the Belgian Refugee Council (see its report here). Her candid responses shows once again the urgency of independent legal aid providers and their need for more capacity to carry out their work efficiently and effectively.

The Halina Niec Legal Aid Center (HNLAC) is a non-profit non-governmental organisation established in 2002 in Kraków. HNLAC’s main objective is to protect human rights by providing free legal aid to persons at risk of social exclusion and discrimination, including the poor, victims of domestic violence, foreigners, asylum seekers and refugees. The HNLAC also monitors the adherence to standards of human rights, undertakes legal interventions and advocacy activities, and pursues research and educational projects. The centre also undertakes activities aimed at preventing and tackling human and child trafficking by organising social campaigns and offering legal aid to the victims. The HNLAC is UNHCR’s implementing partner in Poland.

The Belgian Refugee Council (BRC) report provides an assessment of the situation of asylum seekers in Poland, in particular those who were sent back to Poland as a country responsible for examining asylum application on the grounds of the Dublin II regulation. The report recognised both positive and negative aspects of Polish asylum system.

The first technical comment in response to the report is the erroneous use of the phrase: ‘closed reception centre/prison for asylum seekers’. There are no closed reception centres for asylum seekers in Poland and the establishment in Biala Podlaska is in fact a guarded center for foreigners … for the purpose of expulsion.

The Belgian Refugee Council praised the existence of non-EU based national protection status (tolerated stay permit) in the Polish legal system. The HNLAC wishes to stress the importance of this status with regard to safeguarding foreigners’ right to family life (art. 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms). It should be noted however that given the ongoing preparation of a new act on aliens and act on granting protection to aliens, this protection instrument will soon undergo a change and foreigners seeking legalisation of stay in Poland solely due to their family ties will be eligible for a regular residence permit. The tolerated stay permit will be still applied in cases of risks to other basic human rights.

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Report: Migrants left without protection at Europe's Eastern borders

Source: Jesuit Refugee Service Europe

The plight of refugees stuck on the outskirts of the EU is not just an issue confined to the southern Mediterranean. A new JRS report shows that asylum seekers in Ukraine are left to their own devices in a country that cannot provide the protection they need.

The current crisis in the southern Mediterranean, which has witnessed tens of thousands of refugees fleeing to the EU from war-torn Libya, has revealed how important it is for the EU to help it's neighbouring countries to provide humanitarian protection. Ukraine is at the doorstep of Europe, sharing large borders with Poland and Romania. An existing readmission agreement allows these and other EU countries to return any migrant to Ukraine.

According to JRS Europe assistant director Luigi Romano, the potential for human rights abuse is real:

“Readmission at the EU-Ukraine border is cloaked in a veil of mystery. It is unknown whether people are truly able to apply for asylum in Europe, or if they are just sent back without any assessment.”

The report shows that the EU is also complicit. Policymaking toward Ukraine stresses border security and repelling irregular migration at the expense of protection. The EU has provided Ukraine with funding without really determining its ability to provide protection – throwing money at the country instead of addressing the problem in full. “The EU cannot use Ukraine as a shield against migration,” says Luigi Romano, “If the EU wants to help Ukraine improve its asylum systems, then they have to provide economic and technical support, as well proper monitoring and evaluation.”

Refugees are left in Ukraine despite not even wanting to be there. Many are unable to return to their country for fear of persecution, blocked from seeking asylum in the EU by means of detention. JRS interviewed a detained woman in her sixth month of pregnancy. “There was little respect for women in the centre,” she said. Her husband, detained in a separate cell, added, “The director demanded that she stop crying all the time. When she didn’t, she was punished by spending three days in solitary confinement.”

In Ukraine, only 5.459 people have been granted refugee status since 1993. Until recently, three separate ministries oversaw asylum and migration policy, making it a very complex system for anyone to navigate. Ukrainian NGOs revealed that they are making decisions that the ministries should make, since there is not a coherent government policy.

Ukraine is a country still early in its democratic development. Living standards are very low and corruption is rife in the political sphere. “One of the main problems for refugees is that the country lacks clear asylum laws and is barely able to look after its own people, let alone foreigners'', says David Nazar, director of JRS Ukraine.

The report, No Other Option: Testimonies from Asylum Seekers Living in Ukraine, is based on face-to-face interviews with asylum seekers, Ukrainian authorities and civil society organisations in Lviv.

• NO OTHER OPTION: Testimonies from asylum seekers living in Ukraine [PDF]

Related articles

• In Europe, asylum seekers 'right to try their luck in a specific country' (madikazemi.blogspot.com) 
• In Ukraine, returned asylum seekers face abuse (madikazemi.blogspot.com)  
• In Ukraine, claims that refugees are being tortured (madikazemi.blogspot.com) 

In Poland, refugees left without protection unless they're Christian?

Image by gibranparvez via Flickr

Source: ECRE

The Belgian Refugee Council (CBAR – BCHV) have published a report highlighting that Poland does not always grant refugee status, even when it should, because of a very strict interpretation or sometimes misinterpretation of the refugee definition. The interpretation applied by the Polish authorities is often not in line with UNHCR guidelines, UNHCR handbook and the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR).

The majority of all asylum applications in Poland come from Russian nationals (80%), mainly Chechens, followed by Georgia (11%), Armenia (1%), Belarus (1%), Ukraine (1%) and other nationalities (6 %). In 2010, Belgium received on average 58 asylum seekers every month who had entered the EU through Poland. According to Eurostat figures, in 2010, Belgium requested Poland under the Dublin system to examine 1,254 asylum applications. France asked Poland to assume responsibility for 1,302 people. Germany, Austria, the Netherlands and Switzerland did the same for 1,124, 818, 748 and 307 people respectively.

On the positive side, in addition to refugee status and subsidiary protection, Poland can also grant 'tolerated stay permits' for an indefinite period of time, based on articles 2 (right to life), 3 (prohibition of torture), 4 (prohibition of slavery and forced labour), 5 (right to liberty and security), 6 (right to fair trial) or 8 (right to family life) of the European Convention on Human Rights and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

The report is based on a mission to Poland in September 2010 under the direction of MEP Bart Staes, aiming to assess the situation of asylum seekers in Poland particularly in the context of those who have been sent back to Poland from Belgium under the Dublin Regulation. In 2010, only 14.6% of the 6,500 applicants who sought asylum in Poland were granted international protection.

In January, a ruling by the ECtHR put into question the assumption upon which the Dublin system is based, that is, that all EU Member States respect fundamental rights and that is therefore safe to automatically transfer asylum seekers between EU countries.

Poland's foreign minister returned from a trip to Tunisia 17 May with 16 Christian refugees who had found their lives upturned by turmoil in North Africa.

Poland described the move as a gesture of symbolic support for Christians in Africa and as an act of solidarity with Tunisia, which has been overwhelmed by refugees fleeing the violence in neighboring Libya.

"Poland looks after the rights of Christians in the world. This is our gesture of solidarity with persecuted Christians," Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski told the refugees as they prepared to board the plane to Poland a day earlier.

One analyst described the move as a clear call to the rest of Europe to take in more refugees and have more open borders. Marcin Zaborowski, director of the Polish Institute of International Affairs, said that Poland believes "Europe should be more open" and that the government is urging greater openness as it prepares to take over the rotating presidency of the European Union on July 1.

The Foreign Ministry described the six adults and 10 children as political refugees from Eritrea and Nigeria who had been in refugee camps in Libya until they fled the civil war there to Tunisia.

Related articles

• In Europe, asylum seekers 'right to try their luck in a specific country' (madikazemi.blogspot.com)
• Asylum seeker numbers: international trend continues download (madikazemi.blogspot.com)
• In Hungary, immigration detention criticised: not enough food, forced inactivity (madikazemi.blogspot.com)

Update: Poland to offer Belarussians free visas to Warsaw Pride?

We reported a month ago that Polish and Belarusian LGBT activists had asked Polish authorities for free visas for poor Belarussian, Russians and Ukrainians to attend Warsaw's 'Equality Parade'. 'Schengen' visas cost €60, beyond the reach of some Eastern Europeans.

The Polish foreign ministry has told the Warsaw parade organisers that people from Belarus, Russia and Ukraine who want to take part in the Parade 11 June will temporarily be able to enter the EU for free. 

The Polish presidency's spokesman in Brussels, Kacper Chmielewski, said Warsaw is keen to promote civil society in general in the EU's eastern neighbourhood.

Update: Barring a few special cases, the Polish foreign ministry has now told Euobserver.com that it will not issue gratis EU visas to people from Belarus, Russia and Ukraine.

Poland to offer Belarussians free visas to Warsaw Pride?

The Belarussian website GayBy.Net reports that Polish and Belarusian LGBT activists have received positive feedback from authorities for free visas for poor Belarussian, Russians and Ukrainians to attend Warsaw's Pride Parade.

The tenth 'Equality Parade' will take place on the streets of the Polish capital June 11.

'Schengen' visas cost €60, beyond the reach of some Eastern Europeans. Activist Slava Bortnik said that the Polish Foreign Ministry are "sympathetic to the request and advised me to contact the Polish consulate in Belarus, Russia and Ukraine."

Equality Parade organiser Vyacheslav Bortnik said:

"We understand that the decision to grant a visa is taken from the circumstances of each individual case, but we hope that we will achieve this plan. Now I look forward to the official response from the Polish Consulate, which will inform you of immediately."

Video: new documentary takes the viewer to the heart of the struggle for LGBT rights in Belarus

Image via Wikipedia

By Logan Mucha

Often called the last dictatorship in Europe, Belarus is a country where being openly gay leads to beatings and arrests.

East Bloc Love is Australian filmmaker Logan Mucha’s debut feature documentary following the journey of the young Belarusian activist, Sergey Yenin, as he and other activists prepare for a defiant march on the streets of the capital Minsk.

“As a gay male from a Australia, I was inspired by the strength and courage of these activists in the face of their government’s ban on the pride march and the looming violence from homophobic skinheads” says Logan Mucha.

The young director was able to document the personal stories of individuals from countries in Latvia, Romania, Poland, Estonia, Russia and Belarus.  These characters range from activists, a drag queen, a pre-op transsexual and a rock musician, giving the viewer a broad view on the state of LGBT rights in the former Soviet bloc.

East Bloc Love is a co-production with the human rights project, GayRussia and its founder Nikolai Alekseev. The International Day Against Homophobia has also contributed financial support to the film.

The film is currently in consideration for a number of international film festivals and is available for review upon request.

Trailer

Related articles

• LGBT Activists Hold First Authorized Rally in Minsk (towleroad.com)
• Nikolai Alekseev says courage is the key (via Queer Landia) (queerdallas.com)

In Ukraine, claims that refugees are being tortured

Migrants from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Palestine, Democratic Republic of Congo and Somalia peer out from behind a fence of a temporary holding facility for migrants in Chop, Western Ukraine.

Source: The Economist

The walls of fortress Europe have grown increasingly impenetrable of late. A planned fence on the Greek border with Turkey has received some attention. Not so the situation in western Ukraine, where there a growing community of refugees, mainly from Afghanistan and Africa, seeking entrace into the European Union have congregated. Effectively trapped in limbo, these asylum-seekers are subject to abuse, exploitation and torture.

The border crossing between Ukraine and Poland at Shehyni shows up the disconnect between Ukraine and its EU neighbours. On the Ukrainian side, merchants peddle cut-price booze and tobacco in dusty little shops. A smattering of middle-aged women gather in a dark café to tape packs of cigarettes to their arms and legs like bands of ammunition. They trundle through a long maze of gates and turnstiles on their way to the orderly Polish border control-office, where they will test their acumen with exhausted-looking young border guards. Outside, a dog travels freely between the EU and Ukraine via a small hole in the fence.

A lengthy, costly and often humiliating visa regime has made travelling west nearly impossible for most Ukrainians. After shelling out at least a month’s worth of the average Ukrainian salary for the proper clearances, travellers must often report back to the appropriate Kiev-based embassy with visual evidence of their movements: this usually means an impromptu slideshow with their digital camera. Ukraine has made numerous concessions in hopes of easing these restrictions; EU citizens can enter Ukraine for three months visa-free, for example.

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Refugee surge forces Berlin camp to re-open

Image via Wikipedia

Source: Monster and Critics

A surge of asylum seekers arriving from world trouble spots, including Afghanistan, Somalia, Iraq and Iran, has forced Berlin authorities to re-open a huge refugee housing site.

Only recently, government officials had considered putting the 22,000-square-metre Marienfelde Refugee Camp up for sale.

The refugees stay in plain apartments in 10 centrally heated housing blocks. During the Cold War it was the first place to stay for people escaping communism while they were starting new lives.

Between 1949 and 1990, 1.35 million people passed through the camp. Even after democracy took hold in their homelands, eastern Europeans kept arriving, along with refugees from further away.

But in recent years, the numbers dwindled and a decision was taken to close the camp. But its closure a year ago proved premature and the camp has now been re-activated. Some 125 refugees have shown up at the Marienfelde camp in the past two weeks.

Hundreds more are anticipated in the coming months.

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Resource: The Global Detention Project

Norway's Trandum Detention Centre

The Global Detention Project (GDP) is an inter-disciplinary research endeavour that investigates the role detention plays in states’ responses to global migration, with a special focus on the policies and physical infrastructures of detention. The project, which was initiated in October 2006 with funding from the Geneva International Academic Network, is based at the Graduate Institute’s Programme for the Study of Global Migration.

To assess the growth and evolution of detention institutions, project researchers are creating a comprehensive database of detention sites that categorises detention facilities along several dimensions, including security level, bureaucratic chain of command, facility type (is a given site an exposed camp, a dedicated migrant detention facility, or a common prison), spatial segregation (are there separate cells for criminals and administrative detainees, for women and men), and size. This data is gradually being ported to the GDP website in the form of maps, lists, and country profiles. Eventually, the project intends to make the entire database fully interactive with the website.

In December the project released five new reports covering Norway, New Zealand, Poland, Spain, Belize and detention at Europe's borders.

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Governments still abusing transgender people’s rights

Source: AIDS Accountability International


By Phillipa Tucker, Senior Researcher

Governments worldwide continue to neglect the needs of transgender people with regards to HIV and AIDS. The early results of the AIDS Accountability International Survey on Transgender Issues indicate that almost no countries collect or analyse health data on transgender people thus making them more vulnerable.

Dr. Per Strand, Research Director at AIDS Accountability International’s Cape Town office says:

“This is not an unexpected finding, but if governments don’t correctly monitor and evaluate their epidemics they will make mistakes in their policy, implementation and impact and that is very much what we are seeing is happening for transgender people.”

Senior Researcher Phillipa Tucker explains:

“The lack of focus on the issues being faced by transgender people leaves them vulnerable, not only to HIV infection, but also to other issues such as health risks in operative surgery, side effects and interaction of drugs, relationship vulnerability, income generation, stigma and discrimination and many other aspects that place them at greater risk in the face of HIV.”

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Gay tourism: Has cheapflights.co.uk just slandered four countries?

By Paul Canning

One of the UK's top travel websites, cheapflights UK, has issued a press release about the best and the worst places for LGBT tourists.

There's little surprise that top of their list of the worst places for the gays to visit is Jamaica and their PR made the news in Jamaica, whose press seems concerned about its image abroad but constantly rehashes claims by Jamaican police that actually the problem is those 'batty boys' bashing each other, the phrase 'lover's tiffs' being a constant.

Cheapflights 'top five' also includes Fiji, Poland, Nicaragua and Mauritius. Their PR makes reference to sodomy laws but homosexuality is only illegal in Jamaica and, kind of, Mauritius. Some of the other countries have - legally speaking at least - been far more advanced than either the USA, which got rid of sodomy laws through a Supreme Court decision in 2003 or the UK which only adopted anti-discrimination in employment and services law in 2007.

'Worst places to visit', really?

Take Fiji for example. This was one of only two three countries in the world which has included protections against discrimination on sexual orientation grounds in its constitution (the others are Bolivia and South Africa). However the 1997 constitution which did this has been abolished (the country is currently run by the military and expelled from the Commonwealth) and in 2005 there was a high profile arrest and jailing of an Australian tourist but the following year the government announced a new policy of no arrests.

One of the common sources for information on otherwise ignored countries like Fiji is GlobalGayz. That carries two negative and one positive story about being gay in Fiji. A Fijian wrote to them seeing the negative stories saying "I definitely don’t agree about these negative views about Fiji and how they deal with gays."

He did say that "in the small village areas here I would advise visitors to be cautious due to cultural sensitivity. Fijian villages are very conservative and respected places therefore I believe it is fair to show mutual respect to village beliefs and traditions." And the removal of all remaining vestiges of discrimination in criminal codes by the Fijian government since 1 February this year did cause the Women’s Action for Change group in Fiji to express concern over a possible violent public backlash.

The Foreign Office does not provide country-specific travel information and the company told me that "the research was done through Cheapflights editors and obtained from various online sources.  It wasn't specific user feedback."

Well according to numerous online sources, Fiji hosts a number of 'gay-friendly' resorts.

Having a (monthly) ball in Mauritius

Although, according to ILGA, a sodomy law remains on the books in Mauritius, there is also an active gay movement represented by the Mauritian LGBTI organisation, Collectif Arc-en-ciel. There have been Pride marches and there has been serious discussion around anti-discrimination laws with the government including sexual orientation in its 2008 discrimination bill.

Image by KhayaL via Flickr

Nicolas Ritter, Collectif Arc en Ciel Vice-President, told LGBT Asylum News: "if by “gay destination” you mean a place where you can find saunas, gay and leather bars, gay hotels and nude beaches, well in that context you are right. There are no such things in Mauritius. Mauritius is not and will never be a place like Sitges, Mikonos, Sydney or San Francisco."

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