Czech response to criticism of bizarre test of gay asylum seekers "not good enough"

By Paul Canning

The Czech Republic has been criticised over their response to international outrage at their use of a so-called 'gay test' on gay asylum seekers. Called 'phallometric testing', gay men - and according to De Spiegel at least one lesbian - are shown pornography and a machine is used to supposedly 'prove' whether of not they are gay.

Updated to add: Prague Post quotes Vladimír Řepka, spokesman for the Interior Ministry, saying that tests were only applied to applicants who had "weak to zero credibility of testimony" and who were from countries that "severely punished" homosexuality up to and including the death penalty, citing Iran, Syria, Egypt, Azerbaijan, Cameroon and Nigeria, among others.

This website first broke the news about the test six days ago after it was cited in a report by a European Union human rights agency. Since then the story has gone 'viral' and been featured by media around the world.

The Czechs have said they will continue making the procedure available to those who request it. The LGBTI refugee agency ORAM (Organization for Refuge, Asylum and Migration) says that, in fact, those who decline to request the test will continue to be denied refugee protection, and that desperate asylum seekers will “opt” for the bizarre and scientifically invalid procedure in an attempt to avoid being removed to countries where they face persecution - countries such as Iran from where the asylum seeker fled whose subsequent deportation hearing in Germany resulted in the test becoming public knowledge.

Oram says that the practice is reported to have also been used in Slovakia.Coverage of the test's history has shown its source was the former Czechoslovakia in the 1950s, where it was used to 'cure' gay men.

ORAM has published today a groundbreaking report that demolishes claims that  plethysmography aka phallometry is reliable in any situation.

As we reported earlier it is used in Canada and the United States on paedophiles and other sex offenders. The report examines legal, psychiatric, and medical studies which show that it has inconsistent results that arise from uncontrolled variables in the application of the method. These uncontrolled variables include:

• the ability of subjects to willfully generate physical responses to the visual stimuli presented in testing and
• the lack of standardization for images used as visual stimuli that fail to account for cultural differences among testing subjects.

Oram says that any refugee claims that were denied because of either the results of plethysmographic testing or the refusal by applicants to submit to the testing must immediately be re-opened and re-examined.

They say that there is an urgent needed for "sophisticated procedures and guidelines" to help asylum decision-makers accurately evaluate the credibility of individuals claiming to be gay, lesbian or bisexual. "Resources must be allocated to the development and application of humane and reliable questioning and interviewing techniques, and to the thorough training of adjudicators in these techniques," they say.

Neil Grungras, Executive Director of ORAM said:

“Phallometry is an outdated practice based on deeply prejudicial and simplistic beliefs.  In addition to being unreliable, the test is invasive and humiliating.  There is incontrovertible scientific evidence that people do not respond uniformly to the kinds of stimulation provided in phallometry.  And from our work with our clients, we know that refugees are often so traumatized from the experiences that caused them to flee and seek asylum in the first place that they are unlikely to react in a ‘predictable’ way to any kind of testing.  This is all the more so because so many gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and intersex refugees have been sexually abused throughout their lives.

“The practice of phallometry must stop immediately.  It is not good enough for Czech government to simply say it will end its compulsory use but will let it remain available.  Asylum seekers are extremely vulnerable and desperate, and may feel obliged to request this degrading exam it in order to prove their claim. Only applicants who claim to be gay are targeted for this physically invasive examination.  Other asylum applicants in the Czech Republic are simply interviewed to ascertain the veracity of their claims.  Our report has demonstrated that phallometry is completely unreliable.   There is no point in having it available at all.

“Sophisticated procedures, including sensitive interviewing techniques and training for interviewers, need to be developed and implemented as soon as possible to ensure that those who need protection from persecution based on their sexual orientation are able to access safety without fear of abuse and humiliation by those charged with protecting them.”

• Sign a petition at change.org

Testing Sexual Orientation: A Scientific and Legal Analysis of Plethysmography in Asylum and Refugee Status...

ILGA conference: LGBT asylum workshop report

Source: Equality Network

These notes on the workshops Jane Carnall attended at the ILGA-Europe conference are as accurate as she could make them but absolute accuracy is not guaranteed: if anyone feels misrepresented or misreported, contact janeATequality-network.org and updates/corrections will be made.

Lunch was a brisk and busy affair - the food was better than the Bel Air hotel's grasp of queuing theory. (Two buffets, side by side, and 250 delegates all trying to eat at once.) But I had an interesting conversation with a delegate who was to speak at a workshop on Saturday about Islam and sexual minorities - he had also picked up on the rather one-way comment about "Muslim youths and gay youths" in the morning's plenary session, not quite right for the theme of the conference "challenging our prejudices".

After lunch I went on to the 2:30 panel, one of the smaller workshops on the Mezzanine floor, LGBT Asylum Seekers in Europe: improving decision-making standards.

Four speakers, three organisations: the first was Neil Grungras, ORAM (Organisation for Refuge, Asylum, and Migration), the first migration organisation focusing exclusively on refugees fleeing sexual and gender-based violence world-wide. ORAM is based in the US (San Francisco).

Grungras spoke about how many of the difficulties such refugees face are based on the way basic processes about asylum seekers are framed to assume you are heterosexual and your gender identity is cis.

• Forms that asylum seekers have to fill in ask if they are male or female, if they are married, if they have a family: there is nowhere on the forms to come out. 
• That training of the interviewers for asylum seekers does not include training on LGBT issues. 
• The European Court of Human Rights has a good policy but the policy is not disseminated to people in the field.
• The interviewers and adjudicators are not encouraged to reach out to people seeking asylum and encourage them to feel safe about coming out - and if they do come out, the questions intended to "prove" that this person is gay tend to be about sex acts, and humiliate the applicant.

Grungras pointed out that we as an LGBTI community do not want people to tell us where we fit into, what boxes we fit in, but this is what the asylum process is designed to do - to find out what box the applicant can be fitted into, what boxes the adjudicator can tick. He said that often interviewers come from the same homophobic background which the asylum seeker is fleeing - that even without intending to be abusive, interviewers use abusive or insulting language to applicants very often - example, a gay man from Iran was asked by an interviewer, for how long had he been a male prostitute? - because the interviewer knew of no other word to describe a male homosexual.

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International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia

By Paul Canning

Hundreds of events have been scheduled across the world to mark the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia (IDAHO), 17 May.

Cuba will commemorate for the third consecutive year the International Day against Homophobia with activities May 11-18, announced Mariela Castro, director of the National Centre for Sex Education (CENESEX).

The major Hungarian LGBT organisation Hatter, is organizing a workshop to celebrate IDAHO titled 'Rainbow families: the question of same sex couples and their children in light of political debates and international requirements'.

There will be more than 150 events mark IDAHO across France. Highlights of the programme include :
A national conference on Religions, Homophobia and Transphobia, with high level representatives of the Catholic, Protestant, Jewish and Muslim cults. The French Minister for Interior/Domestic Affairs will chair the conference that will take place in the Parliament building.

In Kenya, GALCK shall mark the day by presenting dances, and acting a play based on the Ugandan Law. IDAHO shall also be marked in at least two other cities in Kenya, including Nakuru and Kisumu.

In Solvakia Idaho day will be marked by the first Pride March ever to be organised.

Various Brasilian Ministerial agencies, Members of Parliaments, UN agencies and civil society organisations will come together on 18 May in Brasilia to discuss the perspectives of Human Rights.

In Cambodia, this year, a Pride Parade will mark the International Day Against Homophobia, with an extensive program of activities. In addition to the parade itself, the association organized Pride Cambodia also a whole series of events between 10 and 17 May.

• See the Idaho website for more on international events.

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