In UK: Border hostilities: Passport to the media-policy merry-go-round

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Source: NCADC

You have most probably heard about the latest scandal at the Home Office. Basically it was about a pilot scheme to replace the blanket checks on passports of people visiting the UK with a more targeted approach, and whether the Home Secretary knew the extent to which this was being implemented by her Border Force directors.

There was the inevitable media outrage that so many of these visitors, who obviously include in their number untold illegal immigrants, terrorists etc, did not have to queue for hours at the start of their holidays, business trips, asylum/terror sprees.

Of course, media hostility to migrants is nothing new. Over at the Migrants Rights Network blog this week, John Perry reviews Malcolm Dean’s new book, Democracy Under Attack, which looks at the role of the media in driving social policy. Perry highlights the section on how policy on asylum and migration has been driven by the press.

In it’s manifesto of 1997, Labour hardly mentioned immigration as an issue. By 2002, as asylum seeking numbers peaked dueto conflict in places like Iraq and Somalia, the press began to refer to people seeking sanctuary as ‘this scum’ ‘asylum cheats’ and ‘illegals’. It was a “hostile…one-sided, often wildly inaccurate…press campaign of vilification”, according to the former editor of the Mirror. The Labour government, with a massive majority, could have resisted, but government policy followed the media line, legitimising further public hostility (perhjaps reaching it’s nadir when Phil Woolas was found guilty of deliberately setting out to stir up and exploit racial hatred in the last election campaign). And so it goes around, the media-policy merry-go-round.

Interestingly, the Theresa May passports affair has resulted in a remarkably sensible blog at the Telegraph, of all places, where Mary Riddle warns that dangerous misinformation and misguided policy statements are fuelling the next stage of a political ‘immigration war‘. It’s an interesting read. Riddel believes that much of the anti-immigrant rhetoric is built on lies, the policies unworkable, and that this will come back to bite both May and prime minister Cameron

It looks as if Theresa May will survive this row and keep her job for a while longer. It appears that she is winning, in this row at least, with the dual-argument of it wasn’t that big a deal, and anyway, it was someone else’s fault. Ironically, an argument she was very much against a few years ago when she demanded a ministerial resignation over a passports row. In 2007 Ms May was “sick and tired of government ministers who simply blame other people when things go wrong”. The Political Scrapbook blog has helpfully dug up the quotes, and remarks that the Minister in question, Beverley Hughes, did indeed resign, 21 days later.

Meanwhile, it’s business as usual for refugees seeking sanctuary who face a culture of disbelief with dwindling access to legal help. No investigations or resignations looming over the sometimes 50% error rate in asylum decisions, or the public money wasted on legal fees righting UKBA wrongs. More families are divided by ever-harsher knee-jerk immigration controls barring entry, and more children are ending up in lone parent families when a parent is deported. Not to mention the proposal to recreate in Britain the notorious migrant worker exploitation of the German Gastarbeiter programme.

In the political war over migration control, the real casualties are not government Ministers or civil servants on £60,000 a year pensions. It is the refugees, the families, the workers who suffer. The racism and xenophobia that is pervading mainstream politics, highlighted last week by John Grayson at IRR, affects our whole society.

An anti-immigrant war of words affects us all, and we all have a role to play in resisting it. As the saying goes: if you don’t like the news, go out and make your own…

Related articles

• 1, 2, 3 scandals hit UKBA (madikazemi.blogspot.com)
• The real 'immigration debate' (irr.org.uk)
• Play the politics of immigration, and you'll only get your fingers burnt (blogs.telegraph.co.uk)

Audio: LGBT asylum in UK: LibDems 'not happy', Labour 'ashamed'

By Paul Canning

The political party conference season has ended in the UK, marking the return to full time politics after the summer break. The season hosted a number of forums where LGBT issues were discussed, and this included LGBT asylum.

At two events, Labour representatives derided their record in government - one called it 'shameful'. The LGBT+ Liberal Democrat was fed up, "not happy, of having to lobby for individual cases. And the Conservatives? One attacked Labour's record, another said the whole system needed overhauling.

At the Labour Party conference LGBT fringe event, the Chief Executive of Stonewall Ben Summerskill, highlighted three things that had gone well over the first year of the Conservative-LiberalDemocrat government. One was "LGB+T asylum seekers not being sent back to countries where they face persecution".

On a round table for BBC Radio Manchester, LGBT+ LibDem Chair Adrian Trett said that LGBT asylum was a "key plank" of their work and that he was far too often lobbying in individual cases. Kevin Peel of LGBT Labour said that the previous government's record "is to Labour's utter shame" and said that his group had "attacked [the previous] government" over the issue. He 'would like to think we would have changed' if Labour had been re-elected in 2010. And he attacked the Coalition's record. The Conservative's Sean Anstey attacked Labour's record and professed his faith in Immigration Minister Damian Green.

There was no reporting of LGBT asylum being raised at the Conservative conference, save from Ben Summerskill (I assume) repeating that it was a Coalition success, however it did feature on the conference floor when Home Office Minister Theresa May's infamous #catgate mistake happened - which involved a gay immigrant, although that became clear only after the event.

Writing for Freedom From Torture, Camilla Jelbart-Mosse said that 'rational discussion' on asylum trumped hysteria at the Conservative conference, but she said that questions were left unanswered for refused asylum seekers living in limbo. Speaking to the conference Damian Green warned party members not to confuse protection via the UK's asylum system with general immigration before reminding everyone that asylum numbers have fallen dramatically in recent years.

Adrian Trett, James Asser (Labour), Matthew Sephton (Conservative) with special guest Claire Mooney answered a question on LGBT asylum at the Lesbian and Gay Foundation's 'Queer Question Time' in Manchester 2 October (audio below).

Trett said "I'm not happy" several times, noting that he was aware that week of one case of a gay Ugandan being removed. He said that the Coalition Agreement commitment - 'not to remove LGBT asylum seekers to danger' - was "not being enforced".

Asser said that the system is "rotten" and one reason why was because all parties are "pretty rotten" on and "run a bit scared" of asylum issues. "My party wasn't very good," he said. He said that training of civil servants remains a problem. Expanding this point in correspondence after the event, Asser said:

"It [isn't] just about the policy it .. also about implementation and the need for better training for and understanding from the people who have to administer the system and the rules."

Sephton said that the asylum system is "in chaos". He claimed that over the past decade there had been "numerous" people falsely claiming asylum and that people who deserve asylum were not getting it and the whole system needed "overhauling".




In none of the comments from party representatives on LGBT asylum which I have either heard or read were serious policy suggestions advanced on how the system could be improved. This contrasted sharply with detailed policy in other areas.

Perhaps most surprisingly, neither of the Coalition's representatives mentioned one substantial and potentially far-reaching change which the government has enacted to its credit - and which they are only the second government in the world to do - namely, recording sexuality-based asylum claims so we will have data on the level of refusals and removals, who they are, where they are from and why.

Related articles

• UK LGBT asylum activists react strongly to Ugandan activist comments (madikazemi.blogspot.com)
• Voice of LGBT asylum seekers raised at Manchester Pride (madikazemi.blogspot.com)
• Gay Burundian wins UK asylum after eleven year battle (madikazemi.blogspot.com)

Has the UK government met its promise on LGBT asylum? We don't know

By Paul Canning

During last year's election campaign LGBT voters may have been surprised to notice the Labour government outflanked in the progressive stakes by the Conservative Party.

Labour's promise to LGBT voters had nothing to say on the treatment of LGBT asylum seekers. This was perhaps unsurprising as to say anything would have required saying something which was bound to draw attention from the anti-asylum seeker tabloids and on the other hand would have reminded LGBT voters of a record which involved defending a policy of telling those seeking sanctuary to 'go home and be discrete'.

Following the election, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats produced a Coalition agreement document which actually said nothing more than the status quo - those at proven risk wouldn't be returned - but politically drew a line under Labour's record and promised something better. A few weeks after the election came the landmark decision of the Supreme Court which ended the 'go home and be discrete' policy of Labour - and see S.Chelvan's article which explains exactly why the decision was LGBT legal history - which was welcomed by the Conservative Home Secretary.

Page, turned?

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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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Tony Blair and asylum: The narratives, conceptualisations, restrictionism

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Source: Refugee Studies Centre

By Bethany Maughan

Over the last twenty years, there has been a radical shift in public perceptions of and political reactions to asylum seekers in democratic states across the world. As numbers of asylum seekers have risen, at times dramatically, governments of all political persuasions have implemented restrictionist policies designed to prevent and deter individuals from seeking asylum.

This political and conceptual transformation has been particularly marked in the United Kingdom. This paper seeks to examine the development of this restrictionist trend by exploring the conceptual foundations of New Labour’s asylum policies.

Tony Blair’s asylum policies: The narratives and conceptualisations at the heart of New Labour’s restrictio...

Human rights champion praises Scots welcome for refugees

Source: Scottish Refugee Council

Shami Chakrabarti, director of human rights organisation Liberty, called on Scots to ‘set an example of welcome’ to refugees from across the world today (Friday, 14 January)

Speaking as a guest at the Scottish Refugee Council Annual General Meeting, held at Edinburgh’s City Chambers, Chakrabarti stated the need to recognise the importance of the 1951 UN Refugee Convention, which marks its 60th anniversary this year.

She said: “The UN Refugee Convention is more important now than ever when we think of the refugees yet to come and the lives yet to be saved by this incredibly important document.

"The Convention isn’t just a wonderful, beautiful antique that we should treasure. It’s just as pertinent now as it was 60 years ago, and even more pertinent in our  shrinking, interconnected world. “I think there's a real opportunity for Scotland to build upon its tradition of warmth and welcome, and set an example here in the UK and in Europe for welcoming refugees. We don’t want a fortress Europe keeping refugees out.”

Chakrabarti is director of Liberty, a UK-wide charity which campaigns to protect our basic rights and freedoms. She is well-known as a commentator and challenger on human rights for us all – including people who’ve sought refuge in our country.

In the run-up to the UK Elections last May, Scottish Refugee Council joined Liberty and the Refugee Council in England to call on party leaders and candidates to sign an asylum election pledge and remember the importance of providing safety to people fleeing war, torture and persecution in debates on asylum and immigration. A total of 1,031 candidates signed the pledge including the leaders of all four main parties (Conservative, Labour, Lib Dems and SNP).

In 2011, Scottish Refugee Council, along with many other refugee charities, will be marking 60 years since the UN Refugee Convention was put in place. It is as crucial as ever that our governments honour their part in this lifesaving document – and continues to protect the rights of people fleeing war, torture and persecution.

Related articles

• A birthday wish-list for the Refugee Council (refugeecouncil.typepad.com)
• New survey of UK asylum system experience (madikazemi.blogspot.com)
• Asylum-seeking families in Glasgow face imminent move (irr.org.uk)

Analysis: Labour's leadership candidates on LGBT asylum, Balls the winner

Ed Balls image by Downing Street via Flickr  

By Paul Canning

LGBT Labour has released the leadership candidates final answers on LGBT asylum.

Although the winner will be either Ed or David Miliband, the others are likely to either take up senior shadow cabinet positions or positions of influence. Overall, the statements reflect the sort of information they have been paying attention to during the campaign as well as during their time as politicians. It's a fair measure of their knowledge of the subject and that's also a fair measure of the importance that the gay community and gay Labour people place on the issue.

On both of those measures mostly it's not good and overall the answers reflect badly on whether Labour as a party is prepared to look out for the most marginalised LGBT in the UK. They fail to correct the idea, which undoubtedly did lose them some votes in the last election, that they don't think there was any problem either with their treatment of LGBT asylum seekers or the pandering by some Labour people (such as Woolas and Blunkett) to anti-foreigner, anti-migrant sentiment (which backgrounded the LGBT asylum issue) or that this all happened because they were prepared to put votes before principals.

Starting with the answer from the leading candidate, David Miliband.

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UK Labour leadership candidates final answer on LGBT asylum

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LGBT Labour has today released the answers to a Q & A from them to the Labour Party leadership candidates on LGBT equality. It includes their answers to the following question:

How can we ensure a fair asylum system to help LGBT people who face persecution in their countries of origin?

Their answers are as follows.

Diane Abbott

I understand the many problems with the immigration system better than any of my rivals and I frequently meet asylum seekers within my constituency.  The application process is flawed in many ways and lets down LGBT people and many others.

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Who knew? Concern over LGBT asylum is "fashionable" says David Miliband

By Paul Canning

From PinkPaper.com's interview with likely future Labour Party leader David Miliband - on a Labour leadership campaign visit to a gay bar:

Asked if there were things he would do differently or areas where they got it wrong, like on LGBT asylum seekers.

But Miliband said: “It’s fashionable to trash the Labour record but this is one area where, why should we? We actually did massively more than we ever conceived that we would. I’m open minded about whether we could do more but let’s celebrate what we did do.”

"We actually did massively more"? He's channeling Phil Woolas - former Immigration Minister and noted race baiter.

So no apology from David for the treatment by his government of LGBT fleeing persecution. This hasn't stopped four lesbian and gay Labour MPs endorsing him, though both LGBT Labour members as well as voters apparently feel differently. They prefer leadership opponent and brother Ed.

I wouldn't expect any less from those four MPs, Chris Bryant, Angela Eagle, Ben Bradshaw and Stephen Twigg, given their total lack of concern for LGBT people fleeing persecution before (solitary exception: Stephen Twigg did sign the Mehdi Kazemi driven petition to Gordon Brown calling for reform but - disclosure - I do know him and I did ask). But I suppose they have potential future shadow ministry positions to protect ... and apologising for the treatment of LGBT asylum seekers, for anything the past government did infact, just isn't done.

By contrast brother Ed says:

We needed to show greater leadership on the question of those seeking asylum because they face persecution in their home country because of their sexuality. The fact that many forced to return to their home country were advised to be "discreet" is tantamount to an admission that the system recognised the dangers of their forced return but did too little about them.

It's a start, Though why does Ed in the election manifesto he authored have immigration directly linked with crime? I don't believe he's been asked - but then this is the first time in Labour's leadership campaign Miliband, D has been asked about LGBT asylum and that reflects a general lack of discussion on Labour's treatment of migrants during the campaign, so that's hardly surprising.

Both Milband's are the children of asylum seekers. One wonders what their parents would think of concern over the status of their historic descendants being described as "fashionable".

The Foreign Office and LGBT human rights: fake concern from shameless Labour

By Paul Canning

Labour really is shameless in hoping we'll all forget the gaping, gigantic, ginormous gaps in its LGBT record isn't it?

On asylum it's taken months before one solitary leader has acknowledged their appalling record - something completely and deliberately ignored during the election campaign in favour of a 'forget that, look over here' approach of 'keep pointing at the domestic legislative record' and 'yell loudly whenever some odd right-wing Tory 'misspeaks''.

On LGBT rights overseas, as I've documented, under Labour it was all about EU members with the occasional stretch to Africa and never about the world's biggest LGBT rights catastropy - Iraq. During the election the leading contender for the leadership David Miliband even told someone to shut up about Iraq during an LGBT event. The international record for Labour is actually thin, weak and late but you wouldn't know it from them banging on about it. What Hillary Clinton has done in less than two years puts their 13 to shame. Or rather it should.

Now LGBT Labour is joining in with Amnesty International amongst others blasting William Hague's Foreign Office on the new government's record internationally on human rights in general and LGBT specifically. The reason? Because of the generalised cost-cutting effort, they're looking at stopping publishing the annual human rights report as a glossy brochure and instead just publishing it online.

That's it. That's the big 'sell out'.

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Finally some humility from a Labour leader on LGBT asylum

By Paul Canning

Ed Miliband has become the first Labour Party leadership candidate to come out and criticise the government he was part of for its treatment of LGBT asylum seekers.

Writing for pinknews.co.uk he said:

I also believe we needed to show greater leadership on the question of those seeking asylum because they face persecution in their home country because of their sexuality. The fact that many forced to return to their home country were advised to be "discreet" is tantamount to an admission that the system recognised the dangers of their forced return but did too little about them. I don’t believe the answers are easy but we must find them even when they are difficult. My family fled persecution by the Nazis and I will always speak out for the protection of gay and trans people fleeing abuse and against persecution around the world.

His brother David, who is currently slightly leading Ed amongst pundits as the expected winner of the leadership campaign (and is also the descendant of asylum seekers), has by contrast been all over the place: during the election the issue was ignored or treated with indifference (here he was following the strategy of LGBT Labourites); when questioned in government he advanced the same bizarre line of 'pride' in Britain's treatment of LGBT asylum as that advanced by notorious anti-migrant and tabloid approval seeker the Labour Minister of State for Borders and Immigration Phil Woolas.

When given the opportunity in July to agree that 'Labour had let down gay supporters in this area', he refused to criticise the government he was in.

Asked in that interview about the Supreme Court decision which eviscerated the government LGBT asylum policy of 'go home and be discrete' he claimed not to know of it and gave the same stock response as other then and now former Ministers, including Gordon Brown, have ("I think the whole point is that [things are done] on a case by case basis"), a spin line which ignores the existence of Labour's 'discretion' policy, as advanced by them to the Supreme Court (or homophobia in the UK Border Agency for that matter).

Yet one month before in an online question-and-answer session he was asked whether "telling [LGBT asylum seekers] to ‘keep it a secret’ .. is a surrender and degrading to the individual?"

David Miliband typed:

We should stick to our international obligations – no ifs not buts.

This was the very point on which the Supreme Court decision hinged! His answer surely suggests that he knew this yet a month later he'd somehow forgotten that 'telling people to ‘keep it a secret’' was policy and fell back to the rote answer.

Of the other leadership candidates only Diane Abbott has a record of defending asylum seekers including LGBT ones and has criticised the Labour government's treatment of them during the leadership campaign.

Political reaction to Supreme Court decision

The Scottish National Party welcomed the Supreme Court decision on LGBT asylum.

SNP MSP for the South of Scotland Aileen Campbell said:

Last October at SNP Conference I seconded a motion which the party membership voted unanimously in favour of to overhaul asylum rules, which at the time did not allow people to seek asylum on the grounds of sexuality.

While it is shameful that any country in the world would persecute someone for being gay, it is also shameful that the UK has refused in the past to protect those same people.

I’m delighted that that has now changed for the better. Hopefully this is just the start of further significant changes which must still be made so that there is a fair and just asylum system that of which we can be proud.

Lib Dem deputy leader Simon Hughes said:.

I am delighted this ruling recognises the rights of gay asylum seekers, ensuring their freedom from persecution around the world.

This plight is one that my Liberal Democrat colleagues and I have campaigned on for years. It is an issue that the Coalition Government is committed to addressing as we seek to restore Britain’s reputation around the world as a leader in the protection of human rights. I believe that today’s ruling will go some way to restoring that reputation.

Other countries around the world must now follow the UK’s lead and recognise freedom of expression and freedom of sexuality for all people.

Conservative Party Home Secretary Theresa May said:

I welcome the ruling of the Supreme Court, which vindicates the position of the coalition government. We have already promised to stop the removal of asylum seekers who have had to leave particular countries because their sexual orientation or gender identification puts them at proven risk of imprisonment, torture or execution.

I do not believe it is acceptable to send people home and expect them to hide their sexuality to avoid persecution. From today, asylum decisions will be considered under the new rules and the judgment gives an immediate legal basis for us to reframe our guidance for assessing claims based on sexuality, taking into account relevant country guidance and the merits of each individual case.

We will of course take any decisions on a case by case basis looking at the situation in the country of origin and the merits of individual cases in line with our commitment.'

TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber said:

The Government has said that it would not return LGBT asylum seekers to countries where they face severe persecution.

Today's ruling gives legal force to this policy, and means that the Home Office must abandon its shameful practice of using the 'keep quiet and you will be safe' argument to return lesbian, gay and bisexual asylum seekers to persecution and death in their native countries.

The TUC has written to the Home Secretary to seek a meeting to press for the policy and practice of the UK Border Agency to be changed immediately.

In an interview with pinknews.co.uk, former Foreign Secretary and leading candidate for the Labour Party leadership David Miliband said he was unaware of that morning's Supreme Court ruling  and had apparently not heard of the Labour-introduced policy that gay asylum seekers can be returned home if it is decided they can be "discreet".

I don't know about the case. I think the whole point is that [things are done] on a case by case basis.

New government: where next on immigration and asylum?

Image by tripu via Flickr

Source: Left Foot Forward

By Jill Rutter

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

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

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

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After the UK election: where next for LGBT asylum?

By Paul Canning

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Gordon Brown answers question on LGBT Iraq and asylum

Image by Rakka via Flickr

The day before the UK election Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown has answered questions from readers of pinknews.co.uk. He gave the following answer to a question on LGBT life in Iraq and asylum.

Simon Reader: Life in Iraq is now much worse for gay people than it was under Saddam Hussein. As architects of the political situation in Iraq do you consider your government morally obliged to extend asylum more actively and with less bureaucracy to gay Iraqis who are in danger as a direct consequence of UK intervention in their country?

Gordon Brown: I unreservedly condemn abuses of gay rights, wherever in the world they happen, including in Iraq. But I'm sorry I can't agree that this is a result of military intervention.

Saddam's was a brutal regime which mistreated a wide range of minorities inside Iraq including LGBT people. Whatever people's views about the military intervention – and I have made clear that I think the international community had no choice given Saddam's repeated flouting of international resolutions as well as his abuses of his own people – I hope they will acknowledge that in almost all respects Iraq is a better place, and the Middle East a better and safer place, with him no longer in power.

Iraq is now an emerging democracy – definitely still with many flaws, but a strengthening democracy with the recent elections. We must continue to press the Iraqi government to improve their record on tolerance and human rights as we do with other countries in the region and the world.

I believe that human rights are universal, and that it is the job of mature democracies like Britain to support the development of free societies everywhere. I think Iraq now has a better chance of becoming a free society that genuinely respects human rights than it did under Saddam. As to your question on whether there is something we could do for gay asylum seekers from Iraq as a group, it is a fundamental principle of our asylum system that each cases is assessed fairly, separately, and on its merits.

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Michael Cashman responds to our criticism of Labour's international LGBT record

Image by LGBT History Month UK via Flickr

By Paul Canning

On Tuesday pinknews.co.uk publicised my strong criticism of UK Labour's international manifesto. It was titled 'Labour is shunning gay Iraqis, asylum seekers' as this was my main point - neither is mentioned in either that or their domestic manifesto and on both Labour has failed to offer support, quite the opposite.

Leading gay politician Michael Cashman MEP has today defended Labour against my criticism in an interview with pinknews.co.uk.

This is what was said:

Today, Mr Cashman pointed to Labour's record on the issue and said the party was continuing to work with groups such as Iraqi LGBT.

He told PinkNews.co.uk: "No British government has done more to tackle discrimination and promote equal rights for LGBT people than this Labour government.

"We are proud to support the campaign within the UN for the universal decriminalisation of homosexuality. It is abhorrent that countries exist which consider it a crime punishable by death.

"Labour’s LGBT International Manifesto has been criticised for not mentioning Iraq. Let’s be clear about this – homophobia exists in every society and every state. There is no fixed list of ‘homophobia free’ states. The manifesto mentions a number of states for which there are particular concerns. That does not mean that there are no concerns elsewhere.

"We remain concerned about the situation in Iraq. That is why we continue to make representations on behalf of individuals like Mr Ali Hili who, as founder of Iraqi LGBT, has worked with the Foreign Office and campaigns against LGBT persecution in Iraq.

"No civilised society condones or supports discrimination and, while it continues to exist, it is right to that we should all remain impatient and be critical of states and institutions that do nothing to address it.

"But the fact remains that this Labour government has led international efforts to tackle discrimination and promote equal rights. Labour is also at the forefront in Europe, not only shaping the EU institutions but shaping attitudes as well."

Mr Cashman added: "It is a regrettable that some people appear to be critical of Labour for producing an International LGBT Manifesto. Perhaps they should be asking why other parties have not published one."

Here is my comment in response to Michael (with additional emphasis):

Michael Cashman has much to be proud of in his work for gay rights internationally. I would single him out in this respect.

Unfortunately, the rest of the party retains an appalling position on asylum. It is the government which he supports which is directly affecting Iraqi gays through denying Ali Hili's request for his asylum claim to be expedited. To prove otherwise all they have to do is for Alan Johnson to intervene and order it. We don't just vote for the Michael Cashmans but also the Alan Johnsons and unfortunately LGBT labour people are left generally trying to claim things will somehow change or in the case of their two manifestos ignoring them.

How, exactly, is 'the party' supporting Iraqi gays? No, it is simply failing to take responsibility for the results of its actions and I stand by 'shunning'. Michael is an exception within his party.

There are also exceptions within the Tories – I would point to London MEP John Bowis' support for Iranian Mehdi Kazemi who Jacqui Smith tried to deport but there are others. Pointing at the Tories in a knee-jerk way simply doesn't work when you fail to address the party's own record. Michael's comments would have more weight if he admitted where the party has gone wrong.

I do not think the Tories would be 'better', but on asylum they could hardly be worse.

And of course it is simply false to say "perhaps they should be asking why other parties have not published [an international manifesto]" when both the LibDems and Greens incorporate strong commitments in their manifestos.

I am glad Michael says "we should all remain impatient and be critical of states and institutions that do nothing to address [the situation in Iraq]". What I wrote was not an criticism of you but the rest of your party and its actions in government. I know and you know that what is promised in the international manifesto may be good but is not good enough.

I truly respect you Michael but it is a plain fact that on Iraq and asylum neither LGBT Labour manifesto has anything to say.

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Alan Johnson fibs on asylum claim refusal numbers

Image by Downing Street via Flickr

Source: Channel Four News

By Alice Tarleton

The claim

“The Liberal Democrats… would allow asylum seekers to work, which would be a fundamental mistake given that 83 per cent of asylum seekers are found not to have a genuine claim.”
Alan Johnson, home secretary, BBC Politics Show, 25 April 2010

The background

The idea that hordes of “bogus asylum seekers” are trying to get into the UK has generated many a tabloid headline over the past decade.

The government draws a line between refugees and those coming here for economic purposes by preventing asylum applicants from working in all but exceptional circumstances.

But the Lib Dems want to reduce spending on benefits by letting asylum seekers find paid work after two months, regardless of whether their case has been approved.

This would, Johnson said, be a “fundamental mistake” – given that 83 per cent of asylum seekers turn out not to have a genuine reason for seeking sanctuary in the UK.

That’s a strikingly high figure – but is it correct?




The analysis

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Labour is shunning gay Iraqis, asylum seekers

Image by Labservative via Flickr

By Paul Canning (for pinknews.co.uk)

As he launched Labour's international LGBT manifesto last Wednesday, foreign secretary David Miliband made one howler, echoed by another in the manifesto's text.

He said: "Under Labour the UK will continue to be a beacon of hope for LGBT people."

This delusion sounded a lot like Home Office minister Phil Woolas' article last year, when he wrote that he was proud of the attendees of the London Pride march who'd found sanctuary in the UK – never mind that his office would have refused them and fought tooth-and-nail to remove them.

The pair should form a double act.

An Amnesty International report released today said that gays in Iraq have no protection from the state and are allegedly even being targeted by some security forces. Yet Miliband's 'beacon' government would tell those seeking our sanctuary they could safely return and be "discreet".

Recent research from the UK Lesbian and Gay Immigration Group on 50 refused asylum cases found that many were told to go home and not act gay.

Laugh? Cry? There is no "discreet" in Iraq – they will come and they will find you and they will torture you and display your body. For women "discreet" means you must marry and suffer rape for the rest of your life.

Furthermore, Labour's gay group LGBT Labour has nothing to say on asylum, despite the group passing a resolution at its AGM last year that it would "explore with the Home Office and Borders and Immigration agency" such items as no longer telling people to "go home and be discreet".

Labour's gay manifesto has nothing to say on the matter, presumably because the "explorations" came to nowt.

Elsewhere, the document says that the UK has "campaigned in the UN for the decriminalisation of homosexuality".

Now this has been part of a shopping list of Labour's great deeds for LGBT for some time. Previously, LGBT Labour's website claimed that the party "launched" the campaign but this has now mysteriously disappeared.

It certainly didn't lead. The origins of the UN resolution lie in the work of Louis George Tin, the French International Day Against Homophobia (IDAHO) founder who launched a worldwide campaign to end the criminalisation of same-sex relationships in 2006. He worked with then French foreign and human rights minister Rama Yade to get it to the UN. The British tagged on later. Google it.

I've exchanged emails with Louis George on the Labour claim. Shall we just say he's "bemused"?

It's also de rigeur here for them to say "only Labour" will continue to support UN work. I guess it was written before the rise of the LibDems who appear to be a good decade ahead of Labour on LGBT issues.

Having knocked it there's one good thing to say about Labour's gay manifesto. It does promise to "always raise matters of LGBT rights in countries where there is systematic violence or harassment", naming Russia, Uganda, Iran and Jamaica.

Of course we won't offer asylum or accept refugees but this is progress. It's certainly progress on Miliband's own Foreign Office human rights report, issued in February, which barely mentions LGBT issues anywhere outside Europe. It also somehow misses their sterling work in the Commonwealth, but, in future, sez the manifesto, they'll be a "relentless champion".

One country is missing in that list: Iraq.

Let's be clear, Labour created this modern-day pogrom. Saddam wasn't systematically hunting people down because they were lesbian, gay or transgender. That started after the invasion.

Since then, none of the governments responsible have done anything about it bar a few diplomatic words. Right now there is a pogrom going on in southern Iraq, the area formerly controlled by Britain: the legacy of the Labour government's rule there.

Perhaps I shouldn't pick out just Labour LGBT for pretending that this isn't happening, hoping the stench in the corner will be quietly ignored. The Labour government may be legally responsible but they're not the only ones ignoring it (so, given realpolitik, Labour LGBT's hope may be quite justified). The LGBT 'community' internationally has a case to answer.

Neither is it the responsibility of LGBT alone to help rescue Iraqi gays, but for those who claim to care about our brothers and sisters in other countries (including those who seek votes on that basis) it is shameful how they are turning their backs on Iraqis.

They are focusing, like the American Jews of the 1930s and 40s, solely on our own selfish interests.

LGBT Ugandans have been discussing what to do should the 'kill-the-gays' bill pass, where to flee. Some Americans have talked about pressuring the US State Department to help rescue them.

And the UK? How would we help those from our former colony, to whom we bequeathed sodomy laws? Referring back to that list of countries this manifesto says are experiencing "systematic violence or harassment", how has the Labour government helped fleeing Jamaicans? Or Iranians?

Jewish people know all about rescue. We could learn something from their history. They have a litany called an Al Chet which they use during Yom Kippur. Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik wrote this one about how Jews escaping Germany weren't helped by fellow Jews who looked firstly after their own interests:

"Al chet shechatanu lefanecha bera’inu tzoras nafshoseihem shel acheinu bais yisroel shehischananu eileinu v’lo shamanu" [for the sin that we have sinned before you by seeing the suffering of our Jewish brethren who called to us and we did not listen].

They are calling, and we need to start listening.

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Iraqi LGBT: Ali Hili campaign update

First campaign coverage in Middle East, first direct comment by government on case

Labour's election web campaign supremo asks Johnson to act

1000 sign petition in fortnight, hundreds of letters to Johnson

A major middle east news source has written about the campaign for Ali Hili and Iraqi LGBT, the first major news outlet for the region to cover the campaign.

The Media Line also secured the first direct comment on Hili's case from the UK government. They said that it is being dealt with by UK Border Agency (UKBA) Case Resolution Directorate and “the reason it hasn’t been prioritised is because it doesn’t fall into one of the priority categories listed on our website.”

When applying for his case to be prioritised, Hili's solicitor Barry O'Leary explained that he needed to travel to fulfill speaking engagements which would directly aid lesbians, gays, bisexual and transgender people (LGBT) suffering terror in Iraq through publicising their cause. "It’s disrupting everything for us and throwing the group’s work down the drain," said Hili.

Six months later, and interpreting those "priority categories", the UKBA told O'Leary that:

• the assistance which Hili has given to the Foreign Office (and mentioned in their 2009 Human Rights Report) "does not count"
• the fatwa (death threat against him) does not mean that Hilli "falls within the classification of clear and immediate vulnerability"
• that the delay in deciding Hilli's asylum case (since July 2007) "is not in itself an exceptional circumstance"
• his case is not "compelling"

The UKBA explanation is in contradiction to the response given to MP Clare Short, prompted to write by a constituent. She was told by Gail Adams, West Midlands Regional Director of the UKBA that "information contained in applications to the UKBA is treated as being strictly confidential and is not normally disclosed to third parties."

Iraqi LGBT have been informed that a number of MPs have asked Johnson to act, including the head of Labour's web campaign for the general election Kerry McCarthy, Labour MP for Bristol East.

Campaigners are determined to get the British Home Secretary, Alan Johnson, to intervene and order Hili's case prioritised - as he is able to do. 

• They would like it to become an issue in the UK election. 
• They say that the lack of resolution and consequent inability to travel and meet politicians and journalists in places such as Washington DC, Brussels and Madrid directly affects LGBT who are suffering a pogrom which continues in the country.

• Iraqi LGBT say they will be releasing a video next month which addresses the ongoing campaign against LGBT, particularly in Iraq's south, a region formally under the control of the British. They say that in recent weeks there have been a number of murders of young gays.
  

Within a fortnight of the launch of the campaign, over 1000 people have signed an international petition. Over 250 mainly Americans have used change.org to send a message demanding intervention from the UK Home Secretary. Campaigners say they are aware of over 100 other letters going to both Alan Johnson and Gordon Brown.

The author Stella Duffy posted a link to the campaign on her Facebook page.

Besides The Media Line, a number of other blogs and websites covering Iraq have featured the case and support has come from many Iraqis.

Further coverage of Hili's case and the plight of LGBT in Iraq has come from a wide variety of media around the world.

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Labour's manifesto: Two Minute Hate: Criminals and Immigrants

Source: Free Movement

No responsible politician or political party would have a section of their manifesto for the coming election entitled ‘Crime and Immigration’, thereby lumping the two issues (and sets of people) together in an unholy juxtapositioning that plays right into the hands of the BNP, Migration Watch and their kind.

But that is exactly what Labour have done. They may as well have called it ‘Criminals and Immigrants’. All part of the Two Minute Hate.

On a slightly happier subject, there was an excellent article by Phillip Legrain on Saturday entitled Foreigners have not ‘taken’ new jobs, a response to Daily Mail claims in which he explains (again) that the idea there is a finite number of jobs in the economy is economic nonsense. There was also a good analysis piece by Jamie Doward in The Guardian on the misuse of statistics employed to justify such headlines.

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Blue sky thinking or cloudy days: What do the party manifestos mean for migrants in the UK?

Source: Migrant Rights Network

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