Gay refugees...

Many countries in Europe are deporting gay refugees...including Holland and the UK, where this article is from.

Lesbian and gay refugees who have suffered violent and sexual abuse in their home countries are being declared "failed" asylum seekers and scheduled for deportation by the Home Office.

Among those due to be sent back are gay refugees from violently homophobic countries like Cameroon, Pakistan, Uganda, Sudan, Jamaica, Iran, Palestine, Algeria, Iraq, Zimbabwe, Afghanistan, Nigeria and Egypt.

The desperate suffering of lesbians and gays who have fled from homophobic regimes, and their abuse by the Home Office, is the theme of today's protests in the UK, which mark the International Day Against Homophobia (IDAHO). Worldwide, IDAHO is being celebrated by events in more than 50 countries, from Nepal and Poland to Uganda and Venezuela.

Asylum adjudicators nearly always turn down gay refugee claims, even when the person has presented evidence of imprisonment, rape and torture. Adjudicators often acknowledge their brutal maltreatment but advise claimants that they will not be at risk of repeat persecution if they go back home, change their identity, stop acting effeminately, never have sex and move to a remote part of the country where no one knows them. That way, says the Home Office, nobody will realise the person is gay and therefore they will not suffer persecution.

From my day-to-day work with asylum seekers, I hear first hand shocking stories about homophobic abuse and inhumane conditions inside the UK's asylum detention centres, including allegations of homophobic insults, beatings and sexual assaults. Frightened refugees, who have narrowly escaped death and seen their partners murdered, are treated like common criminals. Some are detained for six moths or longer, even though they have committed no offence. A person charged with murder or rape has more legal rights than an asylum detainee.