(New York City) A lesbian from the former Soviet republic of Turkmenistan has been granted asylum in the United States by the Department of Homeland Security.

The woman, whose name is being withheld because of fears of reprisal by the Turkmenistan government against family members still in the country, had entered the country on a tourist visa and then applied for refugee status. She was aided by Columbia Law School¹s Sexuality and Gender Law Clinic which prepared a dossier on the way gays and lesbians are treated in Turkmenistan.

Gay men can be imprisoned for two years on charges of homosexuality. Although there is no specific law against lesbians, they are discriminated in employment, with few ever getting jobs. In some cases, in the mostly Moslem country, lesbians are forced by their families into marriages. The government also operates Soviet-style "re-education" camps where political dissidents and sexual minorities are "treated".

[...]

"The intensive research and information about conditions for lesbians and gay men in Turkmenistan gathered by the students on this case is now available to anyone from Turkmenistan seeking asylum because of their sexual orientation," said Prof. Suzanne B. Goldberg, who directs the Clinic.

"The intensive research and information about conditions for lesbians and gay men in Turkmenistan gathered by the students on this case is now available to anyone from Turkmenistan seeking asylum because of their sexual orientation," said Prof. Suzanne B. Goldberg, who directs the Clinic.

At 22, Gramoz Prestreshi says he now has a reason to live. “I'm in a safe country,” he says, “I can be just who I am -- that's all.” Last week, Prestreshi received news that he had been granted political asylum in the United States, and no longer has to return to his native Kosovo, a province in southern Serbia.

It was in Kosovo that Prestreshi says he was brutally attacked more than once, and mocked by police and hospitals when seeking help, solely because he is gay. It's what ultimately led him to flee Kosovo in February, and eventually end up on the doorstep of Whitman-Walker Clinic in Washington. With everything he owned packed in one suitcase and a backpack, Prestreshi had only three words to say: “I need help.”

[...]

Kosovo, a partially self-governing and predominantly Muslim province of Serbia, is administered by the United Nations. According to Pilcher, the U.N. has established “basic” human rights laws, which prohibit discrimination against GLBT people.

“From what I understand, in practice that law is completely ignored,” Pilcher says. “The local governments, the courts, the prosecutors, the police do not recognize that as a valid law... . If [Prestreshi] were to go back as an openly gay man, he can expect to suffer as much as he did in the past couple of years, perhaps more,” Pilcher says, noting that it would be difficult for him to find employment there, or walk in public without getting hurt, as he is now known for talking publicly about being gay. “I think that people will hate him solely because of his sexual orientation, and will harm him without any fear of retribution from the government.”

International Gay Pride Day took place last week, and it was an opportunity for gay rights groups like these to discuss such issues. We are reminded by Amnesty International that homosexuality is punishable by death in eight countries in the world. “In Iran, since the revolution of 1979, 4,000 homosexuals have been legally murdered,” says Rafael Salazar, president of the Colega group.

But the lives of homosexuals are also at risk in countries where homosexuality is not outlawed. They die at the hands of neo-Nazi groups in Eastern European countries, while in South America, they frequently become the victims of death squads. “A young man in Brazil admitted that he murdered a homosexual simply because he hated gays,” we are told by Javier García, a member of the Ojalá Association in Malaga. He refers to a book by Luis Mott, an activist and sociologist who claims that 126 homosexuals were murdered in Brazil in 2002. “Gays are being murdered every day in Brazil by the death squads and other groups,” says Javier, telling us about a recent case in which two Columbians living in Valencia were granted refugee status after having shown that they had been threatened by death in their own countries because of their homosexuality.

The Ojalá Association has a centre in Malaga for taking in immigrants and homosexual refugees. Currently staying there is a woman who has requested asylum because of persecution in South America for her sexual preferences, following the murder of her partner.

Friends of a former Vancouver resident murdered in Mexico whose refugee claim was rejected by Canada are claiming he was killed because he was gay, and calling into question this country's attitude toward queer refugees seeking asylum.

Enrique Villegas, 35, was found dead in his apartment in Mexico City Apr 7, just over four years after his refugee claim — which he made based on his sexual orientation — was denied by the Canadian Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB).

Mexican police say the murder was the work of drug traffickers, as reported by Univision.com, a Spanish-language news website, but close friends of Villegas in Vancouver are not convinced. "He was sweet. He didn't smoke, he didn't drink. He was a very clean person, very healthy," says Martina Cordero, who knew Villegas for seven years.

"The police linked the murder to drug trafficking because many of Mexico's drug dealers are from [the state of] Sinaloa, where Enrique was from," says Alfredo Serrano, who also knew Villegas for seven years. Villegas was also shot in the back of the neck, a style of execution favoured by drug dealers, adds Serrano. But he and Cordero — who spoke on the phone to Villegas every day until shortly before his death — believe their friend's sexual orientation was a key factor in his murder.

Serrano describes how, a few days before he was killed, Villegas told him he had started "dating" someone, a homeless man without a job. Serrano says Villegas, who "wanted to help everyone all the time," told him he had taken the man to his restaurant to help him do some work, and planned to take him to his apartment afterwards. That was the last time they spoke. Four days later, Villegas' body was discovered.

"According to the doctors, he was dead for two or three days," Serrano says. "There is no chance that somebody broke in. [The murderer] had to be somebody he let in. He was living in a very secure apartment complex."

[...]

Villegas, who lived in Vancouver for several years, returned to Mexico after Canada rejected his refugee claim in February 2003. "He felt so sad," says Serrano. "He came here because he said he felt safe here."

The IRB will not release the details of a particular claimant's case, but Chris Morrissey, a local immigration consultant, says refugee claims made by queer Mexicans are usually denied. "The majority of cases have not been successful," says Morrissey, who is also a volunteer with the Rainbow Refugee Committee, a non-profit group offering support to queer refugee claimants.

Morrissey explains that in order to be granted refugee status, claimants must prove, among other things, that they have a well-founded fear of persecution in their country. Morrissey says this can be difficult for Mexicans as there is nothing in Mexican law that prohibits having sex with same-sex partners. "Much of it depends on whether you have personally been threatened and if it would continue if you went back to your country," she says. "You have to be able to demonstrate this."

Melissa Anderson, senior communications advisor for the IRB, says Mexicans who are being persecuted because of their sexual orientation have the option to move to another region of their country where they will presumably be safe. "There is a persuasive decision that argues homosexual refugee claimants have an in-country flight alternative in Mexico City to escape persecution for their sexual orientation," Anderson says.

One night in 2003, on the wintry streets of Kosovo, a group of thugs stalked and beat Gramoz Prestreshi almost to death. Police in the war-scarred Balkan province laughed and called him names. The emergency room workers made him mop up his own blood. It was a sordid but hardly unusual episode in the hostile environment homosexuals encounter in societies of all kinds.

Unlike many such victims, though, Prestreshi kept his wits about him. He had photographs taken of his injuries. He complained to the press and clipped every article. When his family disowned him, he joined a gay rights organization and slept in its office. This spring, his determination bore unexpected fruit, and Prestreshi was accepted as a legal refugee in the United States. He now lives in the District.

“I am happy because I don’t have to live like a prisoner anymore in a society where no one is allowed to be different,” said Prestreshi, a slight, nervous man of 22, who won his asylum case with help from Whitman-Walker Clinic in the District. “But I can never forget what happened. It hurt when the police called us ‘faggots.’ It hurt when my parents screamed and beat me after they found out. It still hurts.”

Harassment and abuse of gay men and lesbians is becoming increasingly accepted as grounds for legal asylum in the United States, even at a time of conservative judicial activism, fear about HIV/AIDS transmission and increased scrutiny of asylum seekers. The government does not disclose a breakdown of reasons for granting asylum petitions, but legal advocacy groups in several major U.S. cities said they have won dozens of cases.

Homosexuality, once a de facto condition for barring foreigners from entering the country, is now officially recognized by the U.S. government as a category that might subject individuals to persecution in their homeland, just as if they were political dissidents in a dictatorship or religious minority members in a theocracy.

...such asylum cases are still extremely difficult to win, according to lawyers in Washington and elsewhere.

One reason is that applicants face multiple burdens of proof. They must demonstrate that they were abused or harassed by authorities, not merely by angry relatives or drunken hooligans, or that the authorities failed to protect them. They must also prove that they were abused because they are homosexual -- and thus prove that they are, in fact, gay.

Roi Whaley stood by his domestic partner, Aurelio Tolentino, 34, a native of the Philippines, for the past two years as Tolentino waged a losing legal battle to fend off a U.S. deportation order brought about because of his HIV-positive status. A U.S. immigration law bans HIV-positive immigrants from staying in the country.

On July 11, five days before he would be subject to arrest and deportation, Tolentino is scheduled to fly from Gulfport to Billington, Wash., where he will rent a car and drive 30 miles north to the Canadian border. In a process arranged through his lawyers in the U.S. and Canada, Canadian customs officials will allow Tolentino to enter that country as a “refugee” from the United States.

The Canadian option was made possible, in part, because Tolentino’s mother lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, as a naturalized Canadian citizen.

“We’re going to have a little get together at the house with friends,” Whaley said Monday. “It’s a kind of a going away party for Aurelio,” he said. “But I don’t have it in my heart to celebrate the Fourth of July because I feel so let down and disappointed in this country and what it’s supposed to stand for.”

In what he calls a heart-wrenching choice between remaining in the U.S. or joining the man he loves in Canada, Whaley says he will move to Canada as soon as Tolentino obtains legal resident status there, as expected by his lawyers. At that time, the two gay men will marry in Canada under the Canadian same-sex marriage law. As Tolentino’s legal spouse, Whaley will be eligible for permanent resident status in Canada. The two plan to live in Vancouver.

As a registered nurse, Tolentino expects to find gainful employment in Vancouver, where nurses are in high demand, just as they are in the U.S. He has worked in hospitals and health care facilities in California and Mississippi since arriving in the U.S. in 1999.

Authorities found out about his HIV status in 2005 when he applied for permanent U.S. resident status and took a required physical exam and blood test. When the blood test turned up positive for HIV, immigration officials immediately denied his residence application, revoked his work permit and issued a deportation notice.

Citing the U.S. Immigration and Nationality Act, as amended in 1993, immigration authorities informed Tolentino in a letter that the law bars “any alien” from remaining in the country if they are found to have “a communicable disease of public health significance, which shall include infection with the etiologic agent for acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS).”

A Democratic-controlled Congress added the 1993 HIV immigrant ban to the immigration law at a time when fears about the transmission of the AIDS virus ran high and lawmakers worried that a flood of foreigners infected with the virus could overload the U.S. health care system. President Clinton denounced the law as punitive and unnecessary but signed it anyway.

“I'm in a safe country,” he says, “I can be just who I am -- that's all.” Last week, Prestreshi received news that he had been granted political asylum in the United States...."

An asylum seeker who was deported to Iran in 2004 has been describing how he managed to escape from custody and make his way back to the UK.

In this three-part series, the BBC News Website follows Shahin Portofeh's story, from deportation and alleged torture in Iran, to his escape and flight to the UK in an arduous and dangerous journey across Turkey, Greece and Italy.

Shahin Portofeh was so scared at the prospect of being deported from Coventry back to Iran that he sewed up his eyes and lips in July 2003 in an effort to draw attention to his case.

Having had a gay relationship, Mr Portofeh, now 27, knew he faced the prospect of being repeatedly lashed and then executed if he was returned to his homeland, where homosexuality is illegal.

But the Home Office decided to deport him, sending him back to Tehran in 2004.

Mr Portofeh described his terror on the day he thought might be his last as a free man.

"They kicked my bedroom door in and just threw themselves on me - I was really, really frightened.

"Just a few minutes later an immigration officer walked into the room and said: 'We're going to deport you to Iran.'

"I was begging them, asking them: 'Please don't deport me' but straight away they took me to the airport and the very same day they deported me back to Tehran."

An ayslum seeker who sewed shut his eyes and lips in protest at being returned to Iran has been granted leave to remain in the UK.

[...]

Although there is relief for Mr Portofeh, it is notable that there is no official policy supporting the right of refugees to claim asylum on the grounds of sexual orientation.

Despite a High Court rebuke and assurances to the Senate, immigration authorities are still finding ways to ignore pleas for protection on the basis of anti-gay persecution.

Egyptian-born Mohamed (Mike) Sarhan is the latest in a string of cases where bigoted assumptions by the Refugee Review Tribunal (RRT) and the Immigration Department are putting gay people at risk of torture.

Sarhan and his Australian partner Brad Corchorane celebrated their second anniversary last week with rings and a ceremony at Sydney Town Hall, but the RRT accused them of faking homosexuality.

“How on earth can you prove that you are gay or not? I told her everything during the interview but she threw it out,” Sarhan said.

After a year, he landed in a group home in Texas. He left it for Toronto in 2005, after learning that Canada respects gay rights.

Finding that being beaten by police officers did not provide a sufficient basis for finding a gay man from South America reasonably feared that "his life or freedom would be threatened" if he were forced to return to Bolivia, a panel of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a decision by the Board of Immigration Appeals rejecting the man’s application for "withholding of removal."

Unfortunately, the applicant had waited too long after arriving in the U.S. to file a timely asylum application. Del Carpio-Diaz v. U.S. Attorney General, 2007 WL 2302200 (Aug. 14, 2007) (not officially published). The court’s per curiam decision relates that in his application for asylum asylum, the man, who was born and raised in Peru, claimed that "he was mistreated as a child because of his homosexuality, he was sexually abused by an adult at his Catholic middle school, and police detained and abused persons at a dance club where [he] and his boyfriend had been dancing."

With a flat-out statement that a message from her would do not good for Pegah, Ms. Gilbert still said she would write a memo to the Foreign Office back home that she had met with us. I asked that she also include one of our flyers demanding asylum for Pegah with her message to her bosses in the UK, and she agreed to send it along.

Barbara Lee Introduces Bill to Lift HIV Travel Ban

California Political Desk
August 2, 2007
(Washington, DC) - Today, Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-Oakland) introduced legislation that would lift the ban that prevents people living with HIV/AIDS from traveling or immigrating to the United States.

It is manifestly discriminatory to single out one non-infectious disease.

Unfortunately, HIV is infectious. It has proven itself to be highly contagenous, indeed.