Date: Mon, 18 Mar 1996 19:32:48 +0100 (MET)
From: skolander@bahnhof.se (Bjoern Skolander)
Subject: SWEDEN: Gay Iranian Denied Asylum

The Swedish Federation for Gay and Lesbian Rights (RFSL) has in a letter (18
March 1996) to the Aliens Appeals Board (Utlaenningsnaemnden) protested
against the boards decision to refuse a gay Iranian exile in Sweden, despite
the continuing repression against gays and lesbians in Iran.

The Iranian citizen arrived in Sweden in October 1994 and applied for asylum
in November the same year. His application was rejected by the Swedish
Immigration Board (Invandrarverket) in May 1995 and by the Aliens Appeals
Board on 11 March 1996.

The Iranian has given following motivation for his asylum application: In
November 1994 shortly after his arrival in Sweden he received a phone call
from his parents in Iran. They had been visited by Iranian police, who had
asked for him and searched his room. They found three prohibited movies. One
showing two gay man joking about Khomeini and Islam. Further they found a
collection of poems, some of them anti-Islam as well as a photo of the
former Shah and his wife. The police also showed the parents a nude photo of
their son and his ex-lover, and told them that they, if they found him,
would execute their son as they had done with his lover.

Neither the Swedish Immigration Board nor the Aliens Appeals Board questions
that the Iranian man is gay, but they doubt the reliability of his
statement. None of the authorities seems to have considered what could
happen to him if he were forced to go back to Iran. Last November the
Iranian citizen Mehdi Barazandeh was executed there for his homosexuality.

The Aliens Appeals Board has in earlier similar cases decided to give gay
Iranians asylum in Sweden. If the board's present decision is not changed it
will imply a considered tightening of the policy regarding gay asylum
seekers in Sweden.

Translated by Bjoern Skolander
skolander@bahnhof.se

SOURCE:
News from Swedish Lesbian/Gay Politics
Published by the Swedish Federation for Gay and Lesbian Rights (RFSL)
No. 10/1996 (March 14-18, 1996)




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