The UK: The case for persecuted sexuality asylum is made

A ruling for human rights

The Supreme Court in the UK gave two gay men, one from Iran and the other from Cameroon the right to seek refugee status [1] in the UK by reason of their sexuality.

The men having been through the standard processes of seeking asylum had their requests rejected with the Immigration department advising them to return to their countries, live discretely and in the process avoid detection and consequent prosecution for their homosexuality.

The advice might sound rational to some minds but it really goes against the spirit of the conventions that guide the offering of asylum to those fleeing persecution.

Hostile cultures and laws

In Iran, homosexuals run the gauntlet of execution, in Cameroon and many other African countries their laws codify homosexuality as crimes punishable by long terms of imprisonment.

In African countries especially, many fail to appreciate that those laws are really hangovers from colonial times and the so-called colonial masters of the yester-years have already abrogated those laws and given recognition and rights to homosexuals both from a civil and human rights perspectives.

Whereas, certain of these countries might have emancipated in some ways a fundamentalist streak of religious adherence has increased the level of homophobic advocacy and the promulgation of intolerant laws along with the oft touted idea of homosexuality not being in conformity with their customs.

The fact is our customs in general hardly allows the tyranny of the majority over the minority; the people might at worst be ostracised but usually never persecuted, communities find ways to co-exist rather than execute judgement on the different; that is what is really alien to our culture and new to our expression of identity.

Populism dampening our humanity

In the UK and Europe, immigration has been a serious issue and populist politicians have gained electoral leverage with their rhetoric but surely this should not be at the expense of offering refuge to the persecuted.

Some might even count the monetary cost of each refugee but against the greater sense of justice and the lessons to be taught from offering protection to the persecuted as a message to their hostile home countries this far outweighs the reductionism to the so-called waste of taxpayers’ money. Immigration policy toughness expressed in not granting asylum on clear humanitarian grounds is cold-hearted to say the least.

Obviously, there is the issue of the possible abuse of the system, where heterosexuals or borderline bisexuals might claim to be homosexuals or even transsexuals because they are clearly affected too, to gain refugee status.

Sexuality polygraphs

Crude as this might seem one might suggest the use of some sort of sexuality polygraph test, even a sexuality psychometric test or both. It might be demeaning in some ways but the fate that somewhat awaits those who are really not of the sexuality of the majority on being deported to their home countries is a far worse situation.

I am sure this can be designed with psychological, psychiatric, sociological and emotional sensitivity under counselling and humane guidance teasing out the nuanced and latent sensibilities of the subject offering a refined template of measurement that eliminates to some extent stereotypes.

Such tests should also be designed with input from free homosexuals in the West from these hostile cultures so that the assessments are better tuned to get at the underlying truth.

The case is made and closed

The case for granting asylum to those persecuted for their sexuality is made but the one for truly assessing who is a true homosexual for gaining refugee status should commence as a body of evolving knowledge.

As Lord Hope stated in his ruling, “The refugee convention was not drafted with sexuality in mind. That it has become such an important issue today is attributed in part to the rise of religiously motivated ideologies - Christian, Muslim or otherwise - in certain countries.”

He goes on to say with respect to advances in social liberties in the West that, “It is only by the distance we have travelled as a society that we are now obliged to offer protection to those who would face prison, rape, torture or death for their sexual identity.”

We can only really celebrate our freedoms in truth when we are also ready to grant such to those who find no expression of that freedom in their home countries and seek the protection of ours.

Source

[1] BBC - Daily View: Gay asylum ruling

Somehow, strange sexualities excite Africans

Using Homosexuality as a damaging tool

Having dealt with a number of topics on sexuality on NaijaBlog in the last few days, one concerning homophobia and other a lovers’ spat, it is strange that there are still issues around sex that tend to hammer the dark into the continent of Africa.

In Malaysia years ago, the accusation of sodomy was used to depose the vice president and persecute him into incarceration and ill health, but he survived.

The first black president of Zimbabwe had his legacy completely rubbished as the tyrannical Mugabe allowed charges of homosexuality to thrive to the disgrace of Canaan Banana.

Whilst the accusation of homosexuality in Africa can create a level of revulsion, some have concentrated that response by alluding to the acts rather than just the life. Some people’s lives could be affected by being named homosexuals, but definitely destroyed by being called a Sodomite.

Publish and be damned

In the light of this, it is first interesting to read that a newspaper in Uganda has decided to publish the first names and professions of alleged homosexuals; this atrocious act is defended as exposing people who are cheating on their partners.

One wonders when it became the duty of newspapers to publish private infidelities, if that be their goal, why single out those who have cheated on their partners with a deviation into same-sex liaisons? It really cannot be justified.

Harking back to Victorian times when sodomy was criminalized, it was said that Queen Victoria did not believe there was anything like lesbianism, this paper has not published names of lesbians for so many reasons, but one can really be that men are quite titillated by lesbian sex, it cannot be said that women find pleasure in the converse.

The law should rise to protect

When a publication of names happened in Cameroon earlier in the year, the courts came down heavily on the editor that he did prison time where he might have learnt to pick up the soap; I cannot muster any sympathy for such people.

I would surmise that the publication of full names might attract litigation that could really do more damage to the paper and editor than the aggrieved.

One voice of reason in that news write up does say this is the time for the government to protect rather than persecute and prosecute – unfortunately, the railing against homosexuality has a way of congregating people to a mob of bigots but does nothing to address everyday issues of life and wellbeing – it is a useful primitive political smokescreen that gets abused by any unscrupulous politician in the West and anywhere else.

Read my story

Then a defrauded Nigerian railing against cronyism and nepotism that has allowed the criminals to abscond from justice has labelled the Minister of Federal Capital Territory a homosexual; this smokescreen reveals a more compelling catalogue of woes and corrupt practices.

We might just say, if you want your story to gain maximum interest in Nigeria, accuse the principals of homosexuality and see your story become a best seller, however, it does not guarantee you will get justice, especially if the big man decides to accord you the courtesy of suing the big pants off your backside.

The medicine man

I remember that the most feared medicine man in the town when I went to secondary school had a name in Yoruba that translated to Sodomite. If you really did have a problem you wanted sorted out in the animist traditions, you went to see him – he had not other name than that, and it drummed fear into those who as much as whispered his name.

I cannot say if the name was supposed to be literal or figurative, but whatever it meant, people must have thought he drew more magical strength from the seemingly abominable and bizarre practice – anyone who might have been done by him would definitely not dare go to the press.

A dowry for a goat

And so a house owner in Sudan wakes up in the middle of the night to sort out a kafuffle in his compound only to catch that a man in the act of using “a goat as his wife”. The shame and guilt of it all paralyses the culprit that he gets tied up and reported to the elders.

The smart grey heads decide there is no point involving the police in this, but impose a dowry on the culprit who is then allowed to take the goat home for a wife.

It is strange that the act of bestiality can attract so smart a remediation, but one of sodomy is a beheading if Sharia has a peek into that case.

Sex in Africa though common in terms of population growth, horrible in terms of rape and abuse and also paternalistic in terms of the rights of women, is still a very difficult topic of ambivalent values of traditions, religion and simple village wisdom – somehow, those in the village seem to understand the issues better.

It may also be that some even knew that sodomy long before condoms and pills was a form of contraception as long as it is practised between man and woman.

Prison exults with gay abandon

Such shameful activities

Hardly two weeks ago, could one not deign to comment on the bushman savagery masquerading as press freedom and Puritanical license that pervaded the Cameroonian press as they “outed” 50 supposedly gay men in authority.

What they did was so last Century, even further, so Wildean that the importance of being earnest turned into a feeding frenzy of scavenging hyenas at their most terrible.

This comes in within the atmosphere of the seething homophobia that has lead to the Nigerian executive and legislature to devote scarce democratic goodwill to putting a radically homophobic law in the statute books.

As one commentator put it, it could be a political trap for the 2007 elections since we know that George W. Bush in 2004, carried all the swing states but one that had the gay marriage law juxtaposed with the presidential elections.

As unAfrican as being in Africa

Homosexuality is presumably unAfrican; beside the point that South Africa has laws that prevent discrimination on the basis of expressed sexuality and allows gay marriage. It calls to question which part of South Africa is not African as any other African in land, people and society.

As usual, being tarred with the brush of homosexuality is the ultimate stigma; it was used to harass the first president of Zimbabwe – Canaan Banana and the once deputy prime minister of Malaysia – Anwar Ibrahim.

For the unconscionable, it is the dirtiest tool in the bag; it would make the protagonists of the Salem witch hunts look like pansies.

Whilst our belief systems do not necessarily align, the Nigerian Humanist Movement is doing well to bring a sampling of logic into this mass hysteria.

Outing for an inning

Well, this brings the topic to the fore; as one of the “outed” ministers sued for libel and defamation of character won the action which has lead to the editor of newspaper (L'Anecdote) being sentenced to four months in prison including a fine.

There is not to be so glad about in the judgment apart from the fact that someone so harassed with an outing has successfully defended himself against the stigma and the judiciary took a supposedly objective view of the matter.

However, if the judiciary was not necessarily objective but sided with authority to teach journalists a lesson; at least many would be a bit more circumspect on matters like this.

It is necessary to arraign a press that allows the truth to suffer on the altar of sensationalism.

Accused witch becomes hunter

I would hope that there are 10 more people wrongly accused by that editor and each pursue libel action individually till all such apologies to common decency are completely banged up.

It is the only consolation for others who live in terror and the induced schizophrenia of double-lives because the tyranny of the majority is not constrained by law or precept as is duty bound by any democracy.

The need for enlightenment

Homosexuality is not a race-specific trait, the biblical Sodom and Gomorrah from which homophobia draws its most potent tonic could have been anywhere in the world; just as it was not in Europe, Africa, Asia or America.

Basic religious exegesis also views Sodom and Gomorrah in terms of them being inhospitable which could very well read as intolerant and bigoted. The Scriptures are too much of a double-edged sword to trifle with.

Homosexuality is about people everywhere and their pre-dispositions – only real enlightenment would take us out of the darkness of Puritanical intolerance.

It might well constitute part of the great emancipation of Africa into what is well and truly the Twenty-first Century, beyond famine, beyond poverty, beyond hand-outs, beyond eternal incumbency, beyond tyranny, beyond wars; beyond refugees; beyond hypocrisy, beyond intolerance and beyond plunder.

Prison suits him

If I had one anecdote for the editor, it would be the age-old derisive prison joke – never drop the bar of soap – he had better get a face lift that would win Mr Ugliest Cameroonian.

I have no sympathy for those who terrorise harmless citizens with witch hunts, if I were the prison warden the key to his cell, once occupied and locked would never be found again.

Those who deny others the comfort of civilised society deserve no freedom, liberty or safety.