Earlier this week the website LGBT Asylum News reported yet another example of anti-gay actions by countries who don't want asylum seeking LGBTs to stay.This time it's Norway when authorities told Azad Hassan Rasol (pictured left) even though Norway acknowledges that gays and lesbians are at risk even to the point of being killed in Iraq, a Norwegian High Court responded to Rasol's request for asylum that he ''must comply with Iraq's socio-cultural norms''.
In other words go home, stay in the closet and hopefully you won't be killed.
Rasol who is a Kurd was quoted as saying, "My clan is going to kill me. Gays and lesbians cannot live openly in Iraq". Rasol not only runs the risk of being arrested, convicted and punished for being gay he could also be subject to what are called "honor killings" in retaliation for being openly gay.
According to writer/reporter Michael Luongo in a piece for the website Gay City News, Ali Hili (who has been a news source for myself over the past several years) chairman of Iraqi LGBT a London, England based human rights group for LGBTs in Iraq, told in a press release of the arrest of over 20 gay men in Kurdistan this past September.
“The men were attending a party at a private house on 15th of September when the police raided the address. After fierce protests against the raid by human rights organisations, including Amnesty International, all but three men have since been released from the city’s Garmyan Prison. Several of those detained claim to have been subject to violent beatings while being held in solitary confinement. The authorities in Kalar refuse to disclose the whereabouts of those still in detention, the conditions in which they are held, or the charges they face.”
Rasol's case will now go to the Norwegian Supreme Court.
