BRITAIN: Homophobic policy costs lives

Two weeks after his asylum application was refused, 26-year-old Hussein Nasseri shot himself between the eyes. On April 18, the inquest into his June 2004 death concluded that the refusal drove him to suicide. Nasseri fled from Iran in 2000, after being imprisoned for homosexuality. He feared he would be executed in Iran, where gay sex carries a death sentence. Nasseri is at least the second gay Iranian asylum seeker to commit suicide in Britain. In 2003, Israfil Shiri set himself alight in the offices of Refugee Action in Manchester, after his application was refused. Shiri, a member of Basij (a state-sanctioned Islamic volunteer army), fled Iran after authorities got documentation of his homosexual relationships. He died as a result of his burns. To protest Britain's asylum policy, visit <http://www.ncadc.org.uk>.

From Green Left Weekly, April 27, 2005.

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From GLW issue 624