URGENT NEWS RELEASE A
INDIRECT JUDGEMENT OF Tokyo
District Court rejected the right of residence We
strictly condemn this judgement of injustice
We,
Team S, a support group of Mr. Shayda, an Iranian gay asylum-seeker,
regret to inform you that after more than 3 years and 8 months from
its start, Tokyo District Court finally gave its ruring on Mr. Shayda's
courtcase on February 25, 2004. The judgement totally denied Shayda's
potentiality to be a refugee and rejected his right of residence of
Japan. A
Shameful Judgement: "In Iran, gays can spend For
more than 3 years and a half, we continued our support for Mr. Shayda's
courtcase, tried to prove his well-founded fear of persecution by submitting
more than 150 evidences, and also explained what sexual orientation
is, what LGBT are, why coming out is important, etc. Also, we invited
Mr. Goudarz Eghtedari, an Iranian human rights researcher and activist
living in the US, and he made a clear testimony about the persecution
and death penalty against Iranian gays. *Note:
The name of the document is "1998/02/00e Subject: Iran: Update
to Responses to Information Requests IRN24789.E of 22 August 1996t and
IRN21549.E of 2 October 1995 on th esituation of homosexuals, and on
whether legal penalties are applied in practice", made by Research
Directorate, Immigration and Refugee Board, Ottawa. This document is
included in "UNHCR Refworld-Country Information" Denial
of the importance of coming out In
the courtcase, we repeatedly proved that he is an openly gay activist
and a member of "Homan: the Group to Defend the Rights of Iranian
LGBTs" from 1992. Also, we emphasized the importance of coming
out of the closet and the rights of free speech to urge gay rights,
as these rights are essential for LGBTs and infringement of these rights
are equal to persecution. In fact, the anti-sodomy clause is one of
the "Hodoud" (god's unchangeable law) in Shari'a, for this
reason, we will never be able to change it without overturning the current
islamic fundamentalist regime itself, so coming out as a gay and urging
gay rights are extremely political discourse in the country. The
Fight will be harder in the High Court, In
the subsequent press conference, Mr. Shayda did not appear for security
concerns. On his behalf, his supporter read his statement saying as
that: "I didn't expect to win this case, because human rights are
not respected in Japan. So I'm not in dispair. I will seek asylum in
other countries where the rights of refugees are respected." |