Persecuted in their countries, Gays find refuge in New York
March 30, 2009
As he slowly walks on the stage, the entire room becomes silent. All eyes are focused on him. He is suddenly in the spotlight as he nervously wraps his well-manicured hand around the microphone. He takes a deep breath and gives his most charming smile to the crowd –all white, shiny teeth and stretched pink, glossy lips. He still cannot believe he is here. This is his chance to break into New York’s gay music scene and to put his past behind him.
Tall and thin, he is dressed in a tight white jacket over black jeans and a large sparkling belt. He wears a large white watch, a shiny ring, sparkly necklaces and earrings, and his nails are painted in black.
The room fills up quickly as he starts in French, "Bonsoir tout le monde!" Good evening everybody, and continued in English, "I love the United States."
Then, with the help of a translator, he tells a brief version of his life, "In Senegal, I performed in different places, in nightclubs, weddings, presidential venues. Everyone in Africa knows me." He explained that he had to leave Senegal because of the strong anti-gay sentiments there: "Many want to kill the gays," he said, not going into details. He, too, could have lost his life.
The crowd applauds. And he starts singing in Senegalese as he moves smoothly to the sound of his own soft, feminine voice. The music takes the audience to West Africa and he is their travel agent. The audience claps along. Behind him, on the walls, are pictures of rock stars such as Mike Jagger and Sting. The song he sings is a very traditional Senegalese one. He wrote the lyrics. It’s about his mother, and about how she saved him and protected him in the hardest times.
His name is Pape M’baye. He is 24-years-old. And he is a gay man absconded in America. His November 28 performance marked the beginning of his new life as a gay refugee in the United States, after he had to flee homophobic Senegal in August 2008.
He is standing on the stage of the Jazz bar, “The Cutting Room,” on West 24th Street, in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan. Superstars like David Bowie and Norah Jones have sung on this stage. M’baye is lucky. Lucky to be alive and lucky to be performing at The Cutting Room, and he knows it.
“It's very hard to be gay in Senegal -- it's like being a rat in the street. They can kill you, they can kick you out of your house,” said M'baye.
In many countries in the world, especially in Muslim countries, being caught in a homosexual act is punishable by law and it is considered a sex crime even if it is between two consenting adults, according to the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights commission, a non-profit organization based in New York that defends Gay and Lesbian rights in the world.
Law aside, being a homosexual is a life threatening proposition in countries such as Iran, where homosexuals are thrown in jail, often with the purpose of endangering their lives. In prison they are beaten, raped and exposed to unspeakable violence. Homosexuals face the death penalty in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Mauritania, Somalia and Sudan. They can face life in prison in India, Pakistan, Guyana, and Thailand. And they may get prison time in a large number of countries such as Morocco, Senegal, Libya, Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Kenya and Ethiopia.
In Senegal, an anti-sodomy law was enacted in 1965 and qualified homosexual activity to be “an improper or unnatural act with a person of the same sex.” Until recently, homosexuals were tolerated, especially among artists and singers. However, the growth of radical Islam has changed the Senegalese society and people are becoming ragingly homophobic, said Professor Suzanne Goldberg, a law professor at Columbia University who specializes in sexuality and gender law.
The United States is one of the countries in the world to give asylum to homosexuals. Canada is another. Other countries in the world offer refuge but not as commonly as in the United States and Canada. Even countries as modern and multi-ethnic as England are not prone to giving refugee status to homosexuals. Last year, England denied seven refugee requests from Iraqis who were scared to go back home.
As a refugee, M’baye can stay in the U.S. indefinitely, and he can work like any other residents in the country. A refugee is defined as a person outside of his country of nationality who is unable or unwilling to return because of persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, or being a part of a particular social group, or stand for particular political opinions.
At a time when issues regarding the life style of homosexuals in the U.S. have not yet been resolved, and the country has not fully agreed to give equal right to homosexuals, the government is making the United States a haven for gay refugees whose lives are in danger. During the last presidential elections, Obama extensively talked about equality for gays and lesbians in his acceptance speech in Denver, but he does not support gay marriage and, as proposition 8 in California shows, many people who voted for Obama do not support gay rights since Proposition 8 that restricts same-sex marriage, was passed in the last presidential elections.
Pape M’Baye was born in Dakar, the capital of Senegal, in 1984. He started singing at the age of six. Coming from a family of five children, he said he has always felt close to his siblings, and his parents have always known he was gay and supported him. He was happy in Senegal, he said. He had good grades in school and a nice life. By the time he was a teenager, he started performing, singing and telling stories in weddings, parties and even presidential venues. His singing career rapidly became successful and it granted him notoriety in all of homophobic West Africa. In Senegal, he dressed like he does in the United States, with bright colors and female accessories, and never tried to hide his sexual orientation, he said.
But in February 2008, his life took a dramatic turn. A national Senegalese magazine published pictures of him at a party that they claimed was a gay wedding organized by M’baye. In a part of the world where gay men and women are arrested, the publication of the pictures stirred hysteria among the population, and M’baye and some of his friends were arrested by the police and held in detention for four days. After questioning him about the nature of the party, they decided to set him free. This public scandal led him to run around West Africa for weeks trying to protect his life. M’baye explained that he was never bothered before because people assumed that, because he was artist, he dressed and behaved differently.
But M’baye and his friends still faced the anger of many people who recognized him in the streets. When he returned home, he found graffiti with anti-gay sentiments all over his building walls. Many of his friends hid in southern Senegal, while he stayed in Dakar. A couple of weeks after he was outed by the media, people came into his house with broken bottles and beat him and another friend. Pape M’baye had no other choice but hide.
That’s when he started running around West Africa like a fugitive.
He first hid in Gambia where he encountered a more violently anti-gay society, as the president claimed during that same period that he will behead all homosexuals in Gambia. He then returned to Dakar in May 2008 after only a few weeks.
In Dakar, where the media reported his return, many people recognized him and attacked him. A female friend of his put him in touch with Human Rights Watch who helped him flee to Accra in Ghana. The first thing he did upon his arrival was to go to the American Embassy to ask for asylum. In Ghana, he was recognized by Senegalese people who cornered him in a street and stabbed him with a knife on his shoulder and his back. This dramatic event helped expedite his asylum request and he was able to move to the United States in August of 2008.
He arrived at Kennedy airport on August 18, 2008, with three suitcases full of clothes, and a big brown Channel bag. He left behind his family and friends and ready for a new life. Today, he lives in an apartment in Harlem on Lenox Avenue that he shares with a woman from the Ivory Coast. Pape M'baye laughs when he hears some of his gay friends complaining about gays not having rights in the United States. He does not think that gays in America are discriminated because they don’t have the right to marry as straight couples do. To him, just being able to survive is the greatest right he can be granted.
During his November performance at Cutting Room he told the audience just how he felt about the United States.
“Life is freedom. You can have everything, money -- but without freedom it's nothing,” he said.
When he first arrived a few Senegalese reporters flew to New York to interview him.
“Don't bother me. I have my I 94 [immigration entry form] that ensures my security and I can call 911,” he said he told the reporters. “Now they can't do anything to hurt me.”
Pape M'baye is quickly getting used to his new life in New York. His English is improving with the English classes he is taking at a center in Harlem, he said he loves the New York City nightlife and goes out with his friends to gay clubs very often. Although he misses his mother, who is still in Senegal, he does not feel lonely in New York. He said he does not plan to ever move back home. His greatest aspiration is to become a famous singer in the United States.
When the show ended in December, most of the audience members waited for M'baye to come down from the stage to talk to him, get his contact information and their picture taken with him.
At a table on the left side of the stage, there was a man who shares M’baye’s good luck. He, too, has found refuge in New York and fled persecution because he is gay. His name is Peter Ali and he is from Guyana, in South America.
His journey to the United States has been very long, hard and dangerous at times. His odyssey has put him through torture and rape in Guyana. He was also incarcerated in the Perry prison in Alabama for over six years before he was able to freely live in Queens with his mother Marjorie Ali, who was with him at the concert.
On a daily basis, Ali, 42, is reminded of the horrors he has been through. Under his sweater, are thin pink scars on his back that will never go away. He suffers pain constantly from the torture he underwent in Guyana, where homosexuality is punished by life imprisonment.
"It was very hard over there. I didn't fit. They don't tolerate gays in Guyana," said Ali.
Peter Ali, first moved to the United States in 1980, and lived in New York. After five years, at the age of 19, he became a permanent resident. In the 1990's, he committed a series of theft related crimes and amassed a long arrest record that led to his deportation to Guyana in 1997. Upon his arrival, in August 1997, Guyanese prison officers arrested him and placed him in a dark and hot holding room where they interrogated him about his criminal history, handcuffed him and deprived him of food, he said. The next day he was transferred to another precinct where he stayed for several days. On the first day, police officers beat him until they left him on the floor unconscious, he says. On the following day, two masked police officers walked in his cell and one of them raped him, beat and sodomized him. Ali lost consciousness again and woke up later to find himself chained to the cell bars and bleeding from his rectum. A few days later, he was released from the prison. He then paid a smuggler $4,000 to illegally reenter the United States.
In 1999, he was deported to Guyana for the second time and again he was able to get a passport and return to the United States with the help of the same smuggler. He was placed in removal proceedings for a second time in 2000, according to his lawyer Christopher Nutgent.
He decided to file for asylum, withholding of removal and relief under the United Nations Convention Against Torture in 2004, on the basis that his life was in great danger if he moved back to Guyana. He told the court that he had been tortured and raped. He explained that going back to Guyana would surely lead to another horrific rape and that his life was endangered solely because of his sexual orientation. In 2006, he was finally granted asylum in the United States.
Today, Ali lives with his mother in Astoria, Queens. He changes jobs often and he still is not financially independent. The long years spent in jail have made him physically ill and he cannot sustain jobs for too long because of his health and emotional condition. He has a hard time walking and is in constant pain, which forces him to stay in bed often.
Even if the United States is a haven for gays from other countries, hate crimes against homosexuals happen here as well. An Ecuadorian man was murdered in Brooklyn in December 2008, while he was walking home with his brother. Jose and Romel Sucuzhanay had both been drinking that night and were walking home with their arms around each other. Two people assaulted them, hit them with beer bottles and killed Jose, while Romel fled to call for help. Two men, Keith Phoenix, 28, and his friend Hakim Scott, 25 were charged with murder as a hate crime in late March 2009. Ali acknowledges that gays can be exposed to violence in New York as well, but he still feels safe in comparison to what his life was like in Guyana.
Peter Ali and Pape M'baye cases were both handled by the biggest pro bono law firm in the country, the D.C.-based Holland and Knight Firm. Christopher Nutgent, who is the attorney who worked on these two cases, handles immigration and refugee related cases. He estimated that about 20 homosexuals get refugee status in the United States every year, a very small percentage of the almost 60,000 people who are granted asylum annually for other reasons. The Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services won't reveal how many cases have been decided on the basis of sexual orientation.
A greater number of people would get asylum if they were not scared to be open about their sexuality, said Nutgent.
"Pape is an exemption, it is very rare for an embassy to act so quickly," Nutgent said. "It is possible to get asylum based on sexual orientation but many gays, like in Iraq, are not ready to come out out of fear."
According to Nutgent, gays and lesbians abroad do not know that they are eligible for refugee status based on their sexual orientation because there is not any major international organization reaching out to them and informing them of their options.
"I hear all the time that gays are stranded here or there but American NGOs do not want to get into this or process the funding," he said.
If they show well-founded fears of persecution, they are very likely to get asylum, he said. However, the easiest way to get asylum for gays and lesbians is to enter the country with any kind of visa and then request asylum.
"There is so much we can do to protect gays all over the world," he said.
From 1952 to 1990, homosexuality was considered a psychopathic disease and hence, grounds for medical inadmissibility to the United States. Applicants for permanence residency and visas were routinely denied entry, admission or status to the United States. In 1990, President George Bush repealed the law, which opened the door for gays all over the world to seek asylum.
The change in law was prompted by the case of a gay Cuban, Alfonso Toboso, who in the 1980’s arrived in the United States and asked for asylum because of his sexual orientation. In 1990, as a result of the asylum hearing, the Board of Immigration Appeals recognized homosexuals as part of a particular social group. In 1994, Attorney General Janet Reno released Order 1895-94 as precedent for all immigration courts and asylum offices. The order stated that "an individual who has been identified as homosexual and persecuted by his or her government for that reason alone may be eligible for relief under the refugee laws on the basis of persecution because of membership in a social group."
Asylum seekers must show proof of persecution. Nutgent explained that photographs and arrest records can help. The process can be very long in certain cases, like Peter Ali’s, or really quick, like M’baye’s case. Although no numbers are provided by immigration, Nutgent said that the great majority of cases were denied because not enough solid proof of persecution was presented.
Christopher Nutgent’s job does not end when his clients are granted the right stay. He continues to help them adjust to their new lives. He said he developed a bond with M'baye from the start.
"Our goal is to launch his musical career and get him to break through the gay scene," Nugent said. "We keep on helping them even after their paperwork is sorted out."
M'baye is receiving money from the International Rescue Committee to pays his rent and gives him food stamps but still has a hard time surviving sometimes. He did not want to disclose the amounts.
"He called me in late October, and told me he was eating candy. I could not believe he was fine eating candy," he said.
Professor Suzanne Goldberg said that being a homosexual in some countries was dangerous for two reasons: the countries’ anti-homosexual laws and the repressive society. M'baye’s brutal attack in the streets illustrates this concept.
"Many gay men and lesbians in West Africa face severe hostility and abuse both from government actors and private individuals who the government is unable or unwilling to control," she said.
"Persecution against gay men commonly takes the form of severe physical violence and brutal sexual assault," she said. "In addition, many men who are suspected of being gay are unable to find employment, which makes them financially dependent on family members who themselves may be hostile and abusive."
There are five grounds on which people can seek asylum, Goldberg said. They are race, nationality, religion, political opinion and to be a part of a particular social group, which is the category where gay and lesbians fall under.
According to Professor Goldberg, the fears that many homosexuals have all over the world about being abused are real and the international community should be more active in helping them.
On the website of Immigration Equality, an organization based in New York City that helps Gays and Lesbians with immigration issues, guidelines state that refugee status can no longer stand if the country they are from changes the laws punishing homosexuality and if the United States government do not think the refugee will be exposed to persecution.
Mehdi Kazemi, a 19-year-old gay Iranian, was not as lucky as M’baye and Ali. In 2004, his boyfriend was arrested and interrogated and hanged in Iran. His boyfriend gave up Kazemi’s name and Iranian authorities began looking for him. He has been hiding ever since and trying to get asylum anywhere in the world. He was denied asylum in May of last year in the Netherlands and is still trying for find refuge somewhere in the world. The last time he asked for help on a blog he said, “They are going to kill me if you don’t do something to help me.”