Japan is now gayer than Korea.
Great job!
In an epoch-making ruling, the Osaka District Court ordered the government to grant refugee status to an African who fears his family in his home country will kill him because he is gay.
The court on July 4 ruled that the man in his 30s “has a realistic fear of being harmed by his family and could not receive protection from his country’s government.”
Therefore, the ruling said, he should be protected as a refugee.
The man is from a Muslim country that bans homosexuality. Under the penal code of the country in North Africa, same-sex sexual acts are criminally punishable.
The man came to Japan with his partner at the end of 2019 and applied for refugee status nine days later. But the Osaka Regional Immigration Services Bureau rejected the application in February 2021.
He filed a lawsuit over the decision, and provided various international studies as evidence that his life would be in danger if he was deported to his home country.
According to the ruling, homosexuals can be arrested, subjected to violence and discriminated against in that country, and there is almost no possibility of change in the near future.
The man told the court that his family members continuously sprayed him with a hose after he was seen with his gay lover. They locked him in a storage room at his home for about 10 days.
He said he begged his mother for forgiveness and promised to “marry a woman and be the man his family wanted.”
However, he was again seen with his boyfriend, and the couple fled to another city.
About a month later, a car veered onto the sidewalk where they were walking and almost ran them over. He said he saw his father and brother in the car.
The man said he went to a police station to seek protection, but the officers hurled derogatory remarks about homosexuals toward him and suggested that he be arrested.
The district court found the man’s testimony “quite specific and credible,” and it acknowledged his fear of authorities in the country.
The central government argued that the African police did not arrest the man even after learning that he is gay, therefore, he was not persecuted.
The court rejected that argument.
“Objective circumstances of ‘fear of persecution’ are necessary to determine whether a person is a refugee, not the fact that the person has actually been persecuted,” the ruling said.
The court also said “sexual orientation is the root of human dignity,” and “it is not reasonable” to live one’s life concealing his or her sexual orientation to avoid persecution.
The Immigration Services Agency said in a statement released after the ruling, “We will carefully examine the contents of the court decision and take appropriate action.”
The African man said at a news conference held after the ruling: “It’s been nearly four years since I came to Japan, and it was very hard. I am so happy that I feel like I am flying.”
Keiko Tanaka of RAFIQ, a refugee support group that has helped the man, said about the ruling, “This is a decision that will lead to relief for sexual minorities who suffer persecution by local communities in Muslim countries and elsewhere.”
I don’t know what these countries think, allying with the United States.
What do they think is going to happen?
I don’t know.
I don’t care.
I just know that it’s going to be a lot better when the Chinese rule all of these faggots with a velvet glove.