Because the regardless of the validity of their status, these people are muslims, 1st, 2nd and third.
NOTE: SETA is the Finnish homosexual rights organization.
Iraqi gay had to fear a reception center in Finland
Seta has received contacts during the autumn of bullied and discriminated against asylum seekers.
Iraqi asylum seeker Amir, 23, shows his phone pictures of his room in a Helsinki reception center. In front of the door of the humble room a table, a couple of cabinets and a dresser drawer are piled against it. In this way, Amir is able to keep attackers away from his room.
The Iraqi capital city of Baghdad, Amir has lived openly as a homosexual, which makes life difficult in the reception center. Some of the other asylum-seekers take to despising him, some even threatening. Also, the night before the interview, someone came pounding on the door two in the morning.
– Often, because of I fear I don’t go to sleep until the morning, he says.
Amir does not appear in the story under his own name for safety reasons. Amir, who arrived in September, has had managed to stay in two reception centers already. He explains that in the first reception center a number of the men had tried to attack him. Amir had begun to shout and a guard at the Center broke up the situation. Subsequently, he was transferred to another reception center. Intimidation has been going on there too.
Life is a lonely for a man who gets rejected by other asylum seekers. When Amir sits to eat at the head of the table, the other leave.
– They say, “God forgive me, forgive me,” just as if I were contaminated.
Seta will RECEIVE more than usual INCIDENTS
In Finland, there are no statistics on sexual and gender minorities in the proportion of asylum seekers. Contacts with Seta and its member organizations are coming in all around Finland.
Just in Pirkanmaa alone, Seta’s nationwide governmental counseling service reports that they have had in a year, over two dozen contacts with asylum seekers and quota refugees. Also according to Seta’s central office, the number of contacts has increased this fall. The need for support has a wide variety of reasons.
We want to talk about their traumatic experiences in the home country or experiences in reception centers an the bullying and harassment experienced . Many wish, for example, home accommodation. In one recent incident the spouse of a homosexual asylum seeker in Finland was murdered in Iraq..
