Italy: Gay Senegalese man's deportation rejected
01 January 2005
A
giudice di pace* in Turin rejected the expulsion from Italy of a homosexual man from Senegal on 3 February 2005, deeming that the fact that homosexuality is considered a crime in the man's home country which can lead to up to five years imprisonment would lead to the expulsion representing a breach of Article 2 of the Italian Constitution, which states that "sexual freedom must be considered part of the wider right to express one's personality". The man, who has been in Italy since 2003, and who had previously possessed a residence permit which had expired, received an expulsion order in October 2004. He contacted ARCI Gay, an organisation that defends the rights of homosexuals, which put him in touch with a lawyer who filed an appeal against the expulsion, arguing that Article 19 of the Italian immigration law decrees that "people who may be persecuted when they return" to their country of origin are among the categories of people who cannot be expelled. The response by the minister for Reforms, Roberto Calderoli from the
Lega Nord (Northern League), a party whose anti-immigrant views are well documented, was unsurprising: "Poor justice, poor Italy, once praised as a land of saints, poets and sailors, which, on the other hand, has today become a land of terrorists and illegal faggots".
The decision acquires greater significance considering the debate in the Council of the European Union (representing the 25 member states) over the adoption of a list of ten "safe countries of origin" whose nationals are to be systematically denied refugee status on the basis that their claims are "unfounded" because the level of human rights protection in their country is such that persecution severe enough to cause people to flee never occurs. A draft common list of ten safe countries was first released in March 2004, featuring three Latin American and seven African countries. It gave rise to divisions during the consultation process involving delegations from member states and the Commission over whether the countries should be included in an assessment process that was marred by a lack of information and time to make informed, credible decisions, and by a surprising willingness by some delegations to overlook evidence of important human rights breaches to declare a country "safe".
Homosexuality is illegal in all the seven African countries in the draft list, whose inclusion was opposed by the Commission: Senegal (whose inclusion was also opposed by three of the 15 delegations from member states whose responses were obtained by
Statewatch), Benin (opposed by five member state delegations), Botswana (opposed by two delegations), Cape Verde (opposed by two delegations), Ghana (opposed by five delegations), Mali (opposed by four delegations), Mauritius (opposed by one delegation) and Senegal (opposed by four delegations). The list was adopted unanimously as an annex to to the draft EU asylum procedure Directive (8771/04), but will now fall within the scope of decisions which will be taken by qualified majority voting in the future. Thus, some countries are likely to be included in spite of opposition from some member states' delegations.
* Honorary "judges of the peace", a figure established in 1995 with competencies for some civil cases and, since 2002 for minor criminal offences against people, such as bodily harm or failure to provide assistance; reputation, such as defamation; or property, such as damaging or entering someone else's property. They were given competence to validate expulsion in September 2004, see above.
Repubblica, 4.2.05; ILGA International Lesbian and Gay Association (South Africa), “ILGA 2000 Africa Report, "Homosexuality in Africa", available at:
http://www.afrol.com/Categories/Gay/index_legal.htm; Afrol News "Legal Status of Homosexuality in Africa", available at:
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