SYDNEY (Pahichan) November 21 –<\/b>\u00a0Two gay Saudi journalists who sought asylum in Australia after being threatened at home over their relationship have been held for weeks at an immigration detention centre, their lawyer said Wednesday.<\/p>\n
The couple arrived in Australia in mid-October on tourist visas but was singled out by airport customs officials \u2014 then taken into detention \u2014 when they admitted plans to seek asylum, lawyer Alison Battisson told\u00a0AFP<\/i>.<\/p>\n
\u201cAustralia being very well known for being… a safe place for LGBTI people, they were incredibly surprised and distressed,\u201c she said.<\/p>\n
One of the men \u2014 who worked for Saudi Arabia\u2019s media ministry and regularly assisted visiting international news organisations \u2014 said they came under pressure from authorities after a dissident leaked sensitive documents to foreign media.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was called into a prison on the outskirts of Riyadh by the state security,\u201c he told\u00a0ABC<\/i>, adding they \u201chinted that they realised I was in a relationship with my partner and that I should stop working with the foreign media.\u201d<\/p>\n
Battisson said the men had not leaked any documents, but were swept up in a wider crackdown by Saudi authorities in the wake of Khashoggi\u2019s murder.<\/p>\n
In August, one of the men received a phone call from a relative warning they knew of their gay relationship and if it wasn\u2019t ended his partner would be killed.<\/p>\n
Police followed that up with separate calls asking them to come in for questioning, which led to their decision to flee.<\/p>\n
Homosexuality is illegal in Saudi Arabia and punishable by death.<\/p>\n
Battisson says the two men have been separated in detention as one is receiving medical treatment, while the other is housed with convicted criminals awaiting deportation.<\/p>\n
She said poor conditions in the centre and the uncertainty surrounding their case have proved \u201cpsychologically very difficult\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThem speaking up is actually their right \u2014 there\u2019s no reason we should remain silent about human rights abuses in Australia,\u201c she said.<\/p>\n
The home affairs department, which oversees immigration matters, and the Australian Border Force did not respond to requests for comment. \u2014\u00a0AFP<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
SYDNEY (Pahichan) November 21 –\u00a0Two gay Saudi journalists who sought asylum in Australia after being threatened at home over their relationship have been held for weeks at an immigration detention centre, their lawyer said Wednesday.
\nThe couple arrived in Australia in mid-October on tourist visas but was singled out by airport customs officials \u2014 then taken into detention \u2014 when they admitted plans to seek asylum, lawyer Alison Battisson told\u00a0AFP.
\n\u201cAustralia being very well known for being… a safe place for LGBTI people, they were incredibly surprised and distressed,\u201c she said.
\nOne of …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":12421,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,621,490,3,11],"tags":[446,971,502],"class_list":["post-12420","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-current-issue","category-news","category-slider","category-society","category-world","tag-gay","tag-homosexuality","tag-lgbti"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12420","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12420"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12420\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12422,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12420\/revisions\/12422"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12421"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12420"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12420"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12420"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}