Exiled for Love: Arsham Parsi’s long
journey (July 1, 10)
Source
“As the train crossed the border
into Turkey, I looked out the window at the Iranian flag illuminated by
the border lights. More than ever I felt a connection to the waving cloth.
Despite all I had endured it was still my country - my home - that I was
leaving behind. I leaned back in my seat, grateful for its coolness,
closed my eyes and waited for the sense of relief I longed for.
Leaving, finally, I had expected to feel light, comfortable, safe.
Instead my stomach tightened with sadness and anger. Why was I forced to
flee? To leave behind my family, friends and home just because of who I
love? As the flag disappeared in the darkness I vowed I would continue my
work. I would work on behalf of the gay men and women left behind, living
in fear of torture and execution.
I promised myself that one day I would return to my country free to be who
I am. Until that day I would live in exile.”
- Arsham Parsi
Arsham Parsi is a tireless organizer for
queer rights, both internationally and in his native Iran. He is proud to
call Canada home, but in the wake of proposed changes to Canada’s refugee
status determination system and the elimination of any reference to gay
rights in the new version of Canada’s citizenship guide, some wonder
whether Parsi would be admitted to this country if he claimed asylum here
today.
Arsham Parsi has lived most of his life in
silence and fear. Like many gay men, he felt from a very young age that he
was different from his peers. As a teenager he began to associate this
sense of difference with his attraction to men. He had little access to
information about homosexuality but he soon realized that in order to
survive he would have to hide his true feelings and conform to the
conservative expectations of his family and his culture.
“A friend of mine loaned me a book that had a
short chapter about homosexuality,” Parsi recalls. “It was the first thing
I had ever read about it. It described the sin of sodomy and said that
under Sharia law it was punishable by execution: hanging, being cut in
half by a sword, stoning.
“I became obsessed with stoning. Would it
hurt? How long would it take to die? I began to imagine myself buried in
sand to my neck waiting for the rocks to hit me. I believed this was how
my life would end. I was 14.”
In Iran, homosexuality is illegal. Punishment
for engaging in sexual behaviour with someone of the same sex includes
imprisonment, flogging and execution. Socially, the stigma attached to
homosexuality carries the consequences of isolation, forced heterosexual
marriages and exclusion from one’s family. As Parsi says, it means a life
lived in fear.
Parsi finished high school, completed his
mandatory military service and worked several jobs in Iran and Dubai.
Despite his efforts to ignore his attraction to men, his sexual
orientation was always at the forefront of his thoughts. He tried to deny
his feelings through a series of increasingly severe forms of
self-punishment. Nothing worked. Finally, he came to accept that this was
who he was and that he had little control over it. What he could
control, he realized, was the isolation in which he lived. He became
driven by the need to find others in similar circumstances. Through the
Internet he was able to reach out to other gay Iranian men and his feeling
of being alone began to lessen.
As his circle of friends grew, however, he
became increasingly concerned about the stories he was hearing. People
forced into loveless marriages to preserve their family’s honour; gay men
entrapped by Iran’s secret police force through the Internet or in city
parks; friends arrested and tortured until they agreed to provide the
names of other gay men. When two of his friends committed suicide out of
desperation, Parsi felt he had no choice but to act. He would start by
tackling the social isolation felt by many queer Iranians and then begin
to challenge the culturally and legally sanctioned homophobia impacting
their lives.
Relying on the relative anonymity of the
Internet, he started Iran’s first underground queer organization. Starting
with the email addresses of his gay friends and acquaintances, Parsi began
to disseminate positive information about homosexuality.
“It started small. Mostly it was me sending
encouraging emails and information to our subscribers. As I learned more
and I saw how important it was for these people to find connection with
others, I expanded my work. We developed a website and finally, with the
help of a friend in Norway we registered the organization there. I started
to give interviews with international media to share our stories. I wanted
others to know that we existed and that we were struggling. One of my
proudest moments was when we held our first Celebration of Voice.”
Celebration of Voice emerged when Parsi and
others involved in his organization recognized the importance of creating
a space for queers in Iran to come together, share their stories and
understand that they are not alone. It was impossible, however, to hold
such an event in a physical location - the risk of being discovered and
arrested was far too great. Instead, a private Internet chat room was
created and invitations to attend this virtual event were distributed to
the organization’s subscribers. More than 50 people participated in this
first community forum. Parsi had broken the walls of silence that had
isolated gay Iranians. More than six years later he still receives emails
thanking him for organizing the forum.
Parsi’s organization continued to expand,
providing support and opportunities for connection for the Iranian queer
community. His international media profile increased as he strove to
educate those outside of the country about the Iranian situation. He
understood the risk he was taking, but his fear was outweighed by the
sense of responsibility he felt to his community.
It wasn’t long, however, before the risks
became too great to ignore and his fears were realized.
In 2003, Iran’s secret police raided a party
attended by members of Shiraz’s queer community. Several of Parsi’s
friends were arrested, tortured and “outed” to shamed family members.
Capitalizing on the detainees’ fear, officials collected additional
information that led to a series of raids over the next several months.
The police harassment and intimidation drove the community further into
silence and isolation. Parsi was able to learn from those arrested that he
was a target and that his organization was a topic of many interrogations.
As the days and weeks went by he could feel them getting closer. He knew
that if he was to protect himself and his family he had no choice but to
flee.
Telling his family nothing of the true reason
he was leaving, Parsi boarded a train, crossed the border into Turkey and
claimed refugee status. After almost 13 months
in limbo, he was finally granted refugee status by the UN Refugee Agency.
In 2006, he was resettled to Canada.
Immediately upon arriving in Canada, Parsi
resumed his work. He is now the executive director of the Toronto-based
organization Iranian Railroad for Queer Refugees (www.irqr.net).
Iranian Railroad for Queer Refugees is
actively working on behalf of more than 200 Iranian refugee claimants
living in limbo throughout the world as well as those hiding in Iran.
“This work is so important,” says Parsi. “It is what I was meant to do.”
“It is essential that the international
community knows about the human rights abuses against the gay and lesbian
community in Iran. We work to increase public awareness of these issues.
We also provide support - emotional, legal and financial - to refugees and
immigrants who have been forced to leave Iran because of persecution on
the basis of their sexual orientation or gender identity.”
The persecution Parsi speaks of is legally
sanctioned in Iran. The Iranian Penal Code explicitly defines the crime of
Lavat as a sexual act between males that includes penetration or
the rubbing of thighs or penis against thighs. Lavat carries a
punishment of death; the method of execution is left to the discretion of
the presiding judge. If one or both of the accused is a minor, the
punishment is 74 lashes of a whip. The law also outlines the consequences
for non-penetrative offences: kissing brings 60 lashes, while lying naked
with another man under a blanket earns 99 lashes.
This is not just a case of an obsolete law
remaining on the books. It is exercised regularly and its effects extend
further than to those being punished.
“Each time a person is publicly denounced and
punished for being gay, the entire community suffers,” Parsi says. “Fear
and silence grow and queers in Iran are made to feel the desperation of
their situation. No one protests. We are made to feel invisible. Despised
yet invisible.”
According to Parsi, one of the biggest
challenges facing refugee claimants is the requirement to prove their
sexual orientation to the Immigration and Refugee Board deciding their
case. Forced to live in silence in Iran, many seek refuge in heterosexual
marriages to escape family and societal scrutiny, and many refugee
claimants do not have any official connections to a queer community. Even
after fleeing the country, a lifetime of fear does not quickly leave a
person and many do not seek out membership in gay or lesbian organizations
or feel immediately comfortable disclosing their orientation to
authorities. In light of this, proving they are gay or lesbian can be
difficult.
“It is a delicate situation. One of our roles
is to support refugee claimants in proving their sexual orientation. But
it is often difficult even for us to determine who is queer or who is
making a false claim. If we have confidence in the individual’s case we
support their claim with a legal affidavit and provide evidence of the
reality for the queer community inside of Iran.”
The burden of proof facing queer refugee
claimants will get even heavier if proposed reforms to Canada’s refugee
system announced at the end of March by Immigration Minister Jason Kenney
are implemented. Included in these reforms are shorter timelines for cases
to be heard and the denial of access to an appeal process for claimants
from countries determined to be “safe” by the Canadian government.
While it is unlikely that Iran will be deemed
a safe country with its well-documented history of human rights abuses and
the growing threat of war with the West, these reforms may still impact
claimants’ ability to successfully prove their case. Because a positive
outcome of a claim depends on the individual’s ability to convince a Board
of their sexual orientation, a successful determination of these
challenging cases often requires a longer period of trust-building between
the claimants and their legal representation as well as the option to
appeal.
Parsi is confident in the positive
relationship his organization has built with Citizenship and Immigration
Canada. “We have a good relationship with Minister Kenney and his
department. He is aware of our situation and is supportive. Decreasing
wait times for claimants may be a good thing if the Refugee Board members
are well informed of the unique situation facing queer refugees. We need
to continue to educate the Canadian government and its representatives to
ensure that each case is adjudicated fairly. We have more work to do in
this area.”
Parsi believes strongly in the prospects for
change in Iran and states that it is this belief that allows him to
continue his work. He sees the opposition movement that arose during and
after the 2009 summer elections as one example of a growing social
consciousness in his homeland.
Many Iranians were looking to the elections
as a means to reform the country’s political system and to reclaim rights
promised under the country’s own constitution. When Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
was declared the winner on June 12, reformist Mir-Hossein Mousavi’s
supporters immediately took to the streets in protest. Wearing green (the
colour of Mousavi’s campaign), the protesters demanded that Ahmadinejad be
removed from the presidency. This was the first large-scale demonstration
of its kind since the country’s 1979 revolution. A swift and violent
response from the government only served to strengthen the growing unrest.
Diverse segments of the country’s population were united under a common
desire for change.
According to Parsi, the Green Movement
provided an opportunity for Iranians to acknowledge their differences in a
new way. Instead of creating barriers along lines of gender, religion,
political belief and sexual orientation, a greater understanding of common
experience began to emerge. The regime’s denial of basic human rights for
everyone became the dominant discourse, and people began to share their
diverse experiences of oppression with one another. While he recognizes
that reforms to the penal code may take some time, Parsi believes that
this cultural shift in understanding and the increased willingness to
learn from one another is perhaps even more important if homophobia is to
be challenged.
“I have heard from many queers in Iran that
the protests have allowed them to share their experiences with others.
People are saying: ‘It doesn’t matter what your sexual orientation is or
what your religious or political beliefs are. The important thing is that
we are here together as Iranians and we want change.’
“We need to bring discussions of
homosexuality in Iran out of the closet and put them on the kitchen table.
This is where real change will happen.”
It is to this possibility of change that
Parsi has dedicated his life. Canada has provided him with a safe
environment in which to live and continue his work, while the Internet has
enabled him to reach across borders in an effort to overcome the isolation
facing many queer exiles. Like many refugees with a dream of returning
home one day, however, his heart remains in Iran with his family and
community.
“Change will come to Iran. I know it will.
Some day queers in Iran will have their human rights respected. They will
be free to be who they are - love who they love - and not be afraid of
retaliation or torture or execution. I hope to be a part of that change.”
Parsi smiles as he thinks about this. “One
day I will no longer have to live in exile. One day I will go home.” |
