Song Of The Day: Agnetha Fältskog - Really Loved Someone

Sweden: Gay Couple Marry After Fleeing Their Native Uganda Fearing Persecution 

The Local reports:

A couple who claim to be the first Ugandan men to be legally married face an uncertain future after recently tying the knot in a Swedish church, with one facing possible deportation that the other fears could result in his husband’s death.

Last weekend, Lawrence Kaala and Jimmy Sserwadda were all smiles as they exchanged vows in a crowded church in the north Stockholm suburb of Järfälla.

“It feels great,” Sserwadda tells The Local after the wedding, which was attended by more than one hundred guests – including Sweden’s EU Minister Birgitta Ohlsson.

“We had been separated in such a hostile environment; we didn’t know if we’d ever see each other again.”

The ceremony was supposed to be a fairy-tale ending to an improbable story for the two men who found themselves reunited in Sweden years after their relationship had been cut short due to persecution in their native Uganda.

“Uganda is about the worst place in the world to live as someone who is openly gay,” Sserwadda explains.

But while Sserwadda’s asylum application has been approved, Kaala learned just days before the ceremony that his application had been denied, meaning he will have to leave Sweden in two weeks if he doesn’t file an appeal.

“If they put him on a plane to Uganda now, they will be sentencing him to death,” says Sserwadda.

The two men had been in a long-term relationship in Uganda until one day in 2008 when Sserwadda suddenly fled the country shortly after being arrested and beaten for “promoting homosexuality”.

“I didn’t tell Lawrence. I know he would have insisted on coming with and that would have put our lives at risk. So I left him behind,” he recalls.

Sserwadda ended up in Sweden and was granted asylum on account of the risks he faced as a gay man if he were to return to Uganda. He became active in the Swedish Federation for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Rights (Riksförbundet för homosexuellas, bisexuellas och transpersoners rättigheter –RFSL), helping other LBGT asylum seekers with their cases.

In the summer of 2011, Sserwadda’s story was featured in Kom Ut, a magazine published by RFSL, as part of a piece which compared LBGT asylum cases to a lottery due to inconsistencies and a lack of knowledge on the part of officials at the Swedish Migration Board (Migrationsverket).

Unbeknownst to Sserwadda, a copy of the magazine landed in the hands of Kaala, who had also fled the increasingly threatening atmosphere in Uganda.

Through chance, Kaala also ended up in Sweden and was dumbfounded to see his former lover’s picture plastered on a magazine cover three years after Sserwadda fled.

Kaala phoned Sserwadda who was equally surprised to hear from the man he assumed he’d never see again.

“I was shocked. I thought it was a joke,” Sserwadda recalls.

“When we finally met in person, Lawrence said, ‘Yes, darling it’s me!’ As we hugged he then asked me why I had left.”

Sserwadda explained why he kept his plans to flee Uganda a secret and was soon forgiven for leaving his lover in the lurch. The two rekindled their former relationship, and began talking about having a wedding.

“If we could have gotten married in Uganda if we would have and when we found each other again here in Sweden it felt natural to go ahead with it,” he says.

Despite learning that Kaala’s asylum application had been rejected just days before the two were to walk down the aisle, they refused to allow the setback to dampen their spirits.

“We decided to focus on the wedding and worry about the possible deportation later,” Sserwadda explains.

He adds he’s frustrated that despite both he and Kaala being gay men from Uganda, where same-sex relationships are illegal and could be punishable by death under a proposed bill currently up for debate, their asylum cases have been treated differently by migration authorities in Sweden.

“They don’t believe his story,” he explains, despite Kaala having scars on his body that both claim came as a result of beatings suffered by Kaala because he is a homosexual.

According to RFSL chairwoman Ulrika Westerlund, the Migration Board has a long way to go in how it handles asylum applications from people claiming persecution on account of their sexual preferences.

“They haven’t succeeded in ensuring that everyone who works on asylum cases involving LGBT applicants has the right knowledge and competence,” she tells The Local.

While no official statistics exist on LGBT asylum cases in Sweden, RFSL provides assistance in around 60 to 70 cases a year, which the Migration Board estimates represents roughly one-third of the total, according to Westerlund.

“A lot of the rejections are strange. It’s as if they have no concept of what LGBT asylum seekers face back home,” she says, explaining that the success or failure of LGBT asylum cases often depends on the case worker assigned to review the application.

Officials at the migration agency claim they are playing close attention to the situation in Uganda and that the agency continues to work on a strategy for increasing workers’ competence on gender and LGBT issues. 

Westerlund adds that the wedding of Sserwadda and Kaala constitutes “new circumstances” which will be grounds for a planned appeal of the deportation order.

“News of the wedding has spread around the world, including to Uganda so it’s much more dangerous there now,” she explains.

While Kaala could now re-file his application to receive a Swedish residence permit on the basis of being married to Sserwadda, who is due to receive Swedish citizenship later this year, doing so would require to return to Uganda to file the required paperwork.

“He can’t go back there. He’d be arrested immediately,” says Sserwadda.

The couple now has until February 11th to file an appeal with the Migration Board.

“We haven’t had time for a honeymoon. We’ve been working around the clock since the wedding to get things in order,” he adds.

David Landes

Ecuador Grants Asylum To Assange

Vietnam To Hold First Gay Pride Event With The Sponsorship Of Canada & Sweden 

Joe.My.God. reports:

The first gay pride event in Vietnam’s history will take place this weekend in Hanoi.

Viet Pride will run from Aug 3-5 and will feature film screenings, research presentations, music live performances, and a cycle parade through the city center on Sunday morning beginning at My Dinh Stadium and ending at Ly Tu Trong Park. Organised by Nguyen Thanh Tam and a group of volunteers, the event is supported by the Center for Studies and Applied Sciences in Gender, Family, Women and Adolescents (CSAGA) where Tam is casually employed. The 25-year-old self-described “freelance activist”, who has lived in Singapore for the last six years, was inspired to organise Viet Pride after she and other activists were sponsored to attend Stockholm Pride last year. The event is also supported by the Institute for Studies of Society, Economy and Environment (iSEE), and Information Connecting and Sharing (ICS); venue and in-kind sponsors Goethe Institute, Lebox Produktion (Sweden) and Hearst Entertainment (US); and in-cash sponsors Embassy of Sweden and Embassy of Canada.

Props to Sweden and Canada for their support!

RELATED: Earlier this week the Vietnamese government indicated that it was in the early stages of putting forward a marriage equality bill.

Sweden: Court Rules Trans Rape Victim Wasn’t Raped Because She Is A “Man”

The Local’s Sweden News reports:

A man who attempted to rape a woman has been cleared of the charges by a Swedish court after it turned out that the woman he tried to rape was actually a man.

“The intended crime never had the possibility of being fulfilled,” explained judge Dan Sjöstedt of the Örebro District Court to local newspaper Nerikes Allehanda.
When the 61-year-old man had tried to commit the rape in Örebro, he had no idea that the intended victim was actually a man in women’s clothes, who had been taking hormonal treatment to reach the “right” identity, wrote the paper.
After following the woman for some time, the would-be rapist was “brutally violent” in the “attempted rape”, tearing off the victim’s pants and grabbing at the victim’s crotch, according to the paper.
The incident occurred in front of the victim’s ex-boyfriend’s house, and it was him who came rushing to intervene. When police arrived, they arrested the attacker.
However, the court has ruled that the 61-year-old had intended to rape a woman, as he had been following her before the attack, making a conscious decision to rape her specifically. The man also referred to his victim as “she” throughout the court case.
As this “woman” was actually a man, his intentions were impossible to commit as the rape could never be completed.
“We believe that he wanted to rape this woman in particular. But as she turned out to be a man, the crime never was actually committed,” said Sjöstedt, adding that the case against rape was “invalid”. 
“There are different theories about how this should be handled, and so we’re looking forward to seeing the verdict from the Court of Appeals,” he said, adding that he would appeal the decision if he were the prosecutor or the defence.
The 61-year-old is now convicted for assault. The punishment is four years prison and 15,000 kronor ($2,161) in damages to the woman.’

Song Of The Day: Loreen - My Heart Is Refusing Me 

Song Of The Day: Loreen - Euphoria

Sweden: Deportation Nears For Trans Woman Abused In Native Russia

Pink News UK reports:

Time is fast running out for a Russian trans woman who, it was reported recently in Pink News, fears being forced by Swedish authorities to return to Russia, where she expects to face violence and possible imprisonment at the hands of the authorities.
According to “Lita”, as she is known officially in Sweden, she received a phone call this morning requiring her to report to the Immigration Board at 11.30 am on Monday 7 May.
She will then be removed from the country the very next day.
According to Lita, this is the end. She told us: “There will be a simple choice for me: between fast death in russia and slow death if i would be in sweden illegally”.
Today’s news comes as Lita learned that a final appeal by her lawyer to the European Court of Human Justice for a stay on her deportation had “not yet been processed”. Her efforts at seeking asylum in Sweden have been rejected both by officials and the courts there.
A week ago, she heard that her request to the ECHR to grant a “stay” in respect of her deportation had also proven fruitless.
Her life may therefore quite hang by a thread. Swedish LGBT rights organisation RFSL are making last ditch efforts to assist her in her legal efforts.
In the end, though, the difference between an ECHR decision to stay her deportation and her removal to Russia could be little more than a matter of timing – a few hours one way or the other – this Monday.

Song Of The Day: Arvid - Hur Kunde Jag Låta Det Ske

(Via Synthpopkid)

Song Of The Day: NASA - They Call Her Love

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Song Of The Day: Kent - Töntarna

(Via SynthPopKid)

Sweden: Anti-Gay Flyers Not Covered By Free Speech

Pink News UK reports:

The European Court of Human Rights has upheld the conviction of four Swedish men who handed out leaflets to children which said being gay was “morally destructive” to society.
The applicants lost their case after the court found Sweden had not violated their rights to free speech.
The National Youth leaflets said homosexuality was a “deviant sexual proclivity”, had “a morally destructive effect” on society and was responsible for the spread of HIV and AIDS.
They also claimed the “homosexual lobby” was trying to play down paedophilia.
In 2004, Tor Fredrik Vejdeland, Mattias Harlin, Björn Täng and Niklas Lundström had handed out about a hundred leaflets or left them in the lockers of pupils at a school in Söderhamn.
They were asked to leave by the principal and later convicted under Swedish law of agitation against a national or ethnic group.
Exhausting domestic courts, they appealed to the ECHR on Article 10 of the European Convention of Human Rights, that their rights to free speech were infringed and, under Article 7, that they were therefore unjustly punished. The court rejected both claims.
It found the statements constituted serious and prejudicial allegations about gays and that the group had effectively forced them on students by leaving them in personal lockers.
The first three applicants were given suspended sentences and fines ranging from approximately €200 to €2,000 and the fourth applicant was sentenced to probation.
In January, three British men were found guilty of distributing leaflets intended to stir up hatred on the grounds of sexual orientation.
Five Muslim men had stood trial at Derby Crown Court on the newly-created charges, which carry a maximum sentence of seven years in prison and an unlimited fine.
Ihjaz Ali, Kabir Ahmed and Razwan Javed had distributed a leaflet entitled ‘The Death Penalty?’ outside their mosque ahead of a gay Pride parade. It contained an image of a mannequin hanging from a noose and quoted Muslim texts. They are due to be sentenced tomorrow.

Sweden’s Twitter Account Controlled By Lesbian Truck Driver This Week

JEZEBEL reports:

The country of Sweden is known for lutfisk, stoic, tall Nordicolk who would make perfectDie Hard villains, furniture, and getting the fuck along. Now, the country’s got a new face: and she’s a lesbian who drives a truck for a living.
The New York Times reports that Hanna Farge— who refers to herself as “just your average lesbian truck-driver” in the account’s bio— has been selected to run the country’s Twitter account this week, as part of a campaign called Curators of Sweden that was up by the Swedish tourism bureau. The effort aims to create what they claim is the world’s most democratic Twitter account, and, in showing the world the voice of individual Swedes, convince everyone to go on vacation or start their businesses in Sweden. The tourism bureau explains,

• The idea is that the curators, through their tweets, create interest and arouse curiosity for Sweden and the wide range the country has to offer. The expectation is that the curators will paint a picture of Sweden, different to that usually obtained through traditional media.

What Swede would you like to see running the country’s Twitter account next week? I’m torn between Robyn, that creepy woman from The Knife, Muppet Chef, and Zombie Alfred Nobel. But I’m open to suggestions.

All Out: Stop Forced Sterilisation For Trans In Sweden

Sign the petition here.