Ahmad is Afghan and homosexual: the Netherlands rejected his asylum request and could be deported to his country, under the Taliban regime

As his compatriots wait for an evacuation flight to get them out of Afghanistan, Ahmad, an Afghan man in his thirties who fled his disowned family as a homosexual and apostate, crosses his fingers that the Netherlands, which rejected his asylum request, do not obey their threat to deport him to Kabul.

Sitting cross-legged on the couch of a house that serves as his refuge in the Netherlands, Ahmad explains how He fled Afghanistan in September 2014, after telling his sister “that he loved men” and that she accused him of “having a bad influence” on his children, demanding that he leave her. home and his job as a mechanic, which had fed him. to this illiterate young man who has never set foot in a school.

He was 23 at the time and his parents were long dead, so his sister is his only family. “My life was normal,” he says, “until there was suspicion about my homosexuality. My friends were talking more and more about girls and that didn’t interest me. On the contrary, I started to be more curious about how I felt around other guys. He gave me a hand and a kiss with some ”.

He recalls that “he had something special with the owner of the garage where he worked, but one day the boss raped him” and his “world fell apart”. Ahmad told his sister what had happened to him, seeking her support, but she ended up rejecting him.

“He told me that they couldn’t accept something like that, that being raped by this man meant that I was gay and that if my brother-in-law found out he would kill me. He insisted. so that I left Mazarí Sharif and stopped talking to me “, he says in Pashto, the only language he knows.

Then he decides to go to Kabul, where he meets a homosexual boy with whom he has a secret relationship.

But his life was in danger. “If a local or mosque leader found me, they would have stoned me to death because I don’t live according to the Quran. When the police arrest a gay man they blackmail him and if he doesn’t pay they put him in jail, telling the rest of the prisoners that he is gay which means they beat you up and possibly rape you there. -in it, ”he said. said.

This fear drove him to start his trip to the Netherlands, which took him a year and a half, and more than $ 6,000 was paid to the human trafficking mafias who guided him to move around. illegally from one country to another.

“I first crossed the border with Iran, from there to Turkey, then Greece, Hungary, Italy, France, Belgium to the Netherlands. I have always traveled with other groups and guided from border to border, but no one knew the reasons why everyone had fled their country, ”he explains.

Now he survives in the Netherlands with the help of other gay refugees and claims his life is “a nightmare” in which he lives with suicidal thoughts, images of what his return to a country controlled by the Taliban, and the hope of obtaining asylum on Dutch territory.

“If I have to go back now to the Taliban, who do not accept homosexuality or apostates like me, that will be my end. Of course, I can keep it a secret, but if they catch me, they will punish me in the worst possible way. They cut my hands or my genitals, or they stone me to death, ”he laments.

The Dutch Immigration Service (IND) refused him asylum, considering his statements about his alleged homosexual orientation “implausible”, which the NGOs denounced with the slogan “Not to be gay enough”, although they considered it “credible” that it was a Muslim apostate. , but does not believe his life is in danger in Afghanistan because of it.

His lawyer claims that “This evaluation was carried out in an obsolete manner”, using terms “based on a western perspective” on how he experienced his homosexuality in his home society, and now he’s trying to get the IND to reconsider his case and withdraw the deportation order, Sandro Kortekaas, from the LGTB group, confirmed to Efe Asylum Support.

“My life is very difficult. I am illegal, I have no money, I have no health insurance, I do not have a house or a partner. My life is based on sleeping and sometimes walking outside, but outside I don’t feel safe, I’m afraid of the police, that they will arrest me and kick me out. My friends give me money from time to time, about ten euros, but that is not enough. I didn’t go to school either, I can’t read or write, and that complicates everything, ”Ahmad sums up.

Meanwhile, the Dutch government has temporarily suspended deportations of asylum seekers to Afghanistan after the latest events in the country.

(with information from the EFE)

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