Sweden is set to deport a gay footballer back to his antigay home country of Liberia for not providing enough “evidence” of his orientation.
22-year-old Andrew Nagbe was seized by Swedish authorities at the Stockholm Pride festival. He was there with his boyfriend.
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Nagbe originally traveled to Sweden on trial with Swedish third-tier team Umeå FC before plying his trade at a string of lower league teams, The Scotsman reports. When he was arrested he was playing for Södertälje FK in the fourth tier, a town to the south of Stockholm.
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He said he wants to remain in Sweden and live as an openly gay man, which is illegal in Liberia. Sweden has progressive LGBTQ rights laws.
“In prison I’ll be beaten and raped every day until I am released and leave the country again. Everyone I know in Liberia knows I am gay now, so they won’t hold back,” Nagbe said from detention.
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Officials have said that only by presenting new evidence that he is both gay and that returning to his home country would put him in danger will Nagbe be able to stop his deportation back to Liberia, set for Aug. 23.
Kangol
Surely Sweden knows that Liberia is not gay friendly, and that Andrew Nagbe could be in serious danger. But isn’t there a Nagbe on the US national soccer team? I wonder if they’re cousins? And given the historic relationship between the US and Liberia, I wonder if he couldn’t gain refugee status here.
Mack
And how would they prove they’re gay? Do they want them to have sex while the observer gets their rocks off?
Brian
Sweden is homophobic.
Bauhaus
@Brian:
Stop lying. Sweden has some of the most progressive LGBT rights in Europe and in the world.
jimontp
@Brian: yet another one of your ill-informed, moronic statements. Sweden is NOT homophobic- not even when I went to university there over 40 years ago, nor the other two times I lived there. This story is very suspicious, “arrested by officials?” What officials? Deported to a country where homosexuality is illegal IN ONE WEEK??? Sweden is a country that respects human rights (they’ve accepted more refugees than any country in Europe except for Germany) and legal judicial principles. So where is the source of this story? No citations at all, leaving trolls like you to make some simplistic dishonest comments to what? Impress some other ignorant people that “Sweden is homophobic?” Are you Trump? Or one is his cronies?
Brian
Sweden is homophobic because you never see male-male couples walking the streets there. You never see two men holding hands in public unless it’s in the segregated gay scene. Segregation is not acceptance.
JD17
Because fortunately Sweden is a country that does grant political asylum to LGBT individuals who can demonstrate a legitimate fear of persecution in the home countries, unfortunately, this openness sometimes represents an opportunity for unscrupulous individuals to lie about their sexuality in order to obtain asylum. The “evidence’ needed to prove the bona fides of an asylum claim of this nature would never involve an intrusive physical exam; however, it might require the person seeking asylum to provide names of multiple friends or contacts who would testify under penalty of perjury in defense of the applicants statements. Mr Nagbe, like any other asylum seeker, will need to satisfy these evidentiary requirements in order to receive a favorable adjudication, which hopefully he will still be able to do.
PRINCE OF SNARKNESS aka DIVKID
Imagine not being sassy and fierce enough to pass >_<
Tell me again how masc gays are not discrimated against!
ErikO
@Brian: Yes you do. Have you even ever been there?
Kangol
@Bauhaus: @ErikO: “Brian,” a/k/a “Jason Smeds,” is a troll. It comes on this site to derail threads over and over. It used to post as Jason and often would say utterly hom0phobic (it despises effeminate gay men), misogynistic (it hates women) and r@cist things (it dislikes black people). It also is a strong Trump supporter/hom0nationalist. Ignoring it is the way to go, though doing so is really frustrating. But feeding it only makes it comment more.
DDstar1me
@PRINCE OF SNARKNESS aka DIVKID….Yes, because masculine gay men all over the world are always the first to be attacked or face discrimination.