Media
Refugee Review Tribunal 'homophobic': detainee • ABC • May 18, 2007
A 26-year-old Pakistani Christian, Ali Humayun, has been in Villawood Detention Centre for more than two years.
A vigil has been held in eastern Sydney for a homosexual Christian Pakistani man who has been detained at Sydney's Villawood Detention Centre for more than two years.
Ali Humayun's application for asylum was based on fear of persecution if he returned home, but was rejected by the Refugee Review Tribunal last October. Read more
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A cry for help from Villawood refugee prison
Green Left Weekly • 4 May 2007
The following appeal by Ali B. Humayun, who has been detained in Villawood Immigration Detention Centre in Sydney for more than a year, was sent to Community Action Against Homophobia. It has been abridged for publication.
I am a Pakistani national. I traveled to Australia in early 2000 on a student visa and was enrolled at the University of Canberra for three years before dropping out owing to depression.
I graduated from high school and came to Australia to pursue university study. My first sexual encounter with a girl was in 2002 in Australia. I was expelled from the university in 2003, and in January 2005 I was brought to the Villawood Immigration Detention Centre. Read more
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Mandatory detention review ends soon • SSO • July 23, 2008
Recently freed queer refugee Ali Humayun was one of 461 people held in mandatory detention under a policy that is being investigated by a Parliamentary committee.
A spokeswoman for the committee said the final report wouldn’t be available until next year but the call for submissions would close shortly.
GetUp, supported by queer activist norrie mAy-welby and Community Action Against Homophobia, is seeking views and support for its own submission, hoping to end the policy and “end a regrettable chapter of Australian history that caused unimaginable suffering to some of the world’s most desperate and downtrodden”. Read more
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Banner banned from mardi gras parade • Evolution Publishing SX
GLBT activists were told they could not take place in the Mardi Gras Parade because their banner was “too political”.
Community Action Against Homophobia (CAAH) had intended to head their entry with a banner that read ‘Free Ali Humayun’.
Ali Humayun is a gay refugee from Pakistan who has been detained in Villawood for the past three years. CAAH, which has been assisting Humayun in his case against deportation, said they were “shocked” at New Mardi Gras’ response to the banner. Read more
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Ali Humayun’s bid for freedom • Green Left Weekly • May 24, 2008
Ali Humayun, a queer Pakistani, was recently granted permanent residency after spending more than three years locked up in Villawood Detention Centre. He made the following statement to Green Left Weekly on May 23.
In 2001 I arrived in Australia as a student at the University of Canberra College doing a bridging [English] course. I had to pay $48,000 in that first year, yet I didn’t need to do that course. I had to do it to be allowed into the university.
My studies became hard when I became depressed. In 2002 I had sex with a girl for the first time, which spun me out. I could not stop thinking about the sexual abuse I’d experienced back in Pakistan over many years and at the hands of many men. One was a Muslim cleric who took mass every Friday in my neighbourhood.
This depression made me totally dysfunctional and stopped me from finishing my studies, even though I was undergoing counselling at the university. The academic board said they were considering expulsion, since I had failed all subjects at the end of 2002, unless I was able to provide them with reasonable cause [to allow me to continue]. My psychiatrist and I wrote to them and explained my history of sexual abuse. The academic board approved my reasons and let me off the hook, but said next time there would be no consideration. Read more
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Community Action Against Homophobia is an increasingly influential force for queer rights, writes Peter Hackney • Evolution Publishing SX
When it was first formed in 1999, Community Action Against Homophobia – or CAAH, as it’s known for short – seemed little more than another gaggle of politically-minded uni students with a cause.
Sure, their politics were laudable – their first campaign was against Catholic anti-gay group ‘Courage’, which provided ‘support’ for students suffering the ‘disease’ of homosexuality – but the same was true about countless similar groups, which formed and disappeared like clockwork.
But CAAH was quick to show that it was made of stronger mettle than your average bunch of student activists. ‘Courage’ soon found its campus meetings shut down, and the group was banned from Sydney University.
By 2004, CAAH had gone on to institute the Same Sex Marriage National Day of Action (NDA), to protest the Federal Government’s same-sex marriage ban. The NDA is now held annually and draws thousands each year to rallies across Australia.
In 2008, CAAH has reached a point where it has transcended its roots in student politics, to become a major player in Australia’s queer rights debate. Its influence was highlighted last month with the release from detention of Ali Humayun – a gay refugee from Pakistan, who had spent three-and-a-half years locked up in Villawood Immigration Detention Centre – after an indefatigable CAAH campaign. Humayun is now free to stay in Australia permanently.
“The release of Ali shows that mass action gets the goods,” says CAAH spokesperson Rachel Evans. “We are an activist-focussed, grassroots campaign-focussed group. We espouse direct action and we think – as the Ali case has shown – that if we are active, if we protest, then we win.” Read more
