Home Office rejects asylum claim by man who got death threats in Morocco, where homosexuality is punishable by up to three years in jail

A gay Moroccan who is HIV-positive is facing deportation from the UK after his claim for asylum was rejected, despite homosexuality being punishable by up to three years in jail in the north African nation.

Abderrahim, 25, sought asylum in May after being the subject of verbal abuse and death threats because of his sexual orientation. The Home Office has rejected his application and his appeal was dismissed by a first-tier tribunal judge earlier this month.

He had to leave Morocco after the authorities were infuriated by him and a group of other activists who were trying to formally set up a pro-LGBT organisation called Akaliyat (minorities). Several other members of the group also had to flee after it received national media coverage.

The UK’s decision to deny protection to Abderrahim comes a few weeks after the Moroccan minister of state for human rights, Mustapha Ramid, called homosexuals awsakh, an Arabic word for “scum” or “dirt”. The article 489 of Morocco’s penal code requires six months’ to three years’ imprisonment for homosexuality.

The Home Office accepted Abderrahim as being gay, but said in its refusal letter that his “claimed treatment does not amount to persecution”.

A court judgment seen by the Guardian also said that “prosecutions of gay men [in Morocco] are sporadic at their worst” and “at best the appellant might suffer the same sort of harassment that he has probably already had to put up with”.

Abderrahim described his situation in Morocco as a nightmare and said deporting him was like sending him back to darkness.

“Being gay in Morocco is hard, you can face persecution and be put in prison,” Abderrahim told the Guardian. “I know who I am now, I understand what’s the meaning of freedom, I can walk in the street and not look behind my back. For me to go back to Morocco is to go back to darkness – homophobia in Morocco is rising.”

Abderrahim had initially sought asylum in Amsterdam in January, immediately after arriving in the Netherlands from Morocco on a valid Schengen visa. However, Dutch authorities sent him to the UK because he also had a UK visa that was issued more recently and was valid for a longer period.

He was first diagnosed as HIV-positive in May 2013, but had to wait three years to receive medication because of complicated regulations in Morocco.

People in Morocco still think an HIV-positive person is someone we should throw away Jamal Malek, activist

In 2014, while working for an Aids charity group, ALCS (Association de lutte contre le SIDA), he gave an interview to Moroccan television in which he spoke about his HIV status. Abderrahim’s revelation led to a huge social backlash. “I even received death threats from my older brother,” he said.

In Casablanca, where he was living with his partner, he had to move several times. “When I was living with my partner, I was moving house … every time our sexuality was disclosed, they would ask us to leave,” he said. “First time they asked us to leave, second time it was because our neighbour found out we were gay and he spread the word to the entire neighbourhood, people in the neighbourhood started to shout ‘faggot, faggot’, we had to leave again.”

Persecution of the LGBT community in Morocco is rife. King Mohammed VI is a western ally and the country is a popular tourist destination for westerners, which activists say means its poor human rights record gets little attention globally.

Jamal Malek, a Moroccan LGBT activist whom the Guardian met in Marrakesh, said Morocco is unsafe for Abderrahim. “People in Morocco still think an HIV-positive person is someone we should throw away, abandon and eliminate from our everyday life,” he said. “Abderrahim is not only an HIV-positive person, but also publicly and openly gay, and that’s just enough for us to see how it’s going to be so difficult for him to come back to Morocco.”

Marwan Mohamed Elhajjami, a Moroccan activist who has recently been forced into exile in the Netherlands because of his queer activism, said the deportation of Abderrahim to Morocco is a real threat to his personal security. “He is at risk of facing a prison sentence of up to three years – he was living in constant and increasing fear of being arrested because of his sexuality, and this danger still exists.”



Human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell said Abderrahim’s case shows that the home secretary, Amber Rudd, is suggesting that Morocco is safe for LGBT people.

“This is nonsense,” Tatchell said. “Gay Moroccans are at risk of arrest, imprisonment, homophobic violence and so-called honour killing. Many people with HIV in Morocco do not have access to life-saving treatments, so his deportation could be a death sentence.”

The UK government’s country policy and information note on sexual orientation and gender identity in Morocco, updated in July, admits that up-to-date official statistics about convictions and sentences in Morocco are not available.

Abderrahim’s lawyers have submitted an application for permission to appeal the judgment.

A Home Office spokesperson said Abderrahim’s “claim was carefully considered on its individual merits against background country information and was refused in August 2017”.