Messages of hope from LGBTIQ refugees and allies for World Refugee Day
20 June 2022
Almost 2.7 million refugees around the world are from Afghanistan. That’s 2.7 million people forcibly displaced - some as a result of prosecution for whom they love. For this year’s World Refugee Day, we asked LGBTIQ refugees and allies from Afghanistan if they had a message for you. Here’s what they had to say:
1. From an anonymous poet from Afghanistan:
روزی که سخن ز عشق و عاشق بشود
روزی که وطن شبیه سابق بشود
مرغان مهاجر به وطن برگردند
هر کس بخدا پشت وطن دق بشود
این شب که همیشه شب نمیماند هیچ
این بغض به زیر لب نمیماند هیچ
من مطمئنم که درد درمان دارد
این فصل بد و غم زده پایان دارد
About this poem: This poem reflects - like a mirror - the heart and soul of a refugee: the undying longing, that foolish hope, the wish to go back home. It reminds us that the ones away from home know that even though there are harsh seasons and unkind days where they are today -- a tomorrow will come when they can open their wings and fly back home to love and be loved.
2. From Shahriar Mandegar, a gay refugee from Afghanistan
In conjunction with World Refugees Day:
As far as immigration has been declared as one of the basic human rights according to the International Conventions of Human Rights, people who are being threatened just because they belong to an ethnicity, religious thought or the LGBT community, they are entitled to leave their homeland to seek asylum.
Records show that after the takeover of Afghanistan by the terroristic regime of the Taliban, many people related to the mentioned groups were tortured and suspiciously killed. These death threats, and emotional and physical tortures push them to flee Afghanistan and take refuge legally or illegally in a second or third country so that they could at least spend a normal life.
For Afghans, taking refuge in second countries like Iran and Pakistan hasn’t been a good experience because even in those countries, they face violence and even murder, take the Genocide of Hazara Community in Quetta for an example.
Many people suffer while crossing borders illegally to seek life in Europe which unfortunately, due to the war going on between Russia and Ukraine has negatively impacted the acceptance of refugees outside the EU. Sometimes they’re even treated unkindly and are being ignored by the host countries. I wonder why developed countries like those in Europe who calim to support humans rights, violate the same rights.
I hope that as soon as possible, organisations supporting LGBT rights, the respected United Nations Council and the European Union, especially the government of Germany, who has always supported margianlised groups, take action, protect their rights and guarantee them saftey.
Yours respectfully,
Shahriar Mandegar
3. From Nawid Mohammadi, a Gay refugee from Afghanistan
I know immigration is difficult: the difficulty of being away from home, away from family, and whether or not you can take refuge in their loving arms again. Today is a momentous yet painful day, and I know this well that no one leaves their home without reason. I also believe that if today we are in pain for being away from our homes and no longer laugh from the bottom of our hearts, someday, we will find our homes and the same childish laughter. Until then, let's not give up; let's keep moving and not let "should"s and "must"s upset us. I hope we refugees will return to our homeland without a reason to stay in exile. I'm sure that day will come
4. Khesraw*, a gay man from Afghanistan
Today, I'd like to salute all refugees living far away from love and home.
I know how much of a shock displacement is to a person. Only when a person has to leave their home does he understand he lives under crude and hypocritical rules. Maybe one thinks that leaving home can save him from misery and sorrow. Or perhaps he believes it is possible to find a new place where tomorrow is better than today and yesterday. But when he becomes a refugee, he realizes that he has escaped from the rain only to have taken refuge in the rubble of a very wild hail.
He realizes that he has to look at his despair as a person; he must pat despair's back with one hand and caress its hair with the other. One learns he must dance through life with an unusual fondness for the world. Perhaps the most humane part of immigration is for us to realise that the Earth and Life do not know any border and that a person living in the most remote village on Earth can belong to the whole world.
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*Pen name
