As you read this, Abbey Kyeyune a Ugandan man in the UK could be packing his bags for the long flight home. The Ugandan-born asylum seeker faces deportation from the UK by the end of today because he couldn’t “prove” he is gay.
The United Kingdom was once thought of as one of the automatic escape routes for Ugandans claiming persecution back home because they are gay or lesbian, but soon that asylum option might have to be crossed out.
The UK newspaper Independent reported on Sunday that Abbey Kyeyune, who has been living in Manchester since 2014, had not provided satisfactory responses in an interview by immigration officials and was scheduled to be put on a flight back to Uganda by Monday evening.
The Independent report did not specify what kind of evidence Kyeyune was required to produce at the interview but what is clear is that even his claim that he “can’t go back home, because my family will kill me” found no sympathy with the British officials. The publication indicated a previous interview to ascertain whether an asylum-seeking man was genuinely gay had required him to submit intimate photos of himself.
If Kyeyune’s deportation were to happen it would serve as a major blow to Ugandan lesbian and gay asylum-seekers trying to escape to the UK, which has been one of the western countries most critical of Uganda’s strict anti-homosexuality law. The law, which initially proposed the death penalty for being homosexual was later toned down to life imprisonment.
Kyeyune reportedly fled Uganda after his family members discovered that he was having a relationship with another man, and became physically violent towards him. With deportation imminent, he claimed he could not return to his family, and had no other friends that he could stay with in his native Kampala.