Sweden Allows Gay
Iranian Asylum Seekers

The Swedish Migration Board has decided that people who lived openly as gay or lesbian in Iran should be granted asylum.

While there will still be individual assessments of each case, the board's new decision will take into account the risk that the person might be persecuted because of their sexual orientation.

"The situation of homosexuals and bisexuals [and] transgender people in Iran is difficult," Henrik Winman, a lawyer with the migration board, told Swedish paper Dagens Nyheter, A Swedish LGBT rights group has met with the migration board several times concerning the issue.

The decision comes on the heels of the case of a 25-year-old Iranian who fled to Sweden after he and his boyfriend had been arrested several times in Iran.

The migration board allowed him to remain in Sweden as a refugee as it considered whether he would be at risk of persecution in Iran because of his sexual orientation. (The Advocate)