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Parliamentary question - E-000895/2019Parliamentary question
E-000895/2019

Mehdi Shokr Khoda's asylum application to Sweden

Question for written answer E-000895-19
to the Commission
Rule 130
Pina Picierno (S&D) , Daniele Viotti (S&D)

Mehdi Shokr Khoda, a 19-year-old Iranian, is gay and a Christian. That was why, in early 2017, he left Iran for Sweden, where he applied for political asylum through a lawyer assigned to him. However, the Swedish Migration Board apparently did not consider his application sufficiently well-grounded to be accepted. He was interviewed twice. The second interview, according to his testimony and that of his partner, was particularly unpleasant, with unduly personal questions and an inept interpreter.

As is common knowledge, Iranian policies towards homosexuals or Christians are harshly repressive, and if this young man were to be sent back to his home country he would almost certainly be sentenced to death.

Having regard to Article 10 of Directive 2011/95/EU with reference to asylum applications for persecuted LGBTI people; to Article 2 TEU; and to the ruling of the Court of Justice concerning the interpretation of Article 4(3)(c) of Directive 2004/83/EC (CJEU, A and Others v Staatsecretaris van Veiligheid en Justitie, C-148/13, C-149/13, and C-150/13, 2 December 2014), whereby an applicant may not be required, under any circumstances, to furnish tangible physical evidence of his or her declared sexual orientation:

Last updated: 6 March 2019
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