[LINK] "Meet the gay Caribbean man Canada wants to deport"

[rfmcdonald]

Daily Xtra's Arshy Mann reports on a man, a refugee from the Caribbean island nation of Saint Kitts and Nevis, who is faced with expulsion from his new home in Toronto despite the threats against him.

This expulsion of a man from safety should not be allowed to happen. Trudeau, are you listening?

Back in St Kitts and Nevis, where gay sex is punishable by up to 10 years in prison, he was subject to constant harassment. Walking home from work, men would use homophobic slurs calling him “anti man” and “batty man.” They would punch him in the gut or in the face if they felt he was walking too close to them. Sometimes they would throw stones at him in the streets.



St Kitts, the island where Ryan lived, is small, with a population of only 40,000 people. So even though Ryan wasn’t completely out of the closet, everyone knew he was gay. He isn’t sure if it was because of how he walks or how he talks. At a young age, he would only play with girls. His uncle certainly knew he was gay — he would beat him regularly, while yelling those same slurs.

Ryan is an accomplished dancer. He travelled around the Caribbean performing and won cash prizes in dancing competitions. But being a dancer in St Kitts gave the homophobes even more ammunition to target him with.

Ryan was stabbed for being a gay man in St Kitts. Not once, but twice. The first time he had been out with friends and was walking through an alley to get back to his house. A group of men stopped him, demanding money and calling him homophobic names. He tried to run away, but they beat him badly. He was stabbed multiple times and was hospitalized. He still has the scars.

A few years later, he was attacked, stabbed and robbed again. The last straw for Ryan came when a man pulled a gun on him. “Don’t walk on this street batty man,” he was threatened. Ryan was scared for his life. An online friend in Canada was able to link him up with Rainbow Railroad, a Toronto-based organization that gets LGBT people out of situations like his. They bought him a plane ticket and a month later he was in Canada.

Rolston Ryan is a gay man. He was subjected to vicious attacks and abuse because of that. He comes from a country that criminalizes his very existence. None of that is in dispute.

But what the Canadian government does dispute is that he’s a person in need of protection. And that’s why they’re sending him back.