May 20, 2005  |  By: YUSEF NAJAFI  | COMMENTS     

In Gambia, Yorro Kuyateh says he was stripped and beaten violently because he is gay. Life for the 34-year-old former civics teacher has not been much easier since he immigrated to the United States from West Africa eight years ago. He is unemployed, single and in serious need of medical care.

“[In Gambia] one soldier burned his penis with a cigarette, [another used] the metal end of a belt [to beat him], which resulted in a scalp laceration and loss of consciousness,” explains Chris Nugent, a gay attorney who works as the team administrator for Community Services at Holland & Knight, a law firm in D.C.

Nugent helps coordinate the firm’s pro bono activities worldwide. And in the past year, Holland & Knight’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgendered Workgroup, which includes about 30 gay lawyers nationwide — including Nugent — helped Kuyateh and five other gay men who fled Egypt, Guyana, Iran, Lebanon and Mexico, contending that they were being persecuted because of their sexual orientation.

On Saturday, May 21, the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington is scheduled to honor Nugent and his colleagues in the gay workgroup for their pro bono work on behalf of gay clients. GMCW’s “Spring Affair” awards ceremony is scheduled to take place at the Hyatt Regency Washington Hotel on Capitol Hill.

In addition to the lawyers, D.C. City Councilmember David Catania (I-At-Large), Roger Bergstrom and Gary Regan, two senior members of the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington, also are scheduled to be honored.

“Roger and Gary are two men in the chorus who are loved by everyone,” said John Sykes, marketing manger for the GMCW. “They are senior members who have [dedicated] a lot of their time for the chorus and also have raised a lot of money for us through volunteer work over the years.”

Holland & Knight is being honored for donating more than 2,000 hours of work at no charge to assist six asylum seekers:

Kuyateh, who came to the United States with a student visa but in 1998 stopped attending community college. When he later applied for a job driving a truck, the company reported him to the office of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services for not having a valid Social Security number. Kuyateh was detained by immigration officials and Nugent said another inmate assaulted him for being gay. Because of his medical problems, Kuyateh was released to live with family and friends in suburban Maryland. Today, he suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder and a seizure disorder as a result of the abuse.

Wissam Abyad of Egypt says he was arrested and imprisoned for more than a year after he met a police agent posing as a gay man at a McDonald’s. The men had met on the Internet.

Mohammed, who asked that his actual name not be used, is a gay man from Iran. He fled that Muslim country in 2002. Lawyers at Holland & Knight said Mohammad faced further difficulty when the U.S. judge handling his immigration case did not believe he is gay. Ultimately, the law firm won asylum for him.

Peter Ali, a gay man from Guyana, in South America, is currently being detained in New Jersey. Attorneys at Holland & Knight claim in their case that Ali was raped and tortured after being deported from the United States in 1996. He subsequently returned to the U.S., and was arrested for being an illegal immigrant. His case is pending.

Jorge, a gay man from Mexico, who does not want his full identify revealed for security purposes, has been denied asylum by the Board of Immigration Appeals in San Francisco. Holland & Knight filed a friend-of-the-court brief in support of his effort to remain in the United States. The case is pending.

Mike Karim, a gay activist from Lebanon, lives in San Diego and was arrested earlier this year by U.S. immigration officials for not being here legally. He currently is being detained in San Diego and is represented by the San Francisco office of Holland & Knight. His case is pending.

“In many of these countries, such as Iran, there is the death penalty for being gay,” Nugent said.

He added that gays face imprisonment in Egypt, Lebanon and Gambia, based on anti-gay policies in those countries.

In Guyana, Nugent said ...