Judge upholds decision to refuse protection to Ghanaian man who claims he was persecuted for being gay
The Irish Times. According to the judge, findings made during the international protection process put into question the credibility of the applicant’s claim that he faced persecution for being gay.Justice O’Donnell said that the Ghanaian man had told the tribunal that in the past, he had been married and had three children, but after his divorce in 2017, he met a man in 2018 who told him “about (being) gay and how it was going on”.The applicant explained that he had moved in with the man that year and was no longer interested in women.
He told the tribunal that his family made him feel like an outcast when he started living with the man and that he was attacked three times in Ghana between 2017 and 2020.Justice O’Donnell said that assessing the credibility of assertions about sexual orientation is “undoubtedly” sensitive and difficult, but “they are assessments that have to be made”.
According to the judge, the tribunal had adhered to the appropriate standards in assessing the applicant’s claim. The judge added that the tribunal accepted that gay men face extreme persecution in Ghana, where violence against LGBTQ+ people is common.However, according to the tribunal, there was an accumulation of unexplained issues with the applicant’s narrative.
For this reason, they said they had significant doubts about his credibility and could not accept that he had been persecuted.In refusing his application, the tribunal said that although the man may “simply have been naive or reckless”, his account of engaging in a carefree way in an openly gay relationship in the face of widespread intolerance seemed “unexpected and unusual”.