Less than a week after surviving an execution by stoning, Shaheen (a pseudonym used by a 25-year old gay man in Afghanistan), contacted me via Facebook messenger. We had met virtually only a few times, but he had no one else to whom to turn. Between weeping sobs, Shaheen said goodbye to me because he feared for his life. His relatives were hunting him down for allegedly bringing dishonor to the family. Shaheen is gay and was about to flee an honor killing. Shaheen believed he had only two choices: either commit suicide by throwing himself in front of a fast-moving vehicle or turning himself into his family members and accept the resulting tortuous death.
Hearing his cracking voice and feeling the magnitude of his situation, I offered him a third choice: to live and go into exile. My plan was for him to obtain a visa to Turkey and take the next flight out. I knew it wasn’t going to easy or cheap, but this was the best bet. The next morning, I wired him $125 from my own pocket and started a GoFundMe page for him. I never fundraised online for a specific cause or person before, but with Shaheen’s life on the line, I hit the ground running. Indeed, considering the grave danger, we didn’t have the luxury of time.
I interviewed Shaheen to clarify the details of this otherwise senseless situation. As a resident of Kabul, Shaheen returned to his birth country and ancestral homeland seven years ago. Although Shaheen was born in Afghanistan’s Laghman province he lived most of his life in Quetta, Pakistan. An ambitious student who was preparing to pursue a dual master’s degree in economic and engineering, Shaheen graduated with a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from Bakhtar University in August 2016. This nightmare that would throw Shaheen’s life into chaos had begun this early March when his cousin walked into his hotel room to find Shaheen being intimate with Jameel, another Afghan man. Jameel was Shaheen’s steady boyfriend. The two were together for more than half a year. Jameel bolted out of the room, leaving Shaheen alone to face his cousin. When Shaheen returned home to his parents' house, his father, uncle, brother and cousin confronted him. They continuously smashed Shaheen’s legs with a leather belt and whatever else they had on hand in order to get him to confess being gay and committing what they considered a carnal sin. He knew that loving men was a death sentence, so at first he tried to lie, but it only made his family hit harder. They wanted him to confess that he was gay in order to justify what would come next. Desperate, Shaheen blurted, “I am gay. I desire men. I want to remain this way. What is it to you? I love being this way. I want to live this life.”
With tears streaming, Shaheen’s mother begged, “Please stop,” “Leave my son alone,” “What has he done wrong?” But her cries fell on deaf ears as the men took more swings at Shaheen. Since women have almost no say in Afghanistan, the beatings continued until Shaheen’s male relatives were out of breath and stopped for the night. The next morning, still reeling from the previous assault, Shaheen’s father, uncle, brother, and cousin blindfolded Shaheen by placing a bag over his face and then bound his hands and feet. Afterward, they placed him in the trunk of a car and drove way. Some time later, the car stopped in a deserted area. Three ferocious-looking men who were unknown to Shaheen were near a grave that was a meter long. While Shaheen’s brother and cousin were gathering stones while his uncle and father continued to dig a meter-long grave. They wanted to tie Shaheen’s feet to the ground and cover him up to the waist and then strike rocks against his face and head. After being forced to the ground, in the middle of nowhere, Shaheen's uncle, in a remorseless tone, stated, “We must kill you so that we teach Afghan youth a lesson. To make sure they do not become filthy faggots like you.” Having lost everything and his hope for mercy shattered into pieces, Shaheen wearily accepted the stone cold fact that he was going to die alone knowing that no one in the world would care or know what happened to him.
In a last-minute effort, right before the first stone was thrown and surging with a "do or die" adrenaline rush, Shaheen, gathered all of his available strength, bit his uncle’s hand, struggled out of his bindings and fled like there was no tomorrow sprinting forward for the next 30 minutes. Luckily his executioners couldn’t keep up with his mad dash for survival and the one person who could, his athletic cousin, was far afield collecting rocks. After making sure he lost his pursuers, his legs gave way and he collapsed onto the desert sand and fell asleep until later that day. After wandering around aimlessly for hours he finally found his way out of the desert. If Shaheen's harrowing ordeal with his family and his evasion from Afghan authorities wasn’t traumatic enough, he also had to deal with Jameel, his boyfriend, breaking Shaheen’s heart immediately after his near-death experience. The last thing Shaheen’s boyfriend told him on the phone was, “Go away. You got yourself into trouble. I don’t want to go down with you.” Since that last phone call, Shaheen has not heard. Shaheen was heartbroken. Since the outpouring of love and support, particularly with the donations and comments on Shaheen’s GoFundMe, he wants to live and love again believing that there are good people in this world who care about him and the greater good of humanity. He and I appreciate every single person for being part of this movement.
When I took Shaheen’s call, I knew I was his only lifeline left in this world. I promised to help him get to a third country where he can go to a UN office and seek asylum. I didn’t just do this for Shaheen. I’m doing this for all the hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, of LGBT people in Afghanistan, who are in a similar situation but suffer silently.
Currently, LGBTQ Afghans must hide from their own families, from Daesh and Taliban insurgents who consider homosexuality a crime punishable by death, and from the Afghan government, which quietly wages an LGBTQ cleansing throughout Afghanistan. Afghan law is based on the principles codified by sharia, declaring homosexuality illegal an offense punishable only by death. Afghans, like Shaheen are trapped in a perpetual fear of death with international news organizations and governments complicit in suppressing the LGBTQ community by treating homophobia, biphobia, and transphobia in Afghanistan as a non-issue. But this is a grave human rights matter, as anti-LGBTQ discrimination is institutionalized through the legal system in Afghanistan and across all Muslim-majority countries in the region.
The entrenched homophobia in Islamic culture influences all spheres of society and jeopardizes national security, as the massacre at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando proved last year. Omar Mateen, who hailed from Afghan ethnic origin and whose father openly supported the Taliban, may have repressed his sexual orientation and, if true, could be a considered a window for how bad life is for LGBTQ persons in Muslim-majority countries.
In Afghanistan, with foreign embassies limiting the scope of diplomatic presence and foreign aid in Afghanistan and neighboring Iran and Pakistan sealing their borders, Shaheen has nowhere to go for help. Throughout Afghanistan, there is not a single place an LGBTQ person can seek refuse. There are no LGBTQ-friendly homeless shelters. When LGBTQ Afghans are persecuted, family and friends refuse to help them out of homophobia or fear. Going to the Afghan police to complain about a hate crime or other heinous crime would be a complete waste of time since homosexuality is criminalized in Afghanistan.
Ogaye Hassanzada, 25, a trans Afghan woman who lives with her partner, Ramin Hassanzada, 23, a gay Afghan man, in Ankara, Turkey have offered to host Shaheen, and help him with his asylum case. Ogaye says, “I have five close gay and trans friends in Kabul, who have been imprisoned because of who they are.” Ogaye and her partner left Afghanistan last year after losing their jobs and being persecuted by their families. Both hope to start a new life as legal immigrants in the United States, but they worry that the current government will slam the door on LGBTQ refugees hailing from Muslim countries.
As an Afghan American gay émigré and LGBTQ rights campaigner in Muslim communities worldwide, I feel like I am carrying the weight of the gay world on my back. It’s an uphill battle to inspire change, but I will never give up. Criminalized in Muslim-majority countries where sharia is the law of the land and minorities within minorities in the West, LGBTQ individuals of Muslim descent are trapped in limbo and mostly ignored by the rest of the world. Tens of thousands of LGBT refugees enter Europe every year, many from Muslim-majority countries. European governments that should no better continue to deny LGBT asylum cases from Afghanistan. In a recent Guardian article, the United Kingdom’s Home Office deported LGBT Afghans back to Afghanistan and suggested for them to move to Kabul and pretend to be straight. Shaheen lived in Kabul and despite being closeted and secretly pursuing a same-sex affair, he was outed and nearly killed. Asking LGBTQ people to conform to a militantly, patriarchal culture and still risk death at any time goes against the credo of universal human rights.
Having fled war in Afghanistan as a child and studying the situation from afar, I know how totalitarianism, can splinter the social fabric of a nation. It unnerves me to see that Muslim/ex-Muslim immigrants and refugees have nowhere to go even as my adopted land of the Untied States threaten the very liberties upon which it was founded. I trust that we can push back against the current administration’s xenophobia and still promote an LGBTQ-affirmative agenda. My life-long dream is to help emancipate the tens of millions of LGBTQ people who continue to struggle for their right to live let alone be free and equal in the more than 70 countries around the world.
While Shaheen is still forced to stay in a country whose citizens want him dead, I have raised enough money on his behalf to help him slip out of the country without his family or the Afghan government capturing him. Shaheen's male relatives wanted nothing more than to murder him in cold blood to restore their family's honor and set an example so no other LGBTQ Afghan will ever try to be free and live a meaningful life. I am determined to help Shaheen become a paragon for gay rights in Afghanistan. I have known Shaheen for over a year. He is a gracious, kind, and hard-working young man, who has big dreams for himself—he still wants to pursue a dual master’s degree in economics and engineering—and who forgives his family despite all that has happened.
The people of this world who love freedom, liberty, and equality stand in solidarity with Shaheen, me, and the members of the suppressed LGBTQ community in Afghanistan. My greatest wish right now is for Shaheen to start a new life in the United States and to share his story with the world, so that his bravery and will to survive becomes a source of inspiration for all LGBTQ people in Afghanistan and everywhere in the world.
I have no doubt about the march toward freedom and equality for all. The aspirations of the LGBTQ community in Afghanistan now rests on Shaheen. If Shaheen turns this tragedy into triumph, then there will be a shimmer of hope that one day all LGBTQ Afghans can end the oppression and tyranny in their homeland and chart their own destiny.
If you would like to help with Shaheen’s relocation and recovery costs, please make a donation at www.gofundme/rescueshaheen.