By William Miller
Impunity Watch Reporter, North America
TORONTO, Canada – A Canadian federal court has ordered Canada to review the rejected application for asylum filed by a soldier in the United States military who fled the U.S. after being persecuted for being a lesbian. The court said the Immigration and Refugee Board erred in rejecting her refugee claim.
Private Bethany Smith fled Fort Campbell, Kentucky after months of harassment, which included hundreds of threatening notes and a death threat. Smith reported that the letter was pinned to her barrack’s door and that it said “they were going to break into the supply room and get the keys to my room and beat me to death in my bed.” The harassment started after another soldier saw her holding hands with a woman and told other soldiers on the base.
Fort Campbell has been the site of anti-gay violence in the past. In 1999, a gay soldier was beaten to death at Fort Campbell with a baseball bat.
Smith had applied for a discharge after receiving the threat, but was denied. Although the U.S. Military has a policy of discharging openly gay solders, Smith was told her application would not be processed until after her next rotation to Afghanistan. After her discharge was denied she drove two days to the Canadian border and settled down in Ontario under the name Skyler James.
Smith took her case to the Canadian federal courts after her application was rejected by the Immigration and Refugee Board in 2007. The court overturned the decision on November 20, 2009, finding that the board unfairly dismissed evidence that gays face brutality and harassment in the U.S. military and that it had an obligation to assess the likelihood that U.S. military law would discriminate against Smith. According to the judgment, “[i]t is true that the board member summarized at some length the evidence offered by the applicant, but he has by no means considered it, let alone analyzed it and provided reasons for dismissing it.”
Smith claims she would face court martial for abandoning her post and other charges for being in a same-sex relationship. She further claims that a jury of her peers would most likely share the same views as those who harassed her before she fled.
Although the Canadian Parliament has urged government agencies to accept the more than 200 American military servicemen and women who fled to Canada to avoid transfer to Iraq and Afghanistan, the courts and immigration officials have failed to comply. At least two soldiers have been deported and several more are at risk of meeting the same fate. None have been given refugee status so far. This stands in stark contrast to policy implementation during the Vietnam War, when thousands of U.S. citizens received permanent residency after fleeing to Canada to avoid the draft.
For more information, please see:
Women’s Enews – Lesbian Who Fled Army Opens Legal Grounds in Canada – 7 December 2009
AFP – Canada to Review U.S. Lesbian Soldier’s Asylum Claim – 20 November 2009
Associated Press – Lesbian U.S. War Deserter Wins Stay of Deportation – 20 November 2009
