Stop testing ‘gay’ asylum seekers for ‘arousal’: EU tells Czech Republic
By ANISaturday, December 11, 2010
LONDON - The European Union has asked Czech Republic to stop its controversial practice of trying to find out if asylum seekers are gay by showing them porn to check their ’sexual arousal’ levels.
Men who claim to be in asylum on the grounds they would be in danger in their homelands due to their sexuality were subjected to ‘porno exam,’ reports the Daily Mail.
And if any of the applicants got aroused after seeing men and women having sex were automatically denied asylum rights.
A Prague interior minister spokesman said the tests had been valuable in determining whether men were really gay or not but the EU said they were clearly a breach of the human rights charter of the bloc.
The men were shown both ’straight’ and gay porno films by Czech officials.
Sensors were attached to the private parts, linked up to a computer, to test whether they were stimulated or not.
In a report on homosexual equality, the Agency for Fundamental Rights said “phallometric testing was questionable, since it is dubious whether it reaches sufficiently clear conclusions.”
However, the Czech Interior Ministry has slammed the criticism saying that testing has been carried out in fewer than 10 cases and always in the presence of a medical specialist.
Ministry spokesman Pavel Novak also claimed the test was only used on unreliable applicants from nations such as Iran, where gays and lesbians are subject to prosecution. (ANI)