Gay Saudi Diplomat Seeks Asylum in US

Says Saudis want to force him home, 'will kill me in broad daylight'
By Nick McMaster,  Newser Staff
Posted Sep 13, 2010 4:06 PM CDT
Gay Saudi Diplomat Seeks Asylum in US
Saudi princes pray during Eid al-Fitr morning prayers in Riyadh, Thursday, Sept. 9, 2010. A Saudi diplomat is seeking asylum after being outed as gay.   (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)

A Saudi Arabian diplomat is seeking political asylum after being outed as gay in his home country, the Daily Mail reports. Ali Ahmad Asseri, the first secretary of the Saudi consulate in LA, said that his government had yanked his diplomatic passport and his job in order to force him to return, where he faces stiff punishment for being gay—as well as being close friends with a Jewish woman.

"My life is in a great danger here and if I go back to Saudi Arabia, they will kill me openly in broad daylight," says Asseri. And just to make sure every bridge was burned, Asseri knocked his country's "backwardness," and "militant imams" who have "defaced the tolerance of Islam." The US government has not commented on Asseri's case.
(More gay stories.)

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