(Courthouse News) Austria was wrong to not give an Iraqi refugee a second chance at asylum after he revealed he was gay, the European Union’s highest court held Thursday.
The European Court of Justice found that an Iraqi man who applied for asylum in Austria — initially on the grounds that he had refused to fight in the military, and then on the basis of his sexuality — should have been given a second opportunity to present his asylum claim.
XY, as he is identified in court documents, first applied for asylum in Austria in 2015, claiming that he feared for his life as a Shia Muslim who refused to fight for a Shiite militia. That application was rejected in January 2018.
