Porn used to test refugees
The Czech Republic has been using heterosexual pornography and equipment to measure blood flow to the penis in determining whether refugees who say they are seeking asylum to escape homophobic persecution at home are telling the truth about their orientation.
The use of phallometric testing was revealed by the Czech Ministry of the Interior to a German court last year where an Iranian man who had undergone the procedure while seeking asylum in the Czech Republic was seeking a stay on deportation.
Czech authorities defended the procedure as it was not compulsory, was carried out by professional sexologists and required the signed consent of asylum candidates.
However the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) has condemned the use of phallometric testing in asylum cases in the Central European nation as difficult to reconcile with existing human rights standards, invasive and degrading.
FRA also questioned whether the process could really be said to be consensual considering the possible consequences of refusing it.
“Where the claim to asylum or to subsidiary protection will be rejected unless such consent is given, the notion of free consent becomes meaningless,” read a report.
Czech refugee rights group Organisation for Aid to Refugees has also questioned whether asylum seekers are being informed about the procedure in a way which is understandable for them.
No other European Union state was found to have used the procedure with asylum seekers.
