THE scars have long healed, but 28-year-old Asher's wounds go much deeper than the physical. Asher, who declined to give his surname, said he was beaten by men who didn't like his 'walk'.

Asher. people tell me that I walk like a girl

"People [always] tell me that I walk like a girl," remarked Asher, who said a group of men recently attacked him as he was walking on Windward Road in Kingston. They had accused him of being a homosexual, he said.

"What happened is that a group of men drew me into St Michael's Church, and they used a stone and started knocking me in the head," he said.

He said one of the men "used a bottle and started knocking me in the head and kicked me up and thing. Then, one of them told his friend to go for his gun to shoot me and throw me in a pit. I was begging for my life and telling them that I was not that (homosexual) and that I was coming from Bellevue.

"Then they buck up on (found) a letter that the doctor gave me from Bellevue, and they read through it and decided that I was a 'mad bwoy' and decided to let me go," he told the Sunday Observer.

Although he was lying, he said the four words, 'I am not that' saved his life that day. Asher is all too conscious that another attack may leave him dead. And with the possibility of another attack being a real and perhaps imminent threat, he has decided to seek asylum in the United Kingdom (UK).

His trouble did not, however, begin with February's beating. His troubles started in 2000 in the community of Maverley, St Andrew, where he was raised. He said that when people in the community found out that he was gay, he was forced to go into hiding.

"People did know about it, and a friend of mine by the name of 'Scoochie'; she phoned my uncle and let him know that people were after me to kill me because I was that (homosexual), and she was putting me up in her house and hiding me."
Later that year, Asher abandoned his 'simple life' in Jamaica and went to the United Kingdom with his uncle on a six-month visitor's visa. And after weighing his options, he decided to apply for political asylum in Britain.

"I didn't want to come back to Jamaica [because] I know what I was coming back into. Even my friends and a JP told me that I was to leave, and that it was better off for me up there. And I was being threatened for political reasons, because at the time, in Maverley, I was a JLP and in my area they were in war with another PNP community," he claimed.

In 2001, the Immigration and National Directorate Management of Detained Cases Unit of the UK Home Office turned down Asher's application for asylum. He appealed the application, but in 2004 he was once again turned down.

With time running out, Asher decided to "swallow his pride" and make a fresh application for asylum to the Home Office on the grounds that he feared returning to Jamaica because he was a homosexual and could be killed if this was discovered.

Initially, he said he had a hard time convincing the home office officials that he was indeed homosexual and that his story was credible. He said they felt he was making a feeble attempt to remain in the UK, as one cannot be removed while an asylum request is being considered. But with enough pressing from an attorney he enlisted, Asher was given leave to make a third application.

Things, however, took a turn for the worse for Asher as he was picked up by the police and taken to the HMP Lindholme detention centre in Doncaster before he could begin the third application.

"I was driving with my cousin and police stop the car and because I was so frighten because I knew they wanted to remove me, I give them (the police) my cousin's name who was in the army. I didn't give them my name. Then they searched the car and found my disability card and saw my picture and checked it out. Then they found out I had given them a wrong name, and charged me with making a false declaration and I went to the detention centre."

While he was in the detention centre, Asher said he was attacked by an inmate who accused him of making advances towards the inmate's girlfriend. He said his eye was badly damaged.

"Another detainee had a problem with his girlfriend, they were always cursing each other and he asked me to come and talk to her on his behalf to ask her to sponsor him for bail. I was telling her that whatever she can do for him, she should help him.
"He book a visit for her to come talk to me and him in the visiting area. And when she came, he felt like I was looking his girlfriend because she is talking to me more than him, and is not cursing with me.

"I came out of the phone room and gone to my cell and was there. I remember seeing him pick up something, and I remember him come at me and hit me in my eye, and I see blood start to run."

During his detention, however, Asher was writing letters to different law firms trying to get a lawyer, but they all responded by saying that they couldn't take his case until after he was released. He eventually got a lawyer who was handling the matter pro bono, and arrangements were being made to get him bail. But by the time Asher got two sureties to act on his behalf, his removal date was too close at hand and so he was sent back to Jamaica.

Before his arrival back in the island on July 3, 2004, he managed to contact Amnesty International, and was told by a representative to gather as much evidence as possible to support his application.

Since then Asher has been a man on a mission, collecting newspaper clippings and whatever else he can about the abuses suffered by homosexuals in Jamaica. His efforts have, however, been undermined by the fact that he currently has no fixed address and is unemployed. He supports himself by doing odd jobs around Kingston.

He remains convinced that one day his work will pay off.
"I know that I've always been lucky and always managed to be in a position where somebody feels sorry for me and helps me, so I'm sure I'll make it," he said.

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