GAY BRAZILIAN GRANTED ASYLUM DETAILS BEATINGS

    By Paul Ben-Itzak

    SAN FRANCISCO (Reuter) - A Brazilian man who became the first
person granted U.S. asylum because he feared anti-gay persecution
in his home country said Tuesday he would have been killed if he
had been deported.

    Marcelo Tenorio was granted political refugee status by a
U.S. immigration judge July 26. The U.S. Immigration and
Naturalization Service, which contested his asylum request, has
not yet decided whether to appeal.

    Tenorio fled Brazil in 1990 after being beaten by street
thugs outside a gay disco in Rio. He also said he had been beaten
by police who accosted him on the street in Sao Paolo, chanting:
"You are gay! You are gay!"

    "The people that attacked me, if they see me around, next
time they're going to kill me," said Tenorio, referring to the
four men who attacked him outside the disco in 1989.

    Tenorio entered the U.S. illegally in 1990 and was arrested
by immigration authorities last year and threatened with
deportation.

    But Judge Philip Leadbetter said the evidence convinced him
homosexuals faced persecution in Brazil.

   "Anti-gay groups appear to be prevalent in Brazilian society
and continue to commit violence against homosexuals, with little
official investigations and few criminal charges being brought
against the perpetrators," Leadbetter wrote in his decision.

    The ruling represents the first time an immigration judge has
recognized homosexuals as part of a persecuted group, gay and
immigration rights activists said.

    Gay activists in San Francisco heralded the ruling as a
groundbreaking decision and called on Washington to designate
gays officially as members of a "social group" that can seek
asylum because of fear of persecution in their home countries.

    One of the grounds for granting asylum is that the applicant
is a member of a social group that is persecuted in the home
country.

    It could open the doors to similar appeals from gay people
who have been persecuted in other countries, and who, like
Tenorio, see the United States and particularly San Francisco as
a "mecca" for gays. Activists say 16 other cases are pending.

    "I heard San Francisco is a city where the gays can live
free," said Tenorio, who wore a white T-shirt with a picture of
a black boy hugging a white boy and the words, "Nobody is born a
bigot."

    He said police in Brazil are reluctant to act on cases of gay
bashings.

    "If you go to the police, they don't do anything," he said.
"It's going to be my fault, because I'm gay."

    A Brazilian government spokesman said Brazil is tolerant
toward what he called different "behaviors," but said he was not
familiar with Tenorio's case. He also said the Brazilian police
force as an institution is not anti-gay.

    "You could have someone who could be a cop but he could be a
criminal," Consul Joao Almino told Reuters. "If that person is
identified as a criminal, he would be decommissioned immediately
and he would be punished for the crime he has committed."