Tests for asylum seekers in the Czech Republic to continue?

Discrimination, a good plan – or simply an unnecessary waste of taxpayers’ money? The government in the Czech Republic apparently wants to stick with its controversial tests for asylum seekers who are seeking asylum there because of the persecution of homosexuals in their home countries.

After the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (EU) recently strongly criticized this practice, the Czech Interior Ministry intends, according to a report by the Associated Press, to continue using so-called “phallometric tests” on asylum seekers who apply for asylum in the Czech Republic because of discrimination against homosexuals in their home countries. These tests use a measuring device to measure a response to heterosexual pornography. If the subject responds to the images, they are deemed not to be homosexual and cannot apply for asylum in the Czech Republic. The Interior Ministry in Prague said that these tests would be used only in cases of doubt. So far, this has happened in “fewer than ten cases.” According to the Czech government, no asylum seeker has been rejected as a result of these tests to date. The Interior Ministry stresses that there is currently no other way to verify whether asylum seekers are homosexual. Medical professionals are always supposed to be present during the tests, and they can be conducted only with the asylum seeker’s consent. However, if an applicant refuses, this will have a negative impact on their asylum application, according to the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights.

Methods straight out of the Middle Ages? The checks in the Czech Republic are reminiscent of a bad joke: What about bisexual asylum seekers, for example, who naturally respond to heterosexual pornography but are nevertheless persecuted in their home countries because of their homosexual orientation? As in the recent case in Lithuania, the Czech Republic is not putting itself in a good light before the world’s public.