A gay Afghan migrant has been placed in an asylum home where he shared a room with a former supporter of the Taliban, a group which executed hundreds of homosexuals when they ruled over the Muslim nation.
The teenager was housed in Middlesbrough, close to where the manufactured story about migrant house doors being painted red captured the media’s attention last month.
The media has not, however, responded in the same manner to this story, which only emerged when Middlesbrough Member of Parliament Andy McDonald told a parliamentary debate on the paint controversy that he had been “amazed” to learn how “different people can be put into a single bedroom quite inappropriately”.
Mr. McDonald explained: “A young man in my community who is gay and who has come to this country is having to share a bedroom with somebody who was once a member of the Taliban – an utterly ridiculous state of affairs.”
His fellow Labour MP Steven Doughty described it as a “shocking example”.
He said: “As a gay MP myself, I would find it horrendous to be placed in accommodation with somebody who potentially had persecuted me or potentially would persecute me. However, that is the reality of many people’s experience – they find themselves in unsuitable accommodation.”
Mr. McDonald told the Independent: “I have met the young man personally, through friends who offered him support and invited him into their home. He is very reluctant to go back to the other property, because he knows his roommate’s history.
“There have been many other instances where people who shouldn’t have to share rooms are being made to.
“Another man, a former Muslim, has converted to Christianity and is worried about sharing a room, because apostasy is not welcomed. Nothing has happened and we hope nothing will, but it’s that sort of thoughtlessness that characterises the way these contracts are run”, he said.