Act Today to Support the Release of Ekundayo!

Ekundayo is a 40-year old gay man from Nigeria who has been held in immigration prison in Eloy Detention Center for eight months. In Nigeria, Ekundayo’s cousins discovered that he was gay, beat him severely, and turned him over to the police. The police tortured him for weeks, beating him in the genitals and mutilating him. A family member took pity on him and bonded him out, but when he returned home he had been disowned and all of his belongings had been sold. Ekundayo made his way to Gabon where people told him that the only way he would be safe as a gay man was to request asylum in the United States. He was smuggled aboard a ship and kept secretly in the hold for three months until the ship docked in Mexico. Ekundayo then hitchhiked and walked across Mexico to reach the United States in spite of walking with a crutch because he was crippled by polio as a child. When he reached the San Isidro port-of-entry in California, he asked for asylum. He was taken into ICE custody and transferred to Eloy Detention Center.

As Ekundayo said in one recent letter, “You know that once somebody is deprived of his freedom, the person is incomplete until he regains his liberty.” Ekundayo is desperate to be released from detention where he has been harassed because of his sexual orientation and has not been provided with any significant medical treatment for his deteriorating physical condition. Ignoring the reasons for his flight from Nigeria, an immigration judge set a $5000 bond for him last week because he has no family in the U.S. Community members have offered their homes to Ekundayo and local legal and health clinics have offered him free services once he is released, but we need your help to get him out! Please donate to the Rainbow Defense Fund for Ekundayo via the Paypal link below
https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_donations&business=49GTVBXQ9RF76&lc=US&item_name=Rainbow%20Defense%20Fund%3a%20Ekundayo&currency_code=USD&bn=PP%2dDonationsBF%3abtn_donateCC_LG%2egif%3aNonHosted
or mail checks payable to

Fondo Arcoiris / The Rainbow Fund

317 W. 23rd St.

Tucson, AZ 85713

(pay to the order of “Corazón de Tucson”, memo line: “Rainbow Defense–Ekundayo”)

THANK YOU!

 

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