A group of nongovernmental organizations write in support of the application of Adel Abdul Hakim for a residence permit on humanitarian grounds in Sweden. The organizations respectfully request that the Swedish Migration Board evaluate the totality of the circumstances surrounding Mr. Hakim’s claim for resettlement and consider that the rights of recognized refugees, the right to family reunification, and the prohibition against torture so clearly implicated in his case strongly favor a positive decision on his application.

On behalf of Human Rights Watch, I write to protest Sweden’s decision, announced on September 29, to resume deportations of rejected lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT) asylum-seekers to Iran. The decision reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of the human rights conditions in Iran; the stated rationale for it reflects an equally basic incomprehension of the essential need of all people—whatever their sexualities—to lead lives in honesty, free from fear.

Human Rights Watch commends the collective call by the European Union to close the Guantanamo Bay detention center that was made at the E.U.-U.S. summit last month.

Human Rights Watch is writing as a matter of urgent concern regarding the case of Hanan Attia. Human Rights Watch is deeply concerned that Ms. Attia and her children were not afforded access to a full and fair asylum determination procedure when they first applied for asylum in Sweden, and that the national security concerns surrounding the case of Ms. Attia’s husband, Ahmed Hussein Mustafa Kamil Agiza, have unduly prejudiced any independent claims that Ms. Attia and her family might have to remain in Sweden.

Human Rights Watch writes to the foreign and justice ministers of a number of African states and those of states that played a leading role in creating the Sierra Leone Special Court, stressing the importance of cooperation with the court. In particular, it is crucial that any country to which someone indicted by the Special Court has fled return that indictee to Sierra Leone. The perpetrators of truly horrific crimes should not be permitted to escape justice by fleeing from the state where the crime occurred.