In September 2003, Israfil Shiri, a gay Iranian asylum seeker, died six days after pouring petrol over his body and setting himself alight in the offices of a refugee charity in Manchester. He had fled Iran after the authorities obtained documented evidence of his sexuality. The Observer, 21 August 2005
A gay asylum-seeker who shot himself between the eyes had ‘an obvious motive’ to commit suicide, the East Sussex coroner has said. Hussein Nasseri, 26, killed himself days after hearing his second appeal against a Home Office decision to refuse him asylum had failed and that he was to be deported. He said he would be executed if he returned to Iran because he was gay. BBC, 19 April 2005