Amnesty International Saturday reported that a nonbinary Jordanian LBTQI+ activist, who has been identified as AOA, has been improperly arrested and detained in Beirut while planning to fly to Australia to seek asylum. AOA’s arrest comes after they spent several years working in LBTQI+ rights in Jordan and eventually left to flee their allegedly oppressive and influential family.

While homosexuality is not illegal in Jordan, members of the Jordanian LGBTQI+ community often experience discrimination. AOA fears that their family will force them to undergo conversion therapy and says that they had previously been forced into marriages and hospitalizations while enduring rape and sexual assault.

AOA was detained following the issuance of a since-canceled INTERPOL Red Notice for their arrest in Lebanon, which they maintain was improperly issued through their family’s influence. Such Red Notices are issued for fugitives wanted for international prosecution and are an instrument to detain individuals for extradition. Amnesty International maintains that AOA has been detained at the Jordanian Embassy in Beirut while awaiting return to Jordan, while local media has reported the government’s statement that “there is no truth to the rumor of a detention of [AOA].”

International law prohibits refoulement or the return of asylum-seekers to countries where they will experience persecution. The return of AOA to Jordan to endure conversion therapy would violate the non-refoulment principle and violate their right to seek asylum.