Standing Tall at Basel Pride 2025: My Story, Our Fight

What an incredible honor it was to stand on the stage at Basel Pride 2025 on June 28th, organized by Baselticktbunt. It was a day filled with vibrant celebration, but also a crucial platform for profound discussions on human rights and the ongoing fight for true equality. I shared the stage with remarkable individuals: Conradin Cramer, President of the Government and Head of the Presidential Department Basel-City; Edibe Gölgeli, Member of the Basel-Stadt Grand Council; and Frank Lorenz, Pastor and head of the Elisabethen Open Church.

The introduction by the host truly touched me: “Please welcome our next speaker, Ali Raza Khan. Ali is a human rights activist from Multan, Pakistan, with a powerful focus on Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights, HIV prevention, and peace. He is the founder of PridePakistan.org and has worked with numerous organizations to champion the rights of marginalized communities. He is an award-winning activist, a writer, and a voice for countless people. He is also a gay, HIV-positive asylum seeker here in Switzerland, and he is here today to share his story. Please give a warm and respectful welcome to Ali Raza Khan.”

It was a moment of immense pride, but also, as I confessed in my speech, terrifying. The words I shared that day come from a place of deep personal experience, a journey from fear to a fierce determination to advocate for justice.

Happy Pride!

I began by acknowledging the organizers for this vital platform, emphasizing that while it was an honor, it was also terrifying. My identity, laid bare on that stage, is complex: a gay man from Pakistan, an activist, HIV positive, and living with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. And critically, I am an asylum seeker whose application has been rejected by the Swiss State Secretariat for Migration (SEM), who believe it is safe for me to return to Pakistan – a belief I know to be untrue.

My aim was to shed light on why I left my home, what I hoped for, and the shocking reality I’ve encountered as an asylum seeker.

From Shadows to the Stage: My Life in Pakistan

My story starts in Multan, Pakistan – the “city of saints,” but for queer individuals like me, a city of hidden lives and secrets. For over a decade, I dedicated myself to activism: peace-building, fighting gender-based violence, and tirelessly advocating for the sexual health and rights of the LGBTQI+ community. I founded Pride Pakistan and worked with organizations on HIV prevention, a reality that is part of my own journey. My CV may be long and filled with achievements, but it masks a starker truth: a double life. I was a public activist, but a hidden gay man. In Pakistan, openly embracing my identity was a dangerous impossibility.

The danger was not abstract. I recalled a harrowing police raid on a private gay community gathering, where we were tortured, filmed, and released with a chilling warning. A fellow activist, less fortunate, disappeared for three weeks after being picked up by an armed security agency, returning a broken man.

My own activism led to constant threats. Being gay, HIV positive, and daring to report human rights violations to the UN and other international bodies, led to anonymous calls and persistent hacking attempts. My life was filled with abuse: forced sex under threat of exposure, blackmail, and emotional and physical abuse from a partner, with no avenue for reporting to authorities due as a gay man. My family, in a misguided attempt to “fix” me, forced me into a traumatic marriage that ended quickly.

I was living with PTSD long before I knew what it was, believing constant panic and the threat of arrest or death were just “part of the job.” But I was broken. I fled Pakistan not just to save my life, but to save my soul.

The Illusion of Refuge: My Asylum Experience

I came to Switzerland seeking refuge, a word that promises shelter and protection. I believed in the promise of human rights, particularly for vulnerable LGBTQI+ individuals. What I found was a different kind of trauma within the asylum process.

My first “home” in Basel was an underground bunker – windowless, sunless, and lacking proper fire safety. Housed with dozens of other men, both straight and sometimes violent, I witnessed fights and blood. The unsanitary conditions and lack of basic human dignity were shocking. This, I explained, is the reality for single male asylum seekers, regardless of their sexual orientation. Your humanity is stripped away at the door. I saw other gay men in federal camps, fleeing persecution like me, crammed 20 to a room with no personal space.

The system’s psychological warfare is insidious. Constant, unexplained transfers from one camp to another are not just bureaucracy; they are a deliberate tool to break spirits and compel people to give up. My physical and psychological health were afterthoughts. Even with a diagnosis of complex PTSD, securing therapy appointments is an exhausting battle. Accessing life-saving HIV medication was a fight fraught with delays and fear. I’ve witnessed women bleeding and injured young boys receiving nothing more than a cleaning cloth.

Perhaps the most cruel aspect is the legal process. The legal representative provided by the SEM is a phantom, a different face each time, a stranger on the day of your life-or-death interview, then gone. And the interview itself is an abuse. My official transcript, the story of my life and trauma, was altered. Statements I made were changed, things added that I never said, with no way to prove it.

The Harsh Reality: “Are You Gay Enough? Traumatized Enough?”

My decision: Negative.

The SEM claimed Pakistan is safe for gay people, referencing an organization that was shut down years ago, whose staff fled and found protection elsewhere. They asserted that because I traveled by plane, I wasn’t in enough danger – perhaps they wanted me to be arrested at the airport, or risk drowning in the Mediterranean, for my claim to be valid. On my PTSD, they claimed it wasn’t “enough trauma,” suggesting I could get treatment in Pakistan. But the “treatment” there aims to “cure” my identity, not care for my person, mirroring my family’s attempts at religious “cures.”

Asylum here is not merely broken; it is actively hostile. It asks, “Are you gay enough? Are you traumatized enough? Have you been tortured enough?” to deserve protection. I have seen countless LGBTQI+ individuals receive negative decisions, deported back to countries where they face arrest, violence, or death. The Swiss immigration system does not consider being arrested for being gay harmful enough.

The Hope is in You

But I did not come to say there is no hope. There is. I’ve felt it from the dedicated volunteers at Queer Amnesty, from Christian Waffenschmidt and Miroslav Ostojic, who helped me understand my rights and the importance of my interview. I’ve seen this hope in the work of other charity organizations supporting refugees.

The hope, I declared, is not in the system, but in us: the volunteers and the asylum seekers themselves.

At Basel Pride, we celebrate freedom, but we must also fight for it. I urged the audience to see beyond the polished image of Switzerland. Question the official narrative. Ask your representatives why the SEM operates with such impunity, altering transcripts, ignoring evidence, destroying lives, and lying in official documents.

I implored people to volunteer. Sign up for Queer Amnesty’s mentorship program. Your empathy, time, and understanding of this country are a lifeline for queer refugees who are lost, scared, and alone. You can provide the peer support people like me desperately need.

Finally, I stressed that your Pride is political. Pride began as a riot, a protest against a system that sought to keep us in the shadows. That fight is far from over. It is happening right now, in the asylum bunkers underground, in the interview rooms at the SEM, and in the hearts of those told their trauma isn’t “enough.”

My story, I emphasized, is not unique. Countless others are here, your neighbors living in Basel asylum and refugee camps, though you may not see them.

True Pride is not just a celebration; it is a fight. It is the fight for the person in the bunker tonight afraid to sleep. It is the fight for the lesbian from Uganda who received a negative decision, the trans person from Peru who faces deportation, and the gay man from Pakistan, like me, who continues a legal battle.

There is no pride for anyone until there is freedom, dignity, and safety for everyone.

Thank you for listening, and thank you for being a part of this vital fight. You can read more about my experiences and advocacy here on my website, AliRazaKhan.com.

Watch the full video here : https://youtu.be/R_9YWznUBS4

More on Basel Ticket Bunt Website Here: https://baselticktbunt.ch/en/program/#pridewalk