by RITA BRATOVICH

Morning broke with an uncertain future and miserable Christmas to look forward to for refugee Saudi journalists Sultan and Nassar*. But the sun will be setting on a different day altogether. After intense campaigning from the LGBTQ community, human rights activist Ivan Hinton-Teoh, and Australian journalist Peter Greste, Sultan was freed from Villawood Immigration Detention Centre and will be able to spend Christmas with boyfriend Nassar after all.

The journalists fled Saudi Arabia and arrived in Australia in October. They were detained at the airport on suspicion of seeking asylum and then placed in Villawood with their fate uncertain. However, their cause was championed by the LGBTQ community who petitioned the newly appointed Minister for Immigration, Hon Alan Tudge.

“Definitely, definitely, definitely the gay community rallied around us in a way that was so endearing and so powerful that I really feel it was the gay community that did this,” Sultan told Star Observer. “Dozens of people directly addressed the minister, that’s for sure and having Ivan Hinton-Teoh on our side was a big, big, big plus.”

Peter Greste, who himself experienced indefinite detention in a foreign country several years ago, was also instrumental in helping Sultan and Nassar. Read more via Star Observer