ICE deported a gay Brazilian man to Equatorial Guinea. Now he’s gone silent.

A gay Brazilian man, Pietro Graza, was deported by ICE from Arizona to Equatorial Guinea despite seeking U.S. protection from torture, and has since gone silent after armed police confiscated his phone. He and roughly a dozen others, including Ahmed Soliman, a gay man from Egypt, were sent to the Hotel Bamy in Malabo under a growing U.S. practice of third-country deportations.

Attorneys say the men face de facto criminalization and potential violence given Equatorial Guinea's treatment of LGBTQ people, and Guinean officials reportedly told Graza they would facilitate his transfer to Brazil, the country he fled. Soliman was arrested the day after phones were seized; his attorney doesn't know his current location or the charges against him.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.