Two gay Saudi journalists who fled the country after one was interrogated and threatened with their relationship being outed by authorities have been detained in Australia after seeking asylum.

The men, who arrived in Australia some weeks ago, have drawn stark similarities between their treatment in Saudi and their treatment in Australia. They allege they have been threatened with violence twice by other detainees while in the detention centre, intimidated by guards, and witnessed rampant drug use among detainees.

“We ran away from being detained arbitrarily and jailed for no reason, only to arrive in Australia and find ourselves here in jail,” Sultan* told the Guardian.

“We’ve been threatened with it in Saudi but it never actually happened until we came here.”

Sultan is a journalist and former employee with the ministry of media, and has assisted numerous foreign journalists in Saudi Arabia as a field producer, as well as defending the regime to international press.

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