News update

via radicali.it: Mehdi saw a judge Monday with decision reserved to March 5. Italian activists are in contact with the Dutch ambassador in Rome to ask him to apply European Directive 2004/83/EC that requires the recognition of refugee status to persons in need of international protection. They also asked the foreign ministry to intervene urgently with the Dutch authorities.

Terry Evans has a response from his local Tory MEP, Roger Helms:

"The logic of your position is that all homosexuals from Iran, and from other strict Islamic countries, should be free to come to the UK and settle here. I am not sure that that is practical politics. There area lot of tragic situations around the world: we cannot take responsibility for all of them. Best regards."

The question - of course - wasn't 'free to come' but 'do we send them back to near-certain death'. Obviously Helms (whose use of 'homosexuals' is telling), like Smith, has found a way to live with that.

We all understand the difficult decisions etc. but we are talking about a nineteen year old who's here and will be tortured and probably killed if we deport him. The Home Office know this, Helms presumably knows this, and they still feel able to send him back. They would have had no qualms in the 1930s sending Jews back to Berlin.

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