Iran lesbian's appeal ordeal

From Sheffield Star

An Iranian lesbian who faces imprisonment and even death if she returns to her home country because of her sexuality is still in limbo waiting for a fresh appeal for asylum to be heard.

Pegah Emambakhsh first sought asylum in Sheffield in 2005, after escaping from Iran where it is claimed her lover had been arrested, tortured and sentenced to death by stoning.

But last year her application and subsequent appeal were refused, and in August she was taken to Yarlswood detention centre ready for deportation.

Campaigners in Sheffield stepped in and she was saved from being sent back, bailed, and allowed to return to the city.

In the last two weeks Pegah has received a letter from the Home Office confirming it will look at her case again, but nearly nine months on does not know when a decision will be made.

Campaigner Margaret Spooner said: "This is one of the hardest parts – the fact it goes on and on and she has no idea when something will happen."

Clinton, Obama weigh in on plight of Iranian gays

From Washington Blade

Britain’s deportation of gay Iranians has emerged as a minor presidential campaign issue after a gay rights group asked each candidate to take a stand.

Equality Forum this month called on Sens. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.), John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Barack Obama (D-Ill.) to encourage British Prime Minister Gordon Brown to halt the deportation of gay Iranian refugees living in Britain.

Malcolm Lazin, the organization’s executive director, said such deportations are tantamount to death sentences for the gay Iranians who fled their homeland.

“We wanted to join the LGBT community in Europe by lending our voice and hopefully the voices of our presidential candidates to what we feel is a significant international human rights concern,” he said.

Obama’s campaign, the first to respond, said in a statement Monday that the senator “believes that the United States and countries around the world have both a legal and a moral obligation to protect victims of persecution based on sexual orientation or gender identity.

“Under an Obama administration, the United States will lead by setting a strong example, which includes making clear that asylum for persecuted people is a bedrock principle of American and international law,” says the statement. “Moreover, Obama will exert diplomatic pressure and employ other foreign policy tools to encourage other nations to address human rights abuses and atrocities committed against LGBT men and women.”

Ben LaBolt, an Obama campaign spokesperson, would not say whether Obama planned to write to Brown on the issue, as Equality Forum requested.

Lee Feinstein, the Clinton campaign’s national security director, said Tuesday that it was tracking the case of Mehdi Kazemi, a 19-year-old gay man living in Britain who faces execution if returned to Iran.

“The campaign has discussed this issue with the U.K. government,” he said. “We were encouraged to learn that the deportation order for Mr. Kazemi has been deferred and is now under review.”

Feinstein said the campaign would “continue to follow this issue closely.”

According to Equality Forum, at least 12 gay Iranians living in Britain risk deportation, including Pegah Emambakhsh, a 40-year-old lesbian whose case last year gained international attention.
Emambakhsh, who fled to Britain from Iran in 2005 after her partner was arrested and tortured, won a delay of her deportation in August after allies circulated her name, case information and photograph online.

Lesley Boulton, an activist leading efforts to secure asylum for Emambakhsh, said the case is still pending and welcomed Equality Forum’s efforts.

“Maybe I’m being pessimistic, but there is a sinister silence in the U.K. from our most senior politicians on LGBT asylum issues,” she said.

Also silent was McCain’s campaign, which did not respond to the Blade’s inquiries.

Lazin said the responsiveness of each campaign to Equality Forum’s request is an indicator of how each candidate will handle gay issues as president.

“Particularly on the Democratic side, most people believe both of the candidates are relatively similar in terms of their stands on our issues,” he said. “I think this is a good way to demonstrate a difference.”

Lazin said each response — or lack thereof — is revealing.

“We feel that if they respond to our request,” he said, “that will indicate how they will handle similar types of human rights concerns in their administration.”

Equality Forum’s request comes as Brown is developing closer ties to all three presidential candidates. The prime minister met with each candidate last week when he was in Washington.

“Clearly, he’s interested in building a relationship with each of them,” Lazin said, “and therefore this would be a great time for them to be making their position clear.”

Lazin said it’s important for the presidential candidates, along with gay activists and voters, to take a stand on the deportations.

“I think what’s important is our civil rights movement is an international civil rights movement,” he said. “And it’s important as an international civil rights movement to proactively take responsibility for our brothers and sisters around the world.”

Amir's story: 'I hate my life'

As a gay man in Iran Amir, 27, was cast out of society for perceived wrongs against his religion. He was arrested by Hizbollah, thrown into jail and sentenced to 90 lashes. But when he narrowly escaped execution he fled from Tehran to seek refuge in a foreign country. He has been in London for four years but refuses to apply for asylum out of fear of being sent back to Iran

When I was 13 I had a boyfriend in school. My religious teacher found out about us. It was obvious, we were always together laughing all the time, and we shared everything. They gave us a caution to separate, and said that if we didn’t we’d get in trouble with the law that opposes gay people. We didn’t listen and we carried on the relationship. It lasted two or three years: we were in love.

Because I didn’t listen to the cautions they took me into one of the classrooms and slashed me, and pulled my finger joints until they dislocated them. They talked to my boyfriend’s parents and said that what we were doing was wrong and against our religion. My boyfriend’s parents mentioned it to my parents. I saw in their faces that their attitude towards me had changed. Their behaviour changed – they put my bed in the basement. I didn’t belong to that family anymore.

My boyfriend and I were chucked out of school, and my boyfriend’s parents moved with him out of Tehran – they knew they’d have big problems if they stayed. I never saw him again. After a few years he phoned me. It was really hard to hear from him because we’d had such good times together. He said that he was always thinking about me. He said that he was still gay and we were in this together. "You can’t change yourself," he said.

After I was chucked out of school I started to have a different life. I met up with an older guy regularly, but he had a drinking problem. I started to drink too, and take tablets. I was lost and didn’t have anything else. I was treated badly by my family. My brothers and sisters hated to see their brother was gay – they looked at me with a different mentality. We were a very religious family.

One night I was on my way back to my basement after I’d been out with this guy and I was stopped by Hizbollah. (They patrol the streets looking for people who are taking drugs.) They could smell alcohol on me so they took me away and detained me for three days.

I went to court, and the judges were Mullahs. They sat there in their turbans and asked me if I knew it was against our religion to drink. I said I did. They checked my records from school and saw I’d been with a boy for a long time. They told me they were going to give me 90 lashes. I was crying and calling for my mum the whole time. I couldn’t sleep on my back for months.

I started working with my father because I’d been chucked out of school – he’s in contracting construction. I knew he didn’t want me any more but my mother told him to take me into the company. I worked with him for almost two years.

During that time I was with a guy in secret. I knew if I got caught by Hizbollah or the police again I’d be in real trouble. Then one night, on my way back home, it happened. I was caught and they put me in a cell. I knew the prosecution was final – that this was the ultimate treatment. I thought they were going to execute me – I was crying in that cell.

I called my parents, and after two days I saw my father in the corridor. "We can go home," he said. I asked how, and he said that we had a powerful neighbour and he’d paid him a lot of money. When I got home my mum said that I had to get ready to leave. I started to call my friends in London. My mother gave me money for a dodgy passport and transport.

European rules state that you have to make your asylum claim in the first country you come to. For me that was Greece. I arrived with four other Iranians who I met in Turkey – I never asked them about their problems. They arrested us and kept us in a detention centre for three months.

When they started deporting my friends after two and a half months I was scared. I didn’t have a passport, and I knew that if I was sent back to Iran I’d be put in the military. Eventually I got the detention centre to release me. I was allowed to live in Greece for a few months on a red paper, but I had no friends. I had a friend in London; he told me to come to England where it was safer, where I could be openly gay.

So I travelled by lorry and then by a big ship to Italy; from there I went to France and then London. At one point on the journey I heard I might be sent back to Greece. I was so scared about that. I’m ashamed to say it, but I was raped in the detention centre there. He was an asylum seeker too, straight, and much bigger than me. But when I told the guards they told me to keep quiet. It was a very bad experience.

I’ve been here in the UK for nearly four years and I’ve not even registered with the Home Office. No one knows I’m here. I’m just an illegal immigrant. I don’t apply for asylum because I’m scared of being sent back to Greece or Iran.

When I first arrived my friend let me stay with him for a while, but then he said that his flatmate wouldn’t like it if I stayed longer. After that I slept at the construction site where I was working.

After two or three months I made a bit of money and things got better. I met a boy here, he’s English and we’ve been together for three years. I met him at a party and we fell in love and tried to have something of a normal life – but things are so difficult. I have no education, job, doctor or dentist. When you don’t have anything you don’t have a plan for life. You become isolated.

I’m happy with my partner but I’m fed up with life. I hate myself first of all. I'm slowly despairing of the lifestyle I am forced to live due to my illegal status in England. And I hate my country. I don’t see any future – I don’t have one. I can’t even think about it. Since I was 15 I’ve been imprisoned or tortured, or running.

I want to have a normal life. I would like to do some voluntary work and help people who are in the same situation as me. I just want that feeling of being alive back. I don’t know how life feels and I want to find out. This is just the short story – it is cut really short. But I don’t know how to say the rest.

Source: Guardian Weekly

Gay refugees face prejudice across the world

From PinkNews

Biplob Hossain, a gay refugee from Bangladesh who is seeking asylum in Australia, and Joaquin Ramirez, facing deportation to El Salvador, have highlighted the plight of gay men who flee their countries to escape persecution.

Mr Hossain, 25, moved to Australia on a student visa when he was 19.

He applied for asylum on the basis that he would suffer persecution in Bangladesh. He was placed in a detention centre for 29 months.

After three rejections by the Refugee Review Tribunal and a failed High Court bid, Mr Hossain is hoping for a personal intervention from the Minister for Immigration, Senator Chris Evans.

He was released from Villawood Detention Centre in October 2006, but is not allowed to work or collect social security benefits.

Sandi Logan, a spokesperson for the Immigration Department, told Australian SX News:

"A person's sexual orientation does not of itself enable that person to be granted asylum.

"We provide protection for asylum seekers under the UN definition of a refugee, under the Convention 67 protocol, which doesn't include their sexual orientation or their fears of persecution associated with that orientation."

Bangladeshi law states that gay sex acts are illegal and will be punished with deportation, fines and life imprisonment.

The national law itself is rarely directly enforced however there have been numerous reports of incidents of vigilantism.

People suspected of homosexuality have also been sentenced to death by a fatwa.

Meanwhile, in Canada, a gay man is facing deportation to his native El Salvador where he claims that three police officers who raped him are now out to kill him.

Joaquin Ramirez, a 39-year-old HIV-positive man said the accused perpetrators have visited his family and threatened to kill him because he infected them with the HIV virus.

Canada's Immigration and Refugee Board doubted Mr Ramirez's claims, asking why he did not seek legal support in his own country when the incident occurred.

Mr Ramirez told Canadian newspaper The Star:

"How could I go to the same people and ask them to protect me when it's those people who did this to me?"

Mr Ramirez worked as a volunteer outreach worker with the Young Men's Christian Association and the Salvadoran Network of People Living with HIV.

He said he was picked on by three drunken officers at a restaurant in 2006 and driven to a plantation field where he was allegedly beaten and raped.

Five months later he claims a stranger called his sister and threatened to kill him for infecting them with the virus.

The refugee didn't believe Ramirez left El Salvador because of the alleged assault as he had already planned to leave in November 2005.

The two stories come just weeks after the much published case of Iranian asylum seeker Mehdi Kazemi.

Mr Kazemi came to London in 2005 to study English but later discovered that his boyfriend had been arrested by the Iranian police, charged with sodomy and hanged.

The UK rejected his first asylum plea, but Home Secretary Jacqui Smith has now granted him a temporary reprieve from deportation while she reconsiders his case.

Last week the International Lesbian and Gay Association released the latest version of their map of LGBT rights across the world.

In 76 countries people face jail for having gay sex.

Homosexual acts officially carry the death penalty in several nations including Saudi Arabia, Iran, Mauritania, northern Nigeria, Sudan, and Yemen.

In many Muslim countries, such as Bahrain, Qatar, Algeria and the Maldives, homosexuality is punished with jail time, fines, or corporal punishment.

In Egypt, openly gay men have been prosecuted under general public morality laws.

Some liberal Muslims, such as the members of the Al-Fatiha Foundation, accept and consider homosexuality as natural pointing out that the Qu'ran speaks out against homosexual lust, and is silent on homosexual love.

However, this position remains highly controversial even amongst liberal movements within Islam, and is considered beyond the pale by mainstream Islam.

The UK is a signatory to the United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, which means that it has a responsibility under international law not to return refugees to a place where they would face persecution.

Iranian: 'I won't apply for asylum, I'm scared they'll send me back'

 

Source: Guardian Weekly

By Rowenna Davis

As a gay man in Iran Amir, 27, was cast out of society for perceived wrongs against his religion. He was arrested by Hizbollah, thrown into jail and sentenced to 90 lashes. But when he narrowly escaped execution he fled from Tehran to seek refuge in a foreign country. He has been in London for four years but refuses to apply for asylum out of fear of being sent back to Iran

When I was 13 I had a boyfriend in school. My religious teacher found out about us. It was obvious, we were always together laughing all the time, and we shared everything. They gave us a caution to separate, and said that if we didn’t we’d get in trouble with the law that opposes gay people. We didn’t listen and we carried on the relationship. It lasted two or three years: we were in love.

Because I didn’t listen to the cautions they took me into one of the classrooms and slashed me, and pulled my finger joints until they dislocated them. They talked to my boyfriend’s parents and said that what we were doing was wrong and against our religion. My boyfriend’s parents mentioned it to my parents. I saw in their faces that their attitude towards me had changed. Their behaviour changed – they put my bed in the basement. I didn’t belong to that family anymore.

My boyfriend and I were chucked out of school, and my boyfriend’s parents moved with him out of Tehran – they knew they’d have big problems if they stayed. I never saw him again. After a few years he phoned me. It was really hard to hear from him because we’d had such good times together. He said that he was always thinking about me. He said that he was still gay and we were in this together. "You can’t change yourself," he said.

After I was chucked out of school I started to have a different life. I met up with an older guy regularly, but he had a drinking problem. I started to drink too, and take tablets. I was lost and didn’t have anything else. I was treated badly by my family. My brothers and sisters hated to see their brother was gay – they looked at me with a different mentality. We were a very religious family.

One night I was on my way back to my basement after I’d been out with this guy and I was stopped by Hizbollah. (They patrol the streets looking for people who are taking drugs.) They could smell alcohol on me so they took me away and detained me for three days.

I went to court, and the judges were Mullahs. They sat there in their turbans and asked me if I knew it was against our religion to drink. I said I did. They checked my records from school and saw I’d been with a boy for a long time. They told me they were going to give me 90 lashes. I was crying and calling for my mum the whole time. I couldn’t sleep on my back for months.

I started working with my father because I’d been chucked out of school – he’s in contracting construction. I knew he didn’t want me any more but my mother told him to take me into the company. I worked with him for almost two years.

During that time I was with a guy in secret. I knew if I got caught by Hizbollah or the police again I’d be in real trouble. Then one night, on my way back home, it happened. I was caught and they put me in a cell. I knew the prosecution was final – that this was the ultimate treatment. I thought they were going to execute me – I was crying in that cell.

I called my parents, and after two days I saw my father in the corridor. "We can go home," he said. I asked how, and he said that we had a powerful neighbour and he’d paid him a lot of money. When I got home my mum said that I had to get ready to leave. I started to call my friends in London. My mother gave me money for a dodgy passport and transport.

European rules state that you have to make your asylum claim in the first country you come to. For me that was Greece. I arrived with four other Iranians who I met in Turkey – I never asked them about their problems. They arrested us and kept us in a detention centre for three months.

When they started deporting my friends after two and a half months I was scared. I didn’t have a passport, and I knew that if I was sent back to Iran I’d be put in the military. Eventually I got the detention centre to release me. I was allowed to live in Greece for a few months on a red paper, but I had no friends. I had a friend in London; he told me to come to England where it was safer, where I could be openly gay.

So I travelled by lorry and then by a big ship to Italy; from there I went to France and then London. At one point on the journey I heard I might be sent back to Greece. I was so scared about that. I’m ashamed to say it, but I was raped in the detention centre there. He was an asylum seeker too, straight, and much bigger than me. But when I told the guards they told me to keep quiet. It was a very bad experience.

I’ve been here in the UK for nearly four years and I’ve not even registered with the Home Office. No one knows I’m here. I’m just an illegal immigrant. I don’t apply for asylum because I’m scared of being sent back to Greece or Iran.

When I first arrived my friend let me stay with him for a while, but then he said that his flatmate wouldn’t like it if I stayed longer. After that I slept at the construction site where I was working.

After two or three months I made a bit of money and things got better. I met a boy here, he’s English and we’ve been together for three years. I met him at a party and we fell in love and tried to have something of a normal life – but things are so difficult. I have no education, job, doctor or dentist. When you don’t have anything you don’t have a plan for life. You become isolated.

I’m happy with my partner but I’m fed up with life. I hate myself first of all. I'm slowly despairing of the lifestyle I am forced to live due to my illegal status in England. And I hate my country. I don’t see any future – I don’t have one. I can’t even think about it. Since I was 15 I’ve been imprisoned or tortured, or running.

I want to have a normal life. I would like to do some voluntary work and help people who are in the same situation as me. I just want that feeling of being alive back. I don’t know how life feels and I want to find out. This is just the short story – it is cut really short. But I don’t know how to say the rest.

More Labour support for Mehdi

A UK gay Labour MEP has issued a press release saying that he's organising a meeting with the Home Office about Mehdi for Friday 11th. Michael Cashman joins the internal Labour pressure from an Early Day Motion and lobbying, as well as the work of fellow MEPs who pushed a resolution of support through the European Parliament.

“I trust that the UK government will do the right thing in relation to Mehdi,” he says.

A Jihad for Love

A documentary on gay, lesbian, and transgender Muslims across the Muslim and Western worlds has received its London premiere at the Lesbian and Gay Film Festival.

Plot summary by the Director, Parvez Sharma:

In a time, when Islam is under tremendous attack-from within and without, 'A Jihadfor Love' is a daring documentary, filmed in twelve countries and nine languages.

Muslim gay filmmaker Parvez Sharma has gone where the silence is strongest, filming with great risk in nations where government permission to make this film was not an option.

A Jihad for Love is the first-ever feature-length documentary to explore the complex global intersections of Islam and homosexuality. With unprecedented access and depth, Sharma brings to light the hidden lives of gay and lesbian Muslims from countries like Iran, Pakistan, Egypt, Turkey, France, India, and South Africa.

The majority of gay and lesbian Muslims must travel a lonely and often dangerous road. In many nations with a Muslim majority, laws based on Quranic interpretations are enforced by authorities to monitor, entrap, imprison, torture and even execute homosexuals. Even for those who migrate to Europe or North America and adopt Western personae of "gay," the relative freedoms of new homelands are mitigated by persistent racial profiling and intensified state surveillance after the terrorist attacks in New York, London and Madrid.

As a result, many gay and lesbian Muslims end up renouncing their religion. But the real-life characters of A Jihad for Love aren't willing to abandon a faith they cherish despite its flaws. Instead, they struggle to reconcile their ardent belief with the innate reality of their being.

The international chorus of gay and lesbian Muslims brought together by A Jihad for Love doesn't seek to vilify or reject Islam, but rather negotiate a new relationship to it. In doing so, the film's extraordinary characters point the way for all Muslims to move beyond the hostile, war-torn present, toward a more hopeful future.

As one can imagine, it was a difficult decision for the subjects to participate in the film due to the violence they could face. However, those who have come forward to tell their stories feel this film is too important for 1.4 billion Muslims and non-Muslims around the world for them to say no. They are willing to take the risk in their quest to lay equal claim to their profoundly held faith.

"A Jihad for Love' is produced by Sandi DuBowski (Director of Trembling Before G-d) in association with ZZDF-Arte Channel 4, and LOGO.

• Director's blog, where he writes
  
  London Kills Me ; )
  With its warmth and affection for this work...
  800 people in two packed, sold out screenings. Many Muslims, all engaged and the impact of the film here at the BFI has clearly been huge. Now onwards to Copehagen, Stockholm, Istanbul, San Sebastian and Turin.
  
  
• A Jihad for Love Website

Support for Mehdi "forwarded to the case file"

Supporters who have contacted the Home Office report that they are receiving the following email in response.

Thank you, for your email. Your support for Mr Mehdi KAZEMI has been noted and your email will be forwarded to the case file for future reference

Public Correspondence Team

This is the email which one supporter sent to Jacqui Smith and to their MP and to the home office.

Dear Ms Smith,

When Mehdi Kazemi is returned to the UK from the Netherlands, please re-evaluate his case. He is a young, gay Iranian. He knows already that his boyfriend has been put to death for the "crime" of being gay. His boyfriend gave his name to the authorities. I am beyond aghast that we might deport this young man to Iran. The magistrate [here, she is referring to Home Office Minister, Lord West] said that gays are not "systematically" persecuted. Well forgive me for being facile but unsystematically executing people strikes me as sufficiently grim.

Yours in hope,

Mehdi's 'courage has been an inspiration' to New Jerseyans

From an Editorial feature in US Gay Magazine 'Out in New Jersey', which has been covering Mehdi's progress for some time. The paper previously wrote to Jacqui Smith saying they would consider initiating a boycott of tourism to the UK if Mehdi was deported.

We are blessed with living in one of the most gay-friendly places in the world. A few small, European states are even better but Jersey is pretty damn good! It is so comfortable for us that it's easy to forget what life for the LGBT is like on much of the rest of this planet.

England has become a quite gay-friendly country FOR THE ENGLISH. However, for queer refugees ... trying to get asylum, it is a different matter entirely. The process is very difficult, expensive and entirely stacked against the applicant in every way an ancient and hide-bound bureaucracy can devise.

...

Omar Kuddus, of Gay Asylum UK and Peter Tatchell have devoted their lives to an all-consuming passion for this cause. There is simply no way to convey in print the personal sacrifice and suffering these men have undergone in their endless efforts to save lives. They are not always successful. If you go to You Tube and search "Iran Today," you will find videos of what happens to the lost cases. For Peter and Omar, the losses are personal and they must find the strength to carry on in the joy of the cases they do win.

...

Mehdi, whose courage through this has been an inspiration, has openly declared himself to the world. Omar, with the help of a few, incredibly dedicated supporters and with almost no resources, has mobilized a storm of world-wide media attention and a petition with thousands of signatures that has ... forced the Home Office to issue a stay of deportation and to announce the case would be re-opened.

So far, so good, but the fat lady has not yet sung. It would be a really, really decent and kind and useful thing if you who are reading this would help. We can't save the world - not today anyway - but we CAN save at least this one courageous boy and in so doing, set a precedent for others who will surely follow. We can if you will help - even a little. Please.

Mehdi back in UK

Mehdi was released today from the Rotterdam detention centre and returned to the UK.

He was interviewed at Heathrow airport by immigration officials and then "released". He is now staying with his uncle.

Hillary Clinton supports gay Iranians

In an interview with the leading US gay newspaper, Philadelphia Gay News, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has called for strong action by the US government in support of gays and lesbians overseas.

PGN: What changes would you make toward governments that execute gay people, such as Iran, Egypt and Iraq and numerous other countries in the Middle East and Africa? Will you offer political asylum?
HC: I would be very strongly outspoken about this and it would be part of American foreign policy. There are a number of gross human-rights abuses that countries engage in with whom we have relations and we have to be really vigilant and outspoken in our total repudiation of those kinds of actions and do everything we can, including using our leverage on matters such as aid, to change the behavior so we can try to prevent such atrocities from happening.

Major gay organisation requests Presidential Candidates lobby UK for Gay Iranians

www.equalityforum.com

For Immediate Release – April 3, 2008

Equality Forum Calls on Presidential Candidates

Requests Letter to UK to Revoke Deportation for Gay Iranians

Equality Forum, a US headquartered national and international GLBT civil rights organization, called on Presidential candidates Clinton, McCain and Obama to send letters to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown to revoke the deportation orders for the return of gays and lesbians in the UK to Iran.

The UK issued a deportation order for 19-year-old Iranian Mehdi Kazemi to his homeland where he faces likely execution for being gay. The UK Home Office ordered him to be deported last year after his student visa expired. Kazemi lost his deportation appeal. Kazemi arrived in Britain in 2005 on a student visa. Kazemi’s boyfriend, Parham, who was the same age, was arrested, tortured, and executed by the Islamic Republic of Iran. Kazemi fears arrest, torture and execution if he is returned to Iran.

After losing his appeal of the deportation, Kazemi fled the UK and is currently in the Netherlands, where he was detained as an illegal immigrant. A Dutch court has ordered Kazemi returned to the UK. In March 2008, the European Parliament issued a resolution citing the expulsion of persons to a country where they would risk persecution, torture, and death, as a violation of European and international human rights obligations.

There are no fewer than 12 gay and lesbian Iranians living in the UK who are at risk of deportation including a 40-year-old lesbian, Pegah Emambakhsh. Emambakhsh became a UK refugee after her partner in Iran was arrested, tortured, and sentenced to death by stoning. Like Kazemi, Ms. Emambakhsh lost her UK deportation appeal.

“Equality Forum calls on Senators Clinton, McCain and Obama to send letters to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown opposing the deportation of Kazemi and other gay and lesbian Iranians in the UK to Iran.” stated Malcolm Lazin, Executive Director of Equality Forum. “The Kazemi deportation is an opportunity for the presidential candidates to affirm their administration’s commitment to a policy opposing human rights deportations.”

Equality Forum presents the largest annual national and international GLBT civil rights forum. Equality Forum 2008 will be held April 28 to May 4 in Philadelphia. The international focus of Equality Forum 2008 is Gays and Lesbians in the Muslim World.
For details visit www.equalityforum.com/2008.

Equality Forum is a national and international GLBT civil rights organization with an educational focus. Equality Forum undertakes high impact initiatives, produces documentary films, coordinates national and international GLBT History Month and presents the largest annual national and international GLBT civil rights forum.

Mehdi Kazemi: On his way back : Dutch "We have confidence in a good outcome"

Conservative State Secretary of Justice, Nebahat Albayrak

In an emergency debate in the Dutch Parliament Lower House this afternoon the conservative State Secretary of Justice, Nebahat Albayrak, confirmed that the gay Iranian, Mehdi Kazemi, will be returned to the UK.

The debate was the initiative of the liberal D66 party. They found enough support in parliament on Tuesday from the GroenLinks (Green), ChristenUnie (centrist), PVV (conservative), SP (left) and PvdA (social democrats, sister party of the British Labour Party) opposition parties to secure today's debate. The PvdA agreed to open the debate.

The Dutch have a policy to not return gay refugees to Iran.

Figures quoted in the parliament by Boris van der Ham, the D66 (liberal) MP, who has led the defence of Kazemi amongst MPs, show that only 38-40 gay people have been granted asylum under this policy since 2006, when an attempt was made to repeal it.

Albayrak said:

"I defend those policies with conviction."

Dutch opposition parties were concerned that the British were not offering any guarantees of asylum for Mehdi and so that policy would therefore be breached "through the back door".

"There is no guarantee”, said SP MP Jan de Wit. "This is indispensable for my group."

"Gays are at risk to suffer from the terrible and barbaric regime in Iran", argued PVV MP Fritsma Sietse.

"Iranian gays can count on 110 lashes of the whip, sometimes to death, " said Boris van der Ham.

Dutch opposition MP, Boris van der Ham

Van der Ham presented new information to the parliament about the increased persecution of homosexuals in Iran which was published last week by Human Rights Watch (HRW).

He requested that Albayrak bring the new HRW information to the attention of her European counterparts - including Jacqui Smith - as well as the Iranian ambassador to the Netherlands and he wants to know what action the Dutch ambassador to Iran is taking.

The opposition had argued that Albayrak should depart from a European agreement that Kazemi must apply for asylum in the first country he arrives in and instead receive asylum in the Netherlands. Albayrak said that agreeing to this would undermine work for a common European asylum policy.

"Dan snijden we onszelf in de vingers", said Albayrak. "Then we cut ourselves in the fingers."

As well, a request for guarantees could also be interpreted as a sign of mistrust.

"I have no indication that England does not respect international treaties."

Albayrak said:

"I am confident that England, even in this case, will comply with the treaty obligations. I have talked to the British Secretary of State [Home Secretary Jacqui Smith,] and she told me that this person is being reconsidered, and that they are taking into account the new facts, such as the fact of the publicity in Iran, now everybody knows that this man is homosexual. This case has my personal attention and I will continue to follow the procedure. "

However the opposition expressed strong skepticism in relying on British asylum procedures.

Albayrak said that granting asylum could bring more gay asylum seekers to the Netherlands. Henk Kamp representing the party of controversial MP Geert Wilders, VVD, and others also suggested that approving asylum would lead to a flood of gay asylum seekers.

Activists report that several members of the government expressed their support for granting asylum for Mehdi in private but the political block system of voting, analogous to 'whipping' in the UK parliament, meant that the vote following the debate could not be won.

However there was majority support for Albayrak to keep them informed of the progress of Kazemi through the British asylum system and for the Netherlands to call for a European policy of not returning gays and Christians to Iran.

Dutch activists supporting Kazemi say that the requirement is that 48 hours expire before he is returned to the UK, however van der Ham says he may be returned as early as Friday 4th.

Prior to the debate the Dutch gay group COC Netherlands and the action group 'Help Seyed Mehdi Kazemi' had presented in the square outside the Lower House building a 800 signature petition, gathered during the past fortnight, to van der Ham to pass on to Albayrak.

COC reports that, failing a positive outcome from the British asylum process, a lawyer has been found to begin proceedings at the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg.

Mehdi may be returned to the UK on Monday

News from the Netherlands that Mehdi may be returned to the UK on Monday.

He has said to visitors and his Dutch lawyer that he would rather remain in Holland - and for very obvious reasons.

Despite Jacqui Smith's forced statement, he does not trust the British Government and is very scared. Here, there is precedent with the case of the Iranian lesbian Pegah Emambakhsh. A major campaign last year involving Romano Prodi and offers of refuge by two Italian cities have not stopped the Home Office making continuing efforts to deport her.

This all just underlines that Mehdi is not safe yet and won't be until the final end game is played out and he actually has asylum. Please continue to sign the international petition and the petition to Gordon Brown and write your support. > More

Dutch opposition MP, Boris van der Ham

What has held up deportation to the UK from the detention centre outside Rotterdam where he is have been the actions of Dutch opposition MP, Boris van der Ham (pictured).

Although the Minister has decided to send him back, van der Ham has forced a parliamentary debate over the lack of British government assurances. This was due to happen tomorrow, Wednesday 2nd, but now appears likely to be on Friday because of the commotion over the Fitna film about Islamism.

Once that is rejected - which is being assumed will happen as the government will have a majority - they have to wait a couple of days to actually do the deed.

Says van der Ham:

The Netherlands has for a few years had a policy that gays (and Christians) are not returning to Iran because of the great dangers.

If he is rejected again by Britain, the Netherlands will be, in my eyes, complicit in a high risk for this boy.

VIDEO: Dutch TV report