Búsqueda personalizada

Gay Iranian One Step Closer To Deportation

A gay Iranian is closer to possible execution after his bid for asylum in the Netherlands failed.

Mehdi Kazemi's faces deportation after the Netherlands' highest court rejected his last-ditch attempt avoid going back to Iran, where he fears authorities will execute him for being gay.

More than 60 MEPs have now signed a petition asking Gordon Brown to reverse the decision on Mehdi Kazemi.

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

His father then told him that before his execution in April 2006 his boyfriend was questioned in Tehran about his sexual relationships and named him under interrogation.

He case for asylum in the UK was refused last year, and so he fled to the Netherlands.

Southwark and Bermondsey Lib Dem MP Simon Hughes has pledged to support the 19 year old if he is returned to the UK.

Mr Hughes said the Home Office had assured him that the case would be reconsidered.

Gay rights campaigner Rene van Soeren said Kazemi's Dutch lawyer was considering an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights.

Boris van der Ham, a lawmaker who has taken up Kazemi's cause, has tabled questions in the Dutch Parliament asking the junior minister for immigration, Nebahat Albayrak, to lobby British authorities on Kazemi's behalf.

Albayrak should either urge Britain not to send Kazemi back to Iran or offer him asylum in the Netherlands, Van der Ham told the Daily Mail.

"There should be some political leadership," he said. "I hope in Britain they will do it and otherwise we should take the boy."

Kazemi is not expected to be deported before Albayrak has answered Van der Ham's questions.

While Dutch legislation allows asylum for gay Iranians, because of the corporal punishment they face for "homosexual acts" in Iran, the authorities they have said that as per the European Union's 2003 Dublin Regulation, the member state where an asylum seeker first enters the EU is responsible for processing that person's claim.

It is believed that Kazemi has been on suicide watch in a centre for rejected asylum seekers in the Rotterdam.

Britain's Border and Immigration Agency has issued the following statement about Mehdi's case.

"We examine with great care each individual case before removal and we will not remove anyone who we believe is at risk on their return."

According to human rights campaigners, more than 4,000 gay men and lesbians have been executed since the Ayatollahs seized power in 1979.

Ben Summerskill, chief executive of Stonewall, said: "We remain deeply disturbed about this case.

"There is incontrovertible evidence that lesbian and gay people face danger in Iran and we will be raising this once again with the Home Secretary."

GaydarNation