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1. Mehdi Kazemi came to this country to study. While he was here, his boyfriend in Iran was arrested and interrogated before being hanged; under interrogation he named Mehdi as someone with whom he had had a sexual relationship.

   Therefore if Mehdi is returned by this govenment to Iran he is at grave risk of imprisonment, torture and ultimately of exection by hanging. In his changed circumstances, even the current Home Office guidelines which claim Iranian gays and lesbians not to be at risk in Iran if they are ‘discreet’ – in itself a dishonest and shameful formulation – do not apply. If he is deported, and the fate descibed above befalls him, the sole responsibility for his liberty and life rest at the hands of the British government. This would be a terrible inditement of the loss of any sense of morality in an avowedly progressive and humane administration.

   Comment by Gavin Maughfling — 7 Mar 2008 on 2:33 pm | Link

2. Sunday, March 9th, 2008

   GAY IRANIAN REFUGEE, EVERYONE GROUP: “UNITED KINGDOM IS A DANGER FOR ALL REFUGEES”

   REPORT WILL BE PRESENTED IN EUROPE

   THE UK HOME OFFICE: “GAY PEOPLE CAN RETURN TO IRAN, IF THEY ARE ‘DISCREET'”

   In an article published on Friday March 7th 2008, in the The Independent, Simon Hughes, leader of the Liberal Democrats and the party’s Shadow Leader in the House of Commons, stated: “The Home Office claims that a gay person can return to Iran and avoid persecution by being “discreet”. All advice suggests that in Iran, to be discreet means that you would have to deny your identity. The punishment for giving in to personal feelings might well be nothing less than torture or death”.
   The same theory had was pointed out by the members of the NNRF (Nottingham and Notts Refugee Forum) years ago: “The Home Office claims that if a gay person is less obvious about being gay or lesbian they won’t attract the attention of their persecutors,” writes Richard McCance on the refugees’ association’s website.
   The EveryOne Group, that, since its launch, has promoted, along with the Non-Violent Radical Party, Transnational and Transparty, and the Nessuno Tocchi Caino and Certi Diritti associations, a campaign in support of its member Seyed Mehdi Kazemi, is going to present a written deposition to the European Union objecting to the UK Home Office’s behaviour towards refugees claiming asylum.
   “Mehdi absolutely has to stay in the Netherlands. It has been shown that the United Kingdom operates an out-and-out persecutory policy towards refugees, especially homosexuals” affirm the EveryOne Group’s leaders Roberto Malini, Matteo Pegoraro and Dario Picciau. “The Home Office’s statements are serious, and contrary to the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It is to be hoped that European Authorities urgently intervene in this situation”.
   “In 2004, a 29-year-old Zimbabwean, Thando Dube, was at death’s door, following a 33-day hunger strike in a UK detention camp. Her crime? Thando was a lesbian who fled to Britain to escape the well-known persecution of LGBT people in Zimbabwe. “Her asylum claim was refused,” it’s written in the EveryOne Group’s report. “In September 2003, Israfil Shiri, a gay Iranian asylum seeker, died after pouring petrol over himself and setting himself on fire in the offices of Refugee Action in Manchester, after his asylum claim was refused (in the lower and appeal court) and his deportation to Iran, where he would-have-been hanged, had been arranged. In April 2005, 26-year-old Hussein Nasseri shot himself two weeks after his asylum claim was turned down by the Home Office, refusing in this way to let himself be killed by Iranian executioners”.
   However, according to the EveryOne Group not only homosexuals suffered from the British Government’s indifference: Burhan Namig, born in 1980, was deported on September 5th 2006 from the United Kingdom – where his asylum claim had been refused because “not at sea” – to Kurdistan, despite falling into a deep depression and attempting suicide. On arrival in Kurdistan, Burhan had a heart attack, as a result of the inhuman treatment received in a British detention centre. In February 2007, at least two Iraqi Kurds were deported in secret from United Kingdom to the North of Iraq on a military plane carrying medicines and other humanitarian supplies, this despite the ongoing violence in Iraq, after American military actions, and despite the Kurdish region in Northern Iraq being subject to continuous terrorist attacks and serious human rights abuses. “We take a robust approach to people who are here illegally” a Home Office spokesperson told IRR (Independent Race and Refugee News Network) last year.
   The latest case is that of Ama Sumani, a 39-year-old Ghanaian woman, studying in the UK, who was diagnosed with a malignant tumour that couldn’t be treated in Ghanaian hospitals. Her asylum claim was refused by the Home Secretary Jacqui Smith and the woman was removed, against her will, on January 9th 2008, from University Hospital, Cardiff, in a wheelchair, and repatriated. According to the Home Office, this was all carried out with “politeness and dignity”.
   “All this demonstrates how the United Kingdom’s and its Home Office’s behaviour represent a danger for all refugees, all the more so for those such as Mehdi Kazemi or the Iranian lesbian Pegah Emambakshs, who face capital punishment because of their homosexuality” conclude Malini, Pegoraro and Picciau. “We ask the Dutch Authorities to immediately grant Mehdi refugee status, to avoid another life being destroyed because of the demonstrable and incontrovertible attitude of the UK to violating refugees’ rights. Finally, we ask the UN High Commissioner for Refugees to look out for the rights of refugees currently in the United Kingdom, who come from nations where they risk persecution, in order to prevent any abuse, violation and/or unjust deportation”.

   For further information:
   Gruppo EveryOne
   Tel: (+ 39) 334-8429527
   http://www.everyonegroup.com :: info@everyonegroup.com

   Comment by EveryOne Group — 9 Mar 2008 on 4:51 pm | Link

3. Mehdi Kazemi must not be sent back to Iran. I am certain that if he is he will be dead within a month. I know this from personal experience of Iranian attitudes to homosexuality.

   My son is Iranian and he’s gay. He is lucky, I am English, so he has the right to live in the UK.

   He was 17 when he told me he was gay. He wanted to tell his father, (my Iranian ex-husband) but his father seemed to have guessed already and started making threats on our son’s life.

   Reasoning with my ex-husband was impossible, despite the fact that our daughter had died two years ago in a car accident, and our son was now our only child. I had hoped that the pain of losing our daughter might make him determined to overcome his intolerance of our son’s sexuality, but it didn’t.

   My ex husband is a man who was educated in England and married to an English woman. He has experienced a life which is not Islamic fundamentalist.

   If he can feel like this about his own son, even though he is not a fanatic of any kind, what chance do gay men and women stand when confronted with a government refuses to accept their existence in its own country – and then executes them?

   My son will never go to Iran – how can he go to a country where it is a crime, punishable by death, to be gay?

   How can anyone stand by and let Mehdi’s life be the payment made in order to show that we will not allow people to “abuse” our immigration laws.

   Diana Armstrong

   Comment by Diana Armstrong — 11 Mar 2008 on 11:41 am | Link

4. Demo opposite Downing Street, 2pm, Saturday March 22nd

   – Don’t deport Mehdi Kazemi!
   – No to Iran’s homophobic laws!
   – For the right to settle in the UK

   Comment by David Broder — 12 Mar 2008 on 12:48 pm | Link

5. dear Diana Amstrong,

   im a gay journalist who dedicate to protect gays rights all around the world. Your case takes your attention.i am so happy to hear that you have taken your son under your arms. im so willing to talk to you if its possible. i am making a rtadio deocumatary about the gay rights in the world. please keep it mind that Your privacy is my main concern. if you read this message please, please contact me my email is alfonzoy@hotmail.com and my number is 0794 228 28 53

   kind regards,

   ALPER YILMAZ

   Comment by alper yilmaz — 12 Mar 2008 on 1:52 pm | Link

6. We are still haunted by the images of two Iranian children being hanged for their sexuality. What will it take to open the politician’s eyes and transport them from rhetoric to action? I left the UK almost twenty years ago to live in The Netherlands. This week I am preparing to be deeply ashamed of both by nationality and my country of residence.

   Nicolas Mansfield Timans

   Comment by Nicolas Mansfield Timans — 12 Mar 2008 on 9:50 pm | Link

7. I am deeply saddened and outraged that there would be any question about returning this young man into the arms of murderers. We are horrified at the violence that occurs in the name of God when it happens on our streets and in our respective countries. Yet, the fact that the courts in a civilized society would beg the point on this issue shows a profound malignancy at the core of both the legal system. I pray that sanity will be restored and that this will be a turning point. I feel that Iran and those responsible will be brought to justice for the lives it has already taken in the name of God.

   Comment by Stephen Forte — 13 Mar 2008 on 6:40 pm | Link

8. I have met Mehdi today in Rotterdam. He is such a sweet boy, so scared. If Britain will continue to think it is save for Gay people to return to Iran, it will not be the country I always assumed it was. If only Mehdi would have come to The Netherlands right away…
   But there is hope, today a resolution was accepted by the European Parliament.

   1. Expresses its serious concern regarding the fate of Mehdi Kazemi;

   2. Asks for the proper and full application of the Qualifications Directive, which recognises persecution for sexual orientation as a ground for granting asylum and requires Member States to consider the individual case and the situation in the country of origin, including laws and regulations and the manner in which they are applied;

   3. Believes that the EU and its Member States cannot apply European and national laws and procedures in a way which results in the expulsion of persons to a third country where they would risk persecution, torture and death, as this would amount to a violation of European and international human rights obligations;

   4. Appeals to the Member states involved to find a common solution to ensure that Mehdi Kazemi is granted asylum or protection on EU soil and not sent back to Iran, where he would be executed, thus ensuring that Article 3 of the ECHR is fully respected by all European authorities and notably, in this case, by the UK; asks the Commission and the Council to fully cooperate with the Member States on this case;

   5. Asks EU institutions and Member States to take action to prevent similar situations, in the future, through cooperation and EU guidelines to find solutions in similar cases; asks the Commission to monitor and evaluate the application of EU asylum law in Member States, and in particular as regards sexual orientation, and to report to the European Parliament; underlines the fact that the Commission has announced, for 2008, amendments to the Dublin Regulation and the Qualifications Directive which will address the issues raised in this resolution;

   6. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Commission, the Council, the Member States, the United Nations High Commission for Refugees and Mehdi Kazemi.

   And I understand Britain is willing to look at Mehdi’s case again, I hope Mehdi will get to stay in The Netherlands till his safety will be guaranteed.

   Comment by Cindy Schneider — 13 Mar 2008 on 7:37 pm | Link

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