August 27, 2007

Britain supports the torture and killing of homosexuals The foreign office will deport lesbian Pegah Emambakhsh to Iran, after her request for asylum has been rejected. What awaits her in her home country?
Art. 127 to 134 relate to lesbian sexual relations. Punishment for sexual intercourse among lesbians is 100 lashes and in case of recidivity (3 times) execution.
— Home Office, Iran Operational Guidance, 27 February 2007.

The case of Pegah Emambakhsh, 40, has become front-page news in Italy while going almost unreported in Britain. Italy has offered the woman asylum, if Britain decides that Iran is perfectly within its rights to torture and kill someone for their sexual identity. Way to go Italy. Fie, for shame, Britain.

posted by Skrik 17 years ago
  • I should just get "WTF" tattooed on my forehead, I seem to be saying it so much these days. Disgusting. Would a fax from a Yank count for anything, do you think?
  • Just .... outrageous.
  • What year is it, again?
  • Emails addys for the Home Secretary: [email protected], [email protected] From Outrage!
  • Good god man, I can't support that.
  • I just sent the following email. I don't think there's time for a fax (I would have to wait till tomorrow) or a letter. Dear Home Secretary, I read today, with dismay, a report in the International Herald Tribune which claimed that an Iranian refugee claimant named Pegah Emambakhsh is due to face deportation from this country despite the real risk of persecution, and even death, that she faces in her homeland. In the 1930s, my grandfather came to this country from Germany, where he faced severe persecution as a Jew. At the time, the UK did not recognise German Jews as refugees. A few people, such as the Passport Control Officer and SIS member Frank Foley risked their careers to help get people like my grandfather out of Germany, but the vast majority of British officials stuck to the official rules and said 'no' to Jewish emigrants. Those who bent the rules are now, rightly, recognised as heroes. Those who applied the rules with rigour and exactness are now chiefly remembered for the terrible shame they brought on their country in doing so. I need not tell you the fate of those members of my family who were unable to make it out of Germany, just as we need not dwell upon the fate of Ms Emambakhsh, should she be put on a plane to Tehran. The issue upon which we /must/ dwell is that which faced Frank Foley, and his colleagues, as they debated whether or not to follow the dictates of an official rule book, or the dictates of their conscience. Even if sexual orientation is not explicitly protected under the Convention relating to the Status of Refugees; even if an interpretive loophole cannot be found on the lines of the persecution of Ms Emambakhsh for her religious conviction that being gay is not wrong, or her membership of the social group of the gay community; even if there is absolutely no official protection for her under the rules of international law as they were laid down in the mid-1950s; even then, would it be to the credit of the British nation, or to our shame, to send Pegah Emambakhsh to her death? We in this country have had our heroes, Ms Smith, Frank Foley among them. We have also had countless others who, through their inaction, contributed to the murder of an entire generation of my relatives. Today, you are in a position to choose: on which side will you stand? Yours sincerely, [signed by me]
  • Gosh Dreadnought.
  • Jeepers. Now can you send a fax to the Government of Canada to stop refusing refugee claims based on sexual orientation for those coming from Latin America? Thanks in advance,
  • I've been following this with horror. As an emigré to Britain, I know something of the vast stupidity of the Home Office-- its bureaucracy grinds dully on with no regard for human life. One note-- I don't think Italy has actually offered her asylum; the Guardian story only says that some Italian opposition politicians have suggested it. I hope things work out well in Emambakhsh's case, and that she gets to stay in the West.
  • According to the papers here, she'd be welcome in Italy, PA. The Justice Minister has made a statement to the affect that under the Constitution she could claim asylum here and be accepted. (can't find link just now, sorry)
  • This is horrifying. I thought Britain was beyond such narrow thinking. Call me naive, but I've never been able to understand how a person's sexual orientation impacts anyone else's life, or why something so private, if it harms no-one else, is so much of an issue. Unless you're trying to hook up with somebody, whom--and how--they love should be completely irrelelvant. In my experience, men (thankfully not all men) generally get more worked up about this stuff than women. That said, it is shocking that a government can be so intolerant as to blithely hand someone over to certain harm for something so inconsequential. I'm shocked that the U.K. would even think of deportation in this case. Most of the families I know have at least one gay/lesbian member. Hell, my bosses are gay and they're wonderful to work for. These are not aliens, these are human beings. Nice letter, Dreadnought.
  • ))))) to Dreadnought. Eloquent and to the point.
  • Dreadnought: Send that to the newspapers as an open letter to the Home Secretary.
  • Good idea.
  • According to this report, it looks like the deportation has been stayed. Perhaps common sense and human dignity are winning out for once.
  • Has it been stayed, or do the site-people just not know when it is? I hope it's been stayed; I hope the damn deportation order has been made into a paper airplane and shot down in flames. Mothninja, it's good to know Italy will come through if Britain fails. Italy is way more fun than Sheffield. But still. This woman's had to leave her home, has had her partner condemned to death, and has presumably been severed from her children. I would think the last thing she needs is to have to uproot her life yet again.
  • still going