UK must not deport homosexual asylum seeker to face execution in Iran

6.32.00pm GMT Mon 25th Feb 2008

Sarah Ludford MEP

London's Liberal Democrat MEP Baroness Sarah Ludford has written to the Home Secretary to request her to urgently review the case of Medhi Kazemi, an gay Iranian citizen who faces possible execution by stoning if he returns to Iran.

Sarah Ludford, who is the Liberal Democrat European justice spokesperson and a member of the European Parliament's Gay and Lesbian Rights Intergroup, said:

"Jacqui Smith must recognise and act on the real threat of persecution and even execution which Mr Kazemi would face if he was to be deported to Iran. As with Ms Pegah Emambakhsh, an Iranian lesbian who was granted a reassessment of her own asylum case after I and other parliamentarians intervened, we need the Home Office to accept the facts and genuinely consider the risks of deportation."

"We cannot on the one hand claim that we live in a modern and liberal society if on the other hand we are willing to send asylum seekers back to face stoning purely because of their sexuality."