Gay Iranian Fights For Asylum In Europe

(AP)  The Netherlands' highest court rejected a gay Iranian asylum seeker's last-ditch bid to avoid deportation to Britain, where he fears authorities will send him back to Tehran and possible execution.

In a ruling published on its Web site Tuesday, the Council of State said Britain is responsible for Mehdi Kazemi's case, because it was there that the 19-year-old first applied for asylum.

Gay rights campaigner Rene van Soeren said Kazemi's Dutch lawyer was considering an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights. The lawyer, Borg Palm, did not immediately return calls seeking comment.

Boris van der Ham, a lawmaker who has taken up Kazemi's cause, has tabled questions in 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 said in a telephone interview.

"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.

Justice Ministry spokeswoman Karen Temmink said Albayrak is studying the court ruling and drawing up answers to Van der Ham's questions.

Kazemi's case highlights not only the plight of homosexuals in Iran, but also differences in the way European Union allies deal with asylum seekers.

The Netherlands relaxes its tough asylum laws for Iranian gays - virtually guaranteeing asylum to any who apply here - because of persecution they face at home. Britain, on the other hand, rejected Kazemi's original asylum request.

Kazemi, 19, says he traveled to London to study English in 2005 and applied for asylum in Britain after learning that his lover in Iran had been executed for sodomy.

After British authorities rejected Kazemi's application, he fled to mainland Europe and applied for asylum in the Netherlands.

However, because Kazemi had already applied for asylum and been rejected in Britain, the Dutch government is refusing to consider his case and insists he must be sent back to Britain. It cites the European Union's 2003 Dublin Regulation, which declares that the member state where an asylum seeker first enters the EU is responsible for processing that person's claim.

Tuesday's court ruling upheld the Dutch position.

Palm said last week that Kazemi was in such despair he was on suicide watch in a center for rejected asylum seekers in the port city of Rotterdam.

Britain's Home Office has declined comment, saying it does not discuss individual asylum applications, but it is unlikely authorities would reverse their earlier rejection.

However, Britain's Border and Immigration Agency has issued a statement that could give Kazemi hope.

"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," the agency said.

Matteo Pegoraro, president of the Italian-based gay rights group EveryOne, which is lobbying for Kazemi, has said he knows of 10 gay people executed in Iran since 2005, based on reports from nongovernment groups and activists.

[libsrweak]

WOW!!! muslims KILLS fa ggots??????????

does liberal san francisco know about this??do they even care??

bashing american and bashing bush is more important for these ''champions of the gay people'' liberals than actually spreading liberalism..

[quetzal0666]

sigotratando,
bias, hmmm interesting.
the Basic friend or foe response or whats left over
from an animalistic instinct.

[sigotratando]

sigotratando..
welcome back, that quote was actually from a Book by George Orwell, Animal Farm...

Thanks Quetz, been a busy day. Not a lot of time for reading article & comments.

Isn''t it funny, tho, that we can use the term ''equality'' & not be able to achieve the state! By my thinking, the reason wld be that, as we perceptually develop, we automatically ascribe ''value'' to things & events, whether we know it or not.

Have you read the book "Blink"? If so, you might recall an interesting study the author did regarding his own sense of race bias. No matter how ''unbiased'' a person thinks he is, there is always some trace, even barely detectable.

[quetzal0666]

sigotratando..
welcome back, that quote was actually from a Book by George Orwell, Animal Farm,
about how even though we tell each other that we are created equal, some have more rights than others,
be it Religious authorities who really hold no Authority save the Authority to convince you that you should get in line or face a huge Barbeque pit at the end of days, or Politicians who say your vote counts but only the one counting the votes, count for anything other than the hooplah surrounding the whole circus.

[sigotratando]

All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others
Posted by Quetzal0666

But yesterday, in the Vatican DNA-sin forum, it was asserted the man is not an animal. If we are removed from the rules that govern animals, then we have to wonder if there is anything natural about our physical beings at all. And if we are not natural, then why would we expect cause & effect to affect us. Something''s missing is either missing or wrong with the equation.

[quetzal0666]

All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others

[sigotratando]

Seeing articles like this is simply a reminder of how great our country the USA is and how homosexuals, among others, take our freedoms for granted because they aren''t getting everything THEY WANT.
Posted by singinrick

That statement sounds a lot like saying freedom from death is the only "freedoms" homosexuals should be thankful for in our country.

Funny thing in this country, we start off as a set of rag tag colonies & refine an old Greek concept of democracy & evolve the rule of law to safeguard rights endowed by the Creator. By my way of thinking, *** are citizens with the same rights, supposedly, as anyone else, except that they have to prove it first.

There is a difference between taking "freedoms for granted" & allowing different factions to decide what your freedoms should be based on certain notions of morality that are irrelevant to the establishment of civil rights. In the spirit of this nation, pursuing those rights after it has been established that freedom from being killed isn''t the only "freedom" available is not "taking freedoms for granted".

Or maybe I have misunderstood your point.

[sigotratando]

How does a country stay afloat without absolute laws and principles mr. MCVet? What are the rules of secularism and what are the absolute laws and moral codes established by it? THERE ARE NONE. Your definition of freedom is total chaos and anarchy.
Posted by singinrick

You have denied secularism the ability to found an organized & operating, free government. I think places like France and most other countries in the world would disagree. But denying secularism that ability is not a problem if you actually have substantiation that others can agree with.

But more than that, if not "secularism," then you must mean ... what? My guess would be the traditional ''opposite'' of secularism: religious, since the religious is the main tradition that claims absolutes & arrogates to itself the sole domain for deriving "moral" codes.

I''ve read thru MCVet''s comments, & I''m missing how he attempted to define "freedom", especially apart from legal principles. I agree with you that, without laws, you won''t have much machinery to govern with, but where is freedom from religion an invitation to chaos & anarchy?

[sigotratando]

Sorry there is no separation of church and state. It says it in the first amendment. Only Congress is prohibited from creating a church state.
Posted by mudrose

To borrow one of newster1''s posts:
The document that was finally approved at the constitutional convention mentioned religion only once, and that was in Article VI, Section 3, which stated that "no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States." Now if the delegates at the convention had truly intended to establish a "Christian nation," why would they have put a statement like this in the constitution and nowhere else even refer to religion?

It might, then, be concluded that the notion of separation of Church & State has other facets supported in other areas of our establishing documents.

[honestabe8]

god is punishing us for not being perfect...what kind of petty creep do you folks want to worship?