Gay Iranian teen denied asylum

Thu, 03/13/2008 - 2:04pm

BEHROUZ MEHRI/AFP/Getty Images

(Editor's note: Please see update at bottom.)

If you were gay and your country hanged your partner for homosexuality, wouldn't you be justified in fearing that your government would be coming for you next?

That's the position that a young Iranian is in. Nineteen-year-old Mehdi Kazemi came to Britain to study. While there, he learned that his boyfriend back in Iran had been executed after confessing to being in a relationship with Kazemi. Officials had also visited Kazemi's parents' house with an arrest warrant for him.

Kazemi did the logical thing. He applied for asylum. Britain denied it on the grounds that gay people in Iran aren't systematically persecuted on the basis of their sexual orientation. Since then Kazemi has made it to the Netherlands, but his asylum petition there was recently rejected on the grounds that people can plea for asylum in only one European Union country.

Currently, Kazemi risks being deported back to Britain, which may send him back to Iran, a country that has executed at least 4,000 gay people since 1979's Islamic Revolution, according to one estimate. Sixty members of the European Parliament have signed a petition requesting British Prime Minister Gordon Brown to overturn the decision to deny asylum.

Kazemi isn't the only gay person in this predicament. An Iranian lesbian in Britain, Pegah Emambakhsh, was also denied asylum and faces deportation to Iran, where Iranian gay-rights groups say her partner has been sentenced to death by stoning.

These cases are rather ironic. Iran pays for sex-change surgery for transgender people. Additionally, the first rock group it officially approved was Queen, which was headed by Freddie Mercury, a gay man of Iranian Persian ancestry (by way of his Parsi roots). More importantly, though, if the facts of these cases are correct, it's utterly shameful that Kazemi and Emambakhsh were denied asylum.

UPDATE (March 17): Britain has stopped deportation motions against Medhi Kazemi. His case is being reconsidered.

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"Systematic" persecution

by Haggai on Thu, 03/13/2008 - 1:36pm

What exactly was the standard that the British government was applying? Is there some specific percentage threshold of gay Iranians being executed that has to be crossed before the persecution becomes "systematic"? It sounds completely nuts.

As I understand it, the

by adam on Thu, 03/13/2008 - 2:14pm

As I understand it, the British authorities can't send him back if he is at risk. While they may have refused him asylum, I can't see that there's much doubt he'd win a court case demonstrating that he's at risk if sent back to Iran.

His problem, then, is not likely to be execution in Iran but rather ending up as somehow stateless.

http://thecrossedpond.com

Freddie wasn't Iranian

by Nouri on Thu, 03/13/2008 - 3:49pm

Freddie Mercury was not of Iranian ancestry. He was of Parsi (Indian Zoroastrian) origin by way of Zanzibar.

Freddie Descended from Persians

by Preeti Aroon on Thu, 03/13/2008 - 5:53pm

Freddie Mercury was a Parsi. From Encyclopedia Britannica: "The Parsis, whose name means 'Persians,' are descended from Persian Zoroastrians who emigrated to India to avoid religious persecution by the Muslims."
http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9058566/Parsi

Additionally, study of Y-chromosomal DNA has linked Parsis to Iran: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11898125

He was indeed a Parsi. The

by Nouri on Thu, 03/13/2008 - 11:42pm

He was indeed a Parsi. The Parsis are Indians, not Iranians. "Iran" did not exist as an entity when the Parsis migrated to India. To say that Freddie Mercury is of Iranian descent is like saying that an Arab from Libya or Egypt is of Saudi Arabian descent because the Arabs originated there. That there are DNA ties between the Parsis and modern-day Iranians does not mean all that much (studies of their mitochondrial DNA shows them to be closer to sub-continentals than Iranians). There are very few other ties between the communities, as their migration took over 1,000 years ago, and they are Indians far more than they can be reasonably called Iranians. They have Being descended from Persians is hardly being descended from Iranians; there are "Persians" living in Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and Pakistan. None of these peoples is ever said to be of "Iranian ancestry" outside of a linguistic context (to which Freddie Mercury did not belong). There is a community of Zoroastrians on the sub-continent whose ancestors came from Iran more recently, in the middle/late 19th century, and the two communities are linguistically and culturally different. These people could be said to be of Iranian descent, but Freddie was not one of them.

Thanks for Commenting, Nouri

by Preeti Aroon on Fri, 03/14/2008 - 11:23am

I see your point about how I conflated the terms "Iranian" and "Persian," and I edited the original post to reflect the distinction between the two terms.

In the post, I mentioned Freddie Mercury because news articles have said Queen has been popular in Iran because his ancestors (at least some of them) where Persian. Additionally, many news articles (available by searching databases such as LexisNexis) have said Mercury was "proud of his Iranian ancestry," though they probably should have said "Persian ancestry" instead. Interestingly, Mercury emphasized his Persian roots more than his Indian ones, at least according to an article in the Times:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/article634052.ece