Call to end 'pass-the parcel' on asylum seekers like Mehdi Kazemi

11.09.08am GMT Wed 12th Mar 2008

Ahead of a vote in the European Parliament tomorrow on an urgency resolution she has co-sponsored calling for Iranian gay teenager Mehdi Kazemi not to be sent back by the UK to Iran, Liberal Democrat European justice and human rights spokeswoman and member of the European Parliament's Gay and Lesbian Intergroup Baroness Sarah Ludford MEP has called for an end to the shameful shuffling of gay and other asylum-seekers between EU countries:

"Almost a decade ago, EU leaders gave a pledge that they would have a common asylum system which fully respected the UN Refugee Convention 'thus ensuring that nobody is sent back to persecution'. They have broken every one of those promises."

"The only thing common about the EU asylum scene is 'lowest common denominator' as governments have stubbornly refused to agree on truly harmonised rules which would stop vulnerable people being shuffled around in a macabre game of pass-the-parcel."

Mehdi Kazemi fled to the Netherlands after his request for asylum in the UK was turned down, despite his boyfriend already having been executed. Under the EU's so-called "Dublin system" the Dutch government has returned him such that the UK government is now left with the final decision on his possible deportation to Iran.

Sarah Ludford added: "Rigorous but fair asylum procedures should mean the EU harmonising on best practice, not worst. It cannot be fair for the Home Office to demand that Mr Kazemi demonstrates that he risks persecution without looking at the whole record of Iran's repression of gay people by detention, torture and execution."

"It is absurd that EU governments can have a common view on the risks Iran's nuclear development poses to Europeans but no common assessment of the threats Iran's political system poses to its own citizens. As long as the UK and other governments misunderstand the facts, there must be an EU-wide moratorium on sending gay people to Iran."