European Liberal Democrats demand protection of Iranian homosexual asylum seeker

2.14.57pm UTC (GMT +0000) Thu 13th Mar 2008

The European Parliament is set to vote on a resolution calling on the EU to protect 19 year old homosexual Iranian asylum seeker Mehdi Kazemi. The UK is expected to send him back to Iran, where he will likely be sentenced to death for being gay. Kazemi requested asylum in Great Britain but it was refused. He then tried in the Netherlands, but because he already had submitted an asylum application in Great Britain he has been forced to return to Britain to await his fate.

European Liberal Democrat members of the European Parliament fear that Kazemi will be the victim of Member States passing the buck. Baroness Sarah Ludford (LibDem, UK) said: "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."

"I am deeply disappointed that the Christian Democrats withhold their support with legalistic arguments. We have a moral duty here to defend Mehdi's life, and the very values that Europe is founded on. A young man's life may not be the stake of an unsavoury battle over rules and regulations. At the review of the common asylum rules this year, this problem has to be settled once and for all", added Sophie in ´t Veld (D66, Netherlands).

Her colleague Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert (VVD, Netherlands) was very explicit in her statements. "It is absurd that Kazemi has to demonstrate that he risks persecution if you look at the whole record of Iran's repression of gay people by detention, torture and execution. It would be outrageous if Kazemi would be sent back to Iran."

Marco Cappato (Radical Party, Italy) concludes: "The European Union should be a community that protects people, instead of acting as a cold machine with common rules creating a 'lowest common denominator' of asylum seekers protection. It is high time leaders of the EU show compassion instead of hiding behind bureaucratic rules."