21 May 2008 - Green Euro-MP and human rights campaigner Caroline Lucas has today welcomed the decision by the Home Office to grant asylum to gay Iranian, Mehdi Kazemi and called on ministers to make a similar decision in the case of lesbian compatriot Pegah Emambakhsh.

Dr Lucas said: "I am delighted that the Home Office has eventually reached the right decision in this case and that the UK has offered sanctuary to Mr Kazemi. It would have been utterly reprehensible to have deported him to Iran where he faced execution purely because of his sexuality.

"But Iranian lesbian Pegah Emambakhsh still faces deportation – and possible execution. If the Home Office is prepared now to recognise that sexual orientation is an appropriate reason to grant asylum, it must do so in all cases – and maintain pressure on Iran to fully meet international human rights standards by ending all discrimination against its LGBT citizens."

Mr Kazemi arrived in the UK in 2004 to study and later found out that his partner Parham had been arrested in Iran – one of the 77 countries in the world where homosexual acts’ are outlawed and one of seven where such acts are punishable by execution - and had been forced to identify Mehdi as someone with whom he’d had a relationship. In April 2006, Mehdi learned that Parham had been hanged.

Mr Kazemi’s initial request for asylum in the UK was turned down and he fled to the Netherlands. However it was decided that he should be returned to the UK. The Home Office U-turn comes only after his case was taken up by MEPs and human rights activists – and Brighton-based LGBT campaigners.

ENDS