The Cellar - UK to deport lesbian to Tehran, to certain death sentence.

The Cellar (http://cellar.org/index.php)

- Current Events (http://cellar.org/forumdisplay.php?f=4)

- - UK to deport lesbian to Tehran, to certain death sentence. (http://cellar.org/showthread.php?t=15155)

UK to deport lesbian to Tehran, to certain death sentence.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/8/21/1757/40368

Quote:

If you have a blog or post messages to lists and web site concerned with LGBT citizens everywhere and the violations of our human rights, please take some time in the next three days to do something and call attention to the plight of Pegah Emambakhsh, a lesbian from Iran who faces deportation from the UK, and certain danger if returned to the Islamic Republic.

Time is very much of the essence here, as this note makes clear: Pegah faces a flight back to Tehran in just three days:

Quote:

In a message dated 8/20/2007 3:20:22 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time, editorial@ukgaynews.org.uk writes:
Michael ... I have just heard that Pegah Emambakhsh is to be deported by the British Government on Thursday August 23 on the British Airways flight to Tehran (BA 6633) which departs from London Heathrow at 21:35.

It is 11pm in UK right now, so little chance of getting any further info today. But I will try to get an update Tuesday morning.

I've been asked by Iranians, gay and straight, human rights activists, and friends in San Francisco to get the word out about Pegah's case, especially on political blogs.

Feel free to cut and paste the text here, along with the photos, and share the words and images through your social and web networks.

This story appeared on August 17 in The Star UK:

Quote:

AN IRANIAN lesbian who faces imprisonment and almost certain death because of her sexuality if sent home back home has been given an 11th hour reprieve [...]

Her supporters from Sheffield ASSIST - the Asylum Seeker Support Initiative - said they were relieved at the news, because for Pegah to be returned to Iran was "tantamount to a death sentence".

Ann Campbell, from ASSIST, said last night: "We are all either on a high or exhausted!

"The plane was taking off at 9.30pm last night and this only started on Monday so it's been a mad four days. Although all we have effectively done is buy some time - we don't know what will happen next - we now have time to get our forces together."

Pegah, who is suffering with mental health problems and suicidal thoughts as a result of the stress, has now been returned to Yarlswood detention centre in Bedford where she was taken after being arrested in Sheffield on Monday [...]

The 40-year-old Iranian - described by those who know her as "charming, incredibly kind, honest and intelligent" - sought asylum in the UK in 2005. She had escaped from her home country after her partner was arrested, tortured, and subsequently sentenced to death by stoning.

Her father was also arrested, interrogated and tortured for information on her whereabouts [...]

She said: "She endured an unhappy arranged marriage, she is filled with guilt about what has happened to her father, and she is not able to see her two sons [...]

The editor of the UK Gay News service, Andy Thayer, has been monitoring the situation and filed a story on Pegah's plight on August 16:

Quote:

A gay Iranian woman came within minutes of being put onto a non-stop flight to Tehran at Heathrow this evening as the UK Government’s Border and Immigration Agency (BIA) – part of the Home Office – went through the final process of deportation.

It was only the late intervention of the office of Sheffield Central Member of Parliament Richard Caborn – the Minister of Sport – that prevented the deportation today [...]

If returned to Iran, Ms. Emambakhsh faces certain imprisonment and possible execution by stoning. Her ‘crime’ – she was in a lesbian relationship [...]

"The BIA will be committing a serious miscarriage of justice and human rights violation if they insist on Ms Emambhaksh’s deportation," the group pointed out [...]

And this message from longtime international gay human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell was shared late Monday night

Quote:

In a message dated 8/20/2007 6:04:51 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time, peter@tatchell.freeserve.co.uk writes:

Just to let you all know that I have been working on this case, advising and assisting Pegah's support team on legal issues, campaign strategies, new solicitors, new evidence, expert witnesses, fresh claims and injunctions.

Everyone is doing their best. Protests will be helpful, but the legal side is the most crucial right now.

Solidarity! Peter

You have the power to spread the word and help save Pegah from deportation to Tehran and torture. Please do what you can to increase global awareness of Pegah and her need to remain in the UK.

The WORLD needs to act on this immediately. To allow this to happen is nothing short of murder, and if the british government follows through with this, it will make them parties to the killing.

Fix this travesty, this tragedy, now.

Where's the story? How did she get to England? What's she been doing there? Why is she being deported?

I'm assuming Pegah Emambakhsh is an illegal refugee from Iran but I don't know if there is anything else behind it.

With just this amount of information, I don't not support Britian's moves unless she was planning on hurting civilians directly or indirectly (use common sense there) but the setback is that if this deportation is stopped, we will see many more illegal Iranians/Arabs coming to Britian claiming they are gay.

And I thought Iran's law against lesbianism was 100 lashes? It might be different for the area and other political motives. Here is a good article on Iran's homosexuality situation.

http://rawstory.bluelemur.com/?p=15

There isn't enough information here to make a decision one way or the other on whether she should be deported or not. WHY is she being deported? Simply because she is gay? I find that hard to believe. Then again there are those who believe we shouldn't be involved in the affairs of other govt's - would this be a case where those people would have us just turn our heads and not get involved? Again without more info it is impossible to say.

According to this link she WAS (past tense) already deported.
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/08/378415.html

Quote:

Update on Pegah Emambakhsh

17.08.2007 10:15
Pegah Emmambakhsh, a lesbian Iranian national, who faces imprisonment and even the possibility of death by stoning in Iran, is to be deported back to Iran from terminal 4, Heathrow on flight BA6633 at 21.35 tonight.

Nobody's suggesting she'd being deported for being gay. She is being deported, for whatever reason, and the fact that she is gay means she faces possible/probable persecution when she gets there.

Then again, this site dated Monday, August 20, 2007 has different info -
UK May Deport Iranian Lesbian to Death Sentence in Tehran on August 23

Quote:

And this message from longtime international gay human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell was shared late Monday night
In a message dated 8/20/2007 6:04:51 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time, peter@tatchell.freeserve.co.uk writes:

Just to let you all know that I have been working on this case, advising and assisting Pegah's support team on legal issues, campaign strategies, new solicitors, new evidence, expert witnesses, fresh claims and injunctions.

Everyone is doing their best. Protests will be helpful, but the legal side is the most crucial right now.

Solidarity! Peter

I read a source that she was a refugee so I'm assuming that means she's an illegal immigrant. The language of the article also makes sense that she is illegal as well.

Quote:

The UK government continues its heartless and cruel policy of deporting many LGBT people who seek asylum there

Quote:

No country in the world today can deport any refugee back to the strict Islamic countries, where they face death sentences for any reason involving human rights, without a huge stain on their national honor. The United States has its own challenges in this regard, and its own stains.

http://www.bilerico.com/2007/08/iran...ion_and_de.php

Quote:

I read a source that she was a refugee so I'm assuming that means she's an illegal immigrant

No. It means she is likely a 'failed asylum seeker'. Someone who gets nto the country under the radar, so to speak, is an illegal immigrant. Someone who attempts to seek asylum and is refused is a failed asylum seeker. Once an asylum seeker has been given asylum they are then considered to have 'refugee status'.

Truth is the system is fucked up. The officers involved have refusal as their assumption. They don't have to prove you aren't a refugee, you have to prove that you are. Difficult to do when one considers the problems faced by people in such regimes getting the correct paperwork.

I have known (personally) people who have arrived in this country covered in the scars of outrageous torture and them be told they don't qualify. I have known these same people take doctors' assessments showing that they are suffering the afermath of torture and yet still they are told there isn't enough evidence. I knew a woman, who having lost her only child to congolese militia and suffered appalling gang rape, was then told by our asylum officials that they did not believe she'd ever had a child...despite medical reports to show that she had.

It's fucked up big style. Just because someone has been refused asylum in the UK, doesn't in any way mean that they haven't faced torture, rape, fear and oppression.

Ah, thanks for clearing that up.

Do you think there is something more than that or is she just a failed asylum seeker like the rest?

I would imagine she is just a failed asylum serker like the rest. This country has deported people to some very dodgy places. There are cases of Iraqis being sent back into what our country was laughingly calling a 'safe zone' at a time when sectarian violence in that area was terrible. Some of those people have subsequently vanished and their families are worried sick.

We treat asylum seekers very badly here.

The ones who are waiting for their cases to go through the system are not allowed to work. They instead have to rely on NASS support. Some of these are on a system which provides them with a) a place tp stay such as a flat, subject to constant and arbitrary change (e.g up-sticks, you're moving from Leeds to Scotland, and you have three days to get your stuff together), and a benefits payment set to about two-thrids what a standard benefit claimant may get. Some of them though are not given money at all. They are given a set of vouchers for use at participating stores: they have to be in their flat waiting for the guy to come around with the vouchers and sign for them. If he doesn't show up then you wait in all the next day too. Course since you have no money (not even for travel) and you've been moved five times in one year so don't have a local support network....you probably have fuck all to go out for anyway:P

Some of them just get thrown straight into a holding centre. Like the one this lady was at.

Asylum seekers are not guests, they are in the custody of the government.
The woman in question is apparently a fugitive from "justice".