A gay teenager from Iran who fled the UK for the Netherlands last year after his appeal for asylum was refused by the Home Office has been arrested by Dutch authorities.
He is reported to be due to be returned to the UK next week, where he may face deportation back to Iran.
19-year-old Mehdi Kazemi is currently being held by police in Rotterdam pending his return to the UK.
According to a relative he is on suicide watch and has threatened to go on hunger strike.
At the end of last year a court in the Netherlands, where he was arrested, ruled he must be returned back to the UK.
He fled England last spring after his visa ran out and a Home Office tribunal dismissed his appeal against deportation.
It is feared that if Mehdi is ordered to be deported back to Iran he may face execution for being gay.
Mehdi left Iran in 2004 to travel to England on a student visa and continue his education.
While he was in the UK he learned that Iranian authorities had arrested his boyfriend back in Iran, and that his boyfriend had been forced to name Mehdi as someone with whom he had had a relationship.
See also : Gran Bretagna, diciannovenne iraniano a rischio deportazione
And : “Mehdi Kazemi : Human rights abuses in Iran” by Therion
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February 21, 2008 at 10:29 am
Please follow the link and sign the (Dutch) petition to safe the life of Mehdi!
March 8, 2008 at 12:12 pm
please do not send mehdi zaemi back to iran
there are thosuands of illegal immigrants living and working in the UK who have never been deported and yet Mr Zaemi wants everyone to know his situation and the governments want to deport him
You only have to watch a documentary on BBC 2 last week to show the terrible situation gay people face in iran.. either change sex or keep quiet or face death !
Please let him stay here in Europe and live freely.
March 8, 2008 at 3:15 pm
please sign all the petitions
March 11, 2008 at 6:27 pm
Why not consider his plea for asylum? Do the Dutch not remember how ruthless the killer of Theo Van Gogh? Its the same fanaticism that causes “Honor killings” of women and executing gay teens.
Where is the sense of sending someone back to be murdered? What about what happened to Jews who feared to return to Germany and sought asylum. Will we not find a country to take him in? Perhaps Israel or Germany. They remember the horror of the killings of Jews who could not find a refuge in other countries…
Wendy
March 11, 2008 at 11:17 pm
Start a petition to have him seek asylum in the U.S., we’ll take him in.