Italy asks Britain not to deport Iranian lesbian


John Hooper in Rome
Friday August 24, 2007
Guardian Unlimited

The British government was today under mounting pressure from Italy not to expel an Iranian lesbian who, campaigners say, faces death by stoning if forced to return to her own country.
The case of Pegah Emambakhsh, 40, has become front-page news in Italy while going almost unreported in Britain. Today, a leading member of the rightwing opposition, led by Silvio Berlusconi, joined a government minister in proposing Ms Emambakhsh should be given asylum in Italy if Britain insisted that she had to leave.


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She was due to be put on a flight to Tehran on August 16. But her removal was delayed to allow for further representations.
Italian lesbian, gay and civil rights groups have called for a sit-in outside the British embassy in Rome on Monday. Tonight, campaigners are due to hold a meeting with the British ambassador, Edward Chaplin.

Barbara Pollastrini, the equal opportunities minister in Italy's centre-left government, said there were "obvious risks" for Ms Emambakhsh's life. She said everything should be done to ensure her human rights were respected, adding: "As far as I am concerned, that ought not to rule out the possibility of welcoming Pegah to our country if necessary."

Ms Pollastrini said the prime minister, Romano Prodi, was following the case and that she had spoken to him about it shortly before making her comments.

A spokesman for the Italian civil rights group Everyone said yesterday that Ms Emambakhsh was a married woman with two sons who had had a relationship with a younger woman.

"The younger woman was arrested, tortured and then condemned to death. We don't know what has happened to her", the spokesman said.

Ms Emambakhsh fled Iran and applied for asylum in Britain two years ago. After her disappearance, her father had been seized and tortured to force him to disclose her whereabouts.

The spokesman for Everyone said that, under Iranian law, the punishment for lesbianism was 100 strokes of the cane, administered in public. But he said that Ms Emambakhsh, who had been declared "an enemy of public order" on websites close to the Iranian authorities, risked death by stoning or hanging.

A Home Office spokeswoman said: "All applications for asylum are carefully considered by trained caseworkers based on accurate up-to-date information, taking into account all the circumstances of an application. We examine with great care each individual case before removal and we will not remove anyone who we believe is at risk on their return."

After Ms Emambakhsh's application for asylum was rejected, she was arrested in Sheffield on August 13 and taken to Yarlswood detention centre in Bedford.

Petition: www.gruppoeveryone.hellowebnet.eu