Italy asks Britain not to deport Iranian lesbian

[Up2Late]

Source: Guardian Unlimited

7pm

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.

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....

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/iran/story/0,,2155893,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=networkfront

---

Interesting how this isn't being reported in the U.S. either. :grr:

[closeupready]

1. The media reports on the travails of Lindsay Lohan. What more do you want?

:spank: :shrug:

[Up2Late]

5. And don't forget poor little Nicole Richie, who just spent one (1) Hour in Jail for DUI after...

...being caught "...driving the wrong way on a Los Angeles area freeway...!"

To be fair to Reuters I should note that these stories are on their Entertainment pages.

Nicole Richie serves 1 hour in jail for DUI

Fri Aug 24, 2007 10:45AM EDT

By Bob Tourtellotte

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Nicole Richie surrendered to authorities on Thursday to begin serving a four-day sentence for driving under the influence of drugs, but spent a little more than one hour in jail, an official said. A spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department said federal sentencing guidelines dealing with jail overcrowding allowed local officials to reduce the time for Richie and other inmates with similar charges.

Richie, 25, was treated "in the same manner as other inmates with a similar sentence," Deputy Sheriff Maribel Rizo said, reading from a statement.

Richie, the daughter of singer Lionel Richie and a co-star with Paris Hilton on reality TV series "The Simple Life," surrendered to local authorities in the afternoon and was booked, processed and released about one hour and 20 minutes later, Rizo said....

(edit)

...The actress, who is pregnant by her boyfriend, singer Joel Madden of rock band Good Charlotte, was arrested in December 2006 after police spotted her driving the wrong way on a Los Angeles area freeway. She failed a sobriety test and admitted to smoking marijuana and taking the prescription painkiller Vicodin....

(more at link)
<http://www.reuters.com/article/entertainmentNews/idUSN2330074420070824>

<http://www.reuters.com/news/entertainment?type=entertainmentNews&WTmodLoc=NewsArt-R2-Today-6>

[Demeter]

2. Women Over 40 Don't Exist n/t

[awoke_in_2003]

3. At least

Italy is willing to stand up and do the right thing

[MADem]

4. Italy is right, the woman would be KILLED. Good for Sylvio, who is to the RIGHT of Attila the Hun,

a Fascist, damned near, to speak up on her behalf. Christ, it's like living in Upside-Down land, apparently....

I can't believe Britan is being so idiotic. This is a no-brainer. She should have compassionate asylum at the least, with time to seek out a third country if there's some reason they don't want to keep her. And what the fuck is up with PRODI? He sends out a spokeswoman to tout for him...and Sylvio, the rightie, is out front on this? Elections in Italy will be interesting next time round, I think, if Prodi doesn't get out front on shit like this:

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....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.

[ScottytheRadical]

9. Forgive me for questioning the Italian right's motives, but...

My guess is that the reason the Italian right is drawing more attention to this issue is because they want to rile up anti-Muslim sentiment in Italy. Berlusconi is on the record as being a strong opponent of same-sex civil unions, and even the "centrists" in Italy (at least the Christian Democrats) oppose civil unions and other gay rights. I mean, the Italian right elected Alessandra Mussolini (yes, his granddaughter) to both the Italian and European parliaments, where she's been free to make such brillant statements as "It is better to be a fascist than a faggot." But being the neo-fascists they are, Berlusconi's coalition hates racial minorities just as much as they hate gays.

I'm taking a course at university next month called "Special Study: Italian Politics", so I've been doing some early research :P.

Don't ask me about Britian though! Maybe the Labour Party is too busy drawing up airstrike strategies against Iran with Bush to care about deporting anyone to there...

[goodgd_yall]

11. Good point

I find it hard to believe Berlusconi is working on this woman's behalf out of the goodness of his heart.

The article states that the woman in question was refused asylum 2 years ago. Maybe with the additional information that the civil rights group has on her father and her young lover, Britain will be convinced to offer her asylum this time.

[rodeodance]

12. Thanks much and best to you on your new course.

[MADem]

15. Yep--you've made my point quite nicely about living in Upside Down Land!!!

You'll enjoy that course--be aware the curriculum could turn on a dime--the Italians change their leadership like many change their socks!

[smirkymonkey]

6. Who knew? Italy is actually LESS fascist than the UK in some

areas. To support the rights of a Lesbian Iranian whereas the UK does nothing to prevent sending her back to certain death is heartening. WTF is wrong with Britain?

[Danger Mouse]

7. They've been smoking too much of the same crack the U.S. is smoking.

If she had come here, Bush would've had her tortured just for being Iranian.

[redirish28]

8. Maybe I'm missing the point but if Italy feels so strongly can't they offer to take her off of

England's hands? Why was she being deported? Sorry I'm getting a blank page when I pull up the link.

[goodgd_yall]

10. Italy will likely take her in

if the U.K. fails to grant her asylum this time. Thank goodness civil rights advocates in Italy were paying attention to this one. She's in grave danger if she goes back to Iran.

From the referenced link:

"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."

[muriel_volestrangler]

13. Ugh - I apologise for my government

God knows what snivelling excuse some functionary came up with for this, but why the Home Secretary hasn't stepped in (another story says her MP has asked for her to be given asylum, so Jacqui Smith knows about this) I can't tell. You'd think it was a no-brainer.

It's the first I've heard of it - strangely, this Guardian piece hasn't been indexed by Google News, so it appears that no British mainstream newspaper has written about this at all, only the specialist gay publications. Since we're now into a 3 day holiday weekend, it's not even sure if the Home Office will be at work to take protests before she's deported - blogs are asking people to send the Home Office faxes, hoping those will get to a duty officer.

[treestar]

14. Why are they deporting her? If I understand correctly, the UK has

an asylum law, and Iran has the death penalty for homosexuality. Seems like a no brainer asylum case to me.