“A gay woman has been granted refugee status after three years battling the UK’s asylum system. Yesterday it was confirmed that Pegah Emambakhsh will be allowed to remain in the UK. The 42-year-old Iranian sought asylum in 2005. She escaped from her home country after her partner was arrested, tortured, and subsequently sentenced to death by stoning.” [PinkNews
]
Iranian Lesbian Granted UK Asylum
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tallskin
Good Grief! A news item about the world outside of the USA on Queerty!
Am I seeing things???
Is it real?
Darth Paul
@tallskin: Are you incapable of seeing int’l items that do NOT pertain to the UK? There’s usually something here about a non-USA country at least once a day.
kevin
I think Ahmadinejad was correct in claiming that there are no gays in Iran….they’ve all sought asylum in other countries.
Bill Perdue
This is wonderful news. It’s due to a long term campaign to defend Pegah by a number of English and European GLBT rights groups.
It comes just a day or so after an EU decision that GLBT refugees fleeing legalized persecution, torture and certain death in their home countries should be granted asylum.
The UK and other EU members have never stopped deporting GLBT victims. The English home office says that if they’re ‘discreet’ GLBT deportees won’t be harmed. What these bureaucrats forget is that if they’re being deported after claiming asylum because they’re facing death for being gay, the whole ‘discreet’ nonsense makes even less sense.
Eric
@tallskin: I’ve seen you on The Guardian, and your silly comments there as well. This is a US blog, so obviously it is going to focus on US gay issues. If you want the UK in it more go to a British blog.
Distingué Traces
Very pleased to see this.
Will it set a strong precedent for future policy, or are decisions on this kind of case pretty arbitrary?