News
2006-03-09
Gay Iranian
asylum seekers in the Netherlands may be deported
Countering a
threat by the Netherlands to deport gay Iranian asylum
seekers back to their home country, Human Rights Watch
Countering a
threat by the Netherlands to deport gay Iranian asylum
seekers back to their home country, Human Rights Watch has
declared that they will likely be persecuted if forced
to return to Iran. The New York City–based
international human rights watchdog group made the
announcement on Tuesday after the Dutch immigration
minister moved to end a six-month moratorium on
deporting the refugees, Agence France-Presse reports.
"Men and women suspected of homosexual conduct
in Iran face the threat of execution," Scott Long,
director of the group's Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and
Transgender Rights Program, said in a statement.
"We have documented brutal floggings imposed by courts as
punishment, and torture and ill treatment, including
sexual abuse, in police custody."
He added that Iran's criminal code makes sexual
intercourse between men a crime "punishable by death"
and that the punishment for foreplay is 100
lashes, with execution on the fourth conviction. Women
who have sex with women face similar punishment.
Human Rights Watch was responding to a letter to
the Dutch parliament last month by the country's
immigration minister, who claimed that no Iranians had
been executed for being gay and that it was not
"impossible" for gay people to live in Iran. She also
suggested that religious minorities in the Islamic
state wouldn't be persecuted either, as long as they
kept a low profile.
According to Long, the Netherlands is legally
bound by the European Convention on Human Rights and
the United Nations Convention Against Torture to not
deport any asylum seekers fleeing the risk of torture or
other inhuman or degrading treatment. (Advocate.com)
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