Italian politicians and officials said Rome could grant asylum to an Iranian lesbian who faces deportation from Britain and a possible death sentence back home. Meanwhile, gay rights proponents and left-wing politicians rallied for her cause in a protest on Monday outside the British embassy here.
Pegah Emambakhsh, 40, who fled to Britain in 2005 after her partner was arrested and tortured, is due to be expelled this week after her bid for residency was rejected, an advocacy group said.
Supporters in Britain are lobbying immigration authorities to show leniency. And activists in San Francisco have met with British representatives to press Emambakhsh's claim for asylum.
PHOTO: AFP
"If returned to Iran, she faces certain imprisonment, likely severe lashings and possibly even stoning to death. Her crime in Iran is her sexual orientation," said Peter Tatchell, of London-based gay rights charity OutRage.
The main Italian gay rights group, Arcigay, led about 100 people in a protest on Monday evening outside the British embassy. Some left-wing politicians from parties in Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi's center-left coalition joined the demonstration.
Arcigay has called on Prodi's government to offer Emambakhsh asylum.
"This life needs to be saved," Aurelio Mancuso, an Arcigay leader, yelled through a megaphone.
Government officials, including Justice Minister Clemente Mastella, have told reporters that Italy is ready to welcome the woman.
Italy, like other EU countries, does not have the death penalty, and began a push at the UN earlier this year for a worldwide moratorium on capital punishment.
Homosexuality is considered a crime in Iran and can carry the death penalty. In 2005, the Islamic regime hanged two teenagers on charges of homosexual acts.
Britain's Home Office declined to comment on Emambakhsh's case, saying it cannot discuss individual asylum cases.
Richard Caborn, a former British sports minister and a lawmaker for the northern English city of Sheffield, where Emambakhsh has lived since 2005, said he had won a temporary delay of her deportation and was planning to press British Home Secretary Jacqui Smith over the case.
"Maybe they wanted proof, but I don't know what proof I could have offered," Italian daily La Repubblica quoted Emambakhsh as saying on Sunday. "I'd rather die than go back to Iran, where something more terrible and painful than death awaits me."
The Burmese junta has said that detained former leader Aung San Suu Kyi is “in good health,” a day after her son said he has received little information about the 80-year-old’s condition and fears she could die without him knowing. In an interview in Tokyo earlier this week, Kim Aris said he had not heard from his mother in years and believes she is being held incommunicado in the capital, Naypyidaw. Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, was detained after a 2021 military coup that ousted her elected civilian government and sparked a civil war. She is serving a
China yesterday held a low-key memorial ceremony for the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) not attending, despite a diplomatic crisis between Beijing and Tokyo over Taiwan. Beijing has raged at Tokyo since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi last month said that a hypothetical Chinese attack on Taiwan could trigger a military response from Japan. China and Japan have long sparred over their painful history. China consistently reminds its people of the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, in which it says Japanese troops killed 300,000 people in what was then its capital. A post-World War II Allied tribunal put the death toll
‘NO AMNESTY’: Tens of thousands of people joined the rally against a bill that would slash the former president’s prison term; President Lula has said he would veto the bill Tens of thousands of Brazilians on Sunday demonstrated against a bill that advanced in Congress this week that would reduce the time former president Jair Bolsonaro spends behind bars following his sentence of more than 27 years for attempting a coup. Protests took place in the capital, Brasilia, and in other major cities across the nation, including Sao Paulo, Florianopolis, Salvador and Recife. On Copacabana’s boardwalk in Rio de Janeiro, crowds composed of left-wing voters chanted “No amnesty” and “Out with Hugo Motta,” a reference to the speaker of the lower house, which approved the bill on Wednesday last week. It is
FALLEN: The nine soldiers who were killed while carrying out combat and engineering tasks in Russia were given the title of Hero of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea North Korean leader Kim Jong-un attended a welcoming ceremony for an army engineering unit that had returned home after carrying out duties in Russia, North Korean state media KCNA reported on Saturday. In a speech carried by KCNA, Kim praised officers and soldiers of the 528th Regiment of Engineers of the Korean People’s Army (KPA) for “heroic” conduct and “mass heroism” in fulfilling orders issued by the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea during a 120-day overseas deployment. Video footage released by North Korea showed uniformed soldiers disembarking from an aircraft, Kim hugging a soldier seated in a wheelchair, and soldiers and officials
RSS