zecchinetta

The British government is 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 40-year-old Pegah Emambakhsh has become front-page news in Italy while going almost unreported in Britain. A leading member of the rightwing opposition, led by Silvio Berlusconi, has joined a government minister in proposing that Emambakhsh should be given asylum in Italy if Britain insisted that she had to leave.

The woman was due to be put on a flight to Tehran on August 16th. But her removal was delayed to allow for further consultation. Italian lesbian, gay and civil rights groups have called for a sit-in outside the British embassy in Rome on Monday. In the last few days campaigners have also conducted meetings with the British ambassador, Edward Chaplin.

Barbara Pollastrini, the equal opportunities minister in Italy's centre-left government, said there were "obvious risks" for 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 that 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 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.

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 Emambakhsh, who had been declared "an enemy of public order" on websites close to the Iranian authorities, risked death by stoning or hanging. 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.

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.” That’s all well and good, but, on August 13th, after Emambakhsh's application for asylum was rejected, she was arrested in Sheffield.

Fucking England can’t get it right, ever: ASBO’s, ass-backwards deportation rulings, and the publicly acceptable obscene levels of bigotry, and stereotyping. I wish I didn’t have to go back there, but I gotta visit the family every now and then. I detest the country, passionately; the backwardness, ignorance, and the sense of self-importance. It’s a big reason why us Brits are fleeing by the thousands to set up shop elsewhere in the world. Soon, the only ones that’ll be left are the dumb fucks harking back to the “good old days” of the British Empire, and the poor bastards who can’t afford to leave.