GAY IRANIAN. EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT: NO TO EXPULSION TO IRAN

March 13, 2008: the European Parliament approved the urgent resolution promoted by the Radical European Parliamentarians Marco Cappato and Marco Pannella which asked for gay Iranian youth Mehdi Kazemi not to be expelled to Iran.
Approved with 46 affirmative votes, 2 against and 12 abstentions, the resolution is "an appeal to the interested member states so that they find a collective solution to assure that asylum or protection is granted in EU territory to Mehdi Kazemi, and that he isn’t expelled to Iran where he would be executed."
In order to intervene and save Mehdi’s life, more than 140 European Parliamentarians signed the letter of appeal addressed to European Commissioner Franco Frattini, Slovenian Prime Minister Janes Jansa, the current European President, UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Jan Peter Balkenende, Dutch Prime Minister and Hans-Gert Poettering, President of the European Parliament.
On the issue of the gay Iranian youth, Radical Euro-Parliamentarian Marco Cappato said:
“Someone said that there are judicial concerns that Mehdi Kazemi could face deportation and death. But it isn’t possible. The founding principles of the European Union with respect to human rights and to life aren’t abolished yet. If Kazemi is assassinated, noone will be able to blame bureaucratic procedure, unless we want to accept that Europe is only to be made of this: bureaucratic procedures of nation states (today Great Britain and the Netherlands, but it could be any of our countries) not powerful enough to save a life. The European Fatherland that we want would immediately consider asylum for Mehdi Kazemi. It is for this that we are mobilised, like the Non Violent Radical Party, together with 140 parliamentarians, and for this I now give thanks.” (Sources: Radicali.it, 13/03/2008)