Who wants Pegah’s Blood?

Roberto Malini - Matteo Pegoraro - Gruppo EveryOne | 22.08.2007 00:50 | Migration | Repression | Sheffield

The case of Pegah Emambakhsh is the umpteenth case of violation of human rights by our governments.
The EveryOne Group, the activists and the politicians who have joined the appeal for her life have obtained a postponement until 28th August. But we must not be deceived, the government is just waiting for public opinion to be distracted by other events in order to force Pegah up the plane steps and send her to her death.. Similar deportations have already taken place, even in recent times, in the United Kingdom and other countries which like to be defined “democratic”. If we abandon Pegah, we will surrender our humanity and “they” will win.

The case of Pegah Emambakhsh demonstrates that the fundamental human rights are still today being walked over, and not only by the totalitarian regimes, but by countries that consider themselves civilized. The laws of the Islamic Republic of Iran foresee torture and capital punishment through stoning for lesbians and hanging for male homosexuals. These are inhumane forms of persecution and it is no coincidence that where human rights are concerned, Iran has been compared to Hitler’s Germany.
Democratic countries believe themselves to be better than that, and put the greatest value on human life. For this reason they have accepted and undersigned the European Convention of Human Rights that asserts that:

"Not one can be deported if their life is in danger, so deporting LGBT asylum seekers is considered an infringement of this agreement".

It is an ideal that the whole world shares, as long as it is only in writing. But when real cases have come up, suddenly the governments try to find all kinds of excuses in order to deport the homosexual refugees to their countries of origin, denying their legitimate right of political asylum and, in other words, allowing them to be murdered.

We are not talking about the distant past: in 2005 the Japanese Government denied the right of asylum to a refugee who had fled from Iran where he was condemned to death. The same year the highly civilized Sweden denied asylum to another gay Iranian. In 2006 Holland stopped deporting Iranian homosexuals to their deaths in their native land, but it was only “a temporary” decision. The United Kingdom, thanks to the complicity of the media, hides a tragic truth characterized by a political decision to deny asylum to homosexuals who have escaped from countries in which they are persecuted.
Some homosexuals waiting for deportation from the United Kingdom towards Iran have preferred suicide to the prospect of walking up the plane steps to their deaths.

In order to facilitate the job of foreign governments insensible to the human rights, the Iranian judges condemn the homosexuals for their sexual leaning and also add other crimes that facilitate expulsion: corruption of minors, using violence, conspiracy etc

In the United Kingdom and Germany homosexuals are often asked to prove their sexual leaning. It is yet another shameful excuse to deport them, because it means the refugees would have to show their inquisitors practical evidence of sexual actions or video-photographic documents proving such actions have taken place, since apart their word no other proof exists.

Thanks to the appeal of the EveryOne Group, sustained by thousands of people - including politicians, intellectuals, activists, everyday citizens and many young people disgusted by the horror of the prejudice that makes even the countries that claim to be civilized appear uncivilized - the magistrate has postponed the Pegah’s deportation from 23rd to 28th August.
The British Government is aiming to play for time, hoping that public opinion will move its attention to other more futile arguments, like the call up of Beckham for the England soccer team.

The EveryOne Group will continue to speak up for Pegah’s right to live, and the rights of all other victims of prejudice who have escaped from the regimes that persecute them to be respected. The group will speak up so that they will find asylum in the countries in which we all live, pay our taxes, vote and obey the laws.
Do not leave the EveryOne Group to fight alone, do not abandon Pegah, do not close your eyes, do not cover your ears, do not deaden your hearts and consciences.

Indifference is equivalent to complicity in murder and if we want the representatives of our government to change, and become just men we must supervise their actions and reprimand them when they make mistakes, when they throw the first stone.

We mustn’t let their smiles deceive us, their fine clothes, their sweet talk:
even Hitler’s executioners had the appearance of respectable people. Horror and cruelty are clever at masking themselves: they are clean, impeccable, they wear wide smiles and sometimes even crowns on their heads. If we want to stop them spilling blood, we must learn to observe them “through X-rays”.

Thousands of people all over the world are asking for Pegah’s life to be spared, for her rights to be respected. We have published just some of their names, but we feel them all close to Pegah, to Yasmine K (the Iranian lesbian woman who is about to be deported from Germany) to those who risk their lives because of the prejudice, of the inhumanity of those who govern us, and to the guilty slothfulness of the media.

For the EveryOne Group: Roberto Malini and Matteo Pegoraro

EveryOne Group