Gay Iranian teen faces death if deported

A court in the Netherlands has ruled that Mehdi, the gay Iranian teenager, has to be returned to the United Kingdom, where he faces deportation back to Iran.

The young Iranian said he is frightened that he will be executed if he is return to Iran.

Before leaving Iran in 2004 to continue his education in England – he had a student visa issued by the UK authorities, Mehdi had a boyfriend. It was while he was in the UK, he learned that the Iranian authorities had arrested his boyfriend, who had given interrogators Mehdi’s name before being executed. (Click HERE for Mehdi’s full story)

One of the main reasons that Mehdi’s asylum appeal failed was because the tribunal “judge” found that dates on Iranian paperwork did not tally with what the teenager had said, his uncle, who lives in southern England, told UK Gay News.

The tribunal apparently refused to accept that the Iranian calendar is different from the Western (Gregorian) calendar.

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They Hang Gay Teenagers, Don’t They? A gay Iranian teenager whose asylum claim was denied in the UK fled to the Netherlands, and then to Germany. The Germans returned him to the Dutch, who are now threatening to return him to the Brits, who have already decided to return the gay teenager to Iran. And you know what they do to gay teenagers in Iran, right? (Seattle Stranger - USA, December 20)

Young Gay Iranian Soon on His Way Back to UK? Mehdi, the young gay Iranian who fled the United Kingdom in April, could be back in the country within weeks, his uncle revealed last night. (UK Gay News, October 17, 2007)

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Don’t Leave Iranian Gays Abandoned. By Mehdi. This article was written by a 19-years-old gay Iranian who tells how, while he was a student in London, his boyfriend back home was executed for being gay. Mehdi says he was scared of returning home and meeting the same fate when his student visa expired last year – and of his asylum application to the Home Office. (UK Gay News, April 18, 2007)