Iranian Teen Could Be Sent To Death

Updated: Thurs, March 13

"If I return to Iran I will be arrested and executed," 19-year-old Mehdi Kazemi pleads with Jacqui Smith, Britain's Home Secretary, after his application for asylum was rejected most recently by a Dutch court (where he fled to avoid deportation) and Britain last year. In lieu of the Dutch ruling, Mr. Kazemi will be returned to Britain where he faces deportation back to Iran. Britain's Home Office is under increased pressure from human rights activists to reconsider Mehdi Kazmi's case.

In a statement, Home Secretary Jacqui Smith announced that Mr. Kazemi's application for asylum would be reconsidered:

"Following representations made on behalf of Mehdi Kazemi, and in the light of new circumstances since the original decision was made, I have decided that Mr Kazemi's case should be reconsidered on his return to the UK from the Netherlands."

Two years ago Mr. Kazmi's boyfriend was hanged for sodomy in Iran. During interrogation, the boyfriend named Mr. Kazmi as one of his partners.

In a letter to Jacqui Smith, Mr. Kazemi also wrote:

“I did not come to the UK to claim asylum. I came here to study and return to my country. But . . . my situation has changed. The Iranian authorities have found out that I am a homosexual and they are looking for me. I cannot stop my attraction towards men... I was born with the feeling and cannot change this fact..."

It is believed that 4,000 gay men and lesbians have been executed in Iran since the revolution in 1979. At a September 2007 Columbia University conference, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (pictured above) denied the existence of gays in Iran, baffling media and activists.

How could there be no gays, they asked? The answer is simple when you consider the reason why Mehdi Kazemi needs asylum and Iran's continued mission to render homosexuals in the nation extinct.

More on Gay Life in Iran:
Fleeing Anti- Gay Iran
The Forgotten Gays of Iran
Gay, Persian and Nowhere To Turn

_{Photo: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad speaks at a forum for world leaders at Columbia University September 24, 2007 in New York City. © Stephen Chernin-Pool/Getty Images}