A little while ago I mentioned the plight of a young Iranian who was seeking asylum in Britain because his boyfriend had been hanged in Iran for sodomy and he was fearful that returning to his homeland would be a one way ticket to the gallows. He was justified in his anxiety since an estimated 4000 gay men and lesbians are believed to have been hanged in Iran in the last 30 years. Mercifully, as you may have heard, the Home Office has now reconsidered the man's case and granted him asylum. Here is the story as reported by the BBC. Those of us who grew up in Britain at a time when homosexuality was a crime, will applaud the Home Secretary's decision and hope that a day will come when there will be no countries in the world where homosexuals have to live and love under threat of the death penalty.
2 comments:
Hooray! What scares me about this sort of discrimination is the escalation it can take, and that goes for anywhere. You start with gays, or blacks, or jews, or whatever, then we move on to other races/nationalities and then what? People with limps, squints, curly hair?...
These people quote the Bible as an excuse for persecuting gays for example, but what they forget is that Jesus preached tolerance and forgiveness...!
Although we are still so close to our own murky past in the treatment of homosexuality, I think our government should be pressing worldwide for the upholding of basic human rights in countries that still don't recognise them.
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