This is why the U.S. should have beef with Iran.
Tuesday, May 20th, 2008If the United States wants to piss and moan about Iran being an evil state, it should do so because its government still forces its citizens to do things like this, not because it gets off on smack talking Israel and wants to develop a nuclear-energy policy.
Gay Iranian Wins UK Asylum Fight, from CNN.com:
LONDON, England — Britain has granted asylum to Mehdi Kazemi, a gay Iranian student who faced deportation from the United Kingdom and feared execution in Iran for being homosexual, officials confirmed Tuesday. […]
Kazemi, 19, moved to London to study English in 2004 but later discovered that his boyfriend had been arrested by Iranian police, charged with sodomy and hanged.
Fearing the same fate, he applied for asylum in Britain but was denied in 2007.
The office of Simon Hughes, the member of parliament who took up Kazemi’s cause, said the Home Office has granted Kazemi leave for five years.
Why doesn’t President Bush, or any other politician regardless of party affiliation, stand up for this kind of injustice in Iran? Why is empty rhetorical bombast and nuclear energy a greater threat to the civilized world than a government that unapologetically hangs people because of their sexual orientations? It’s nice to know where our priorities lie.