DUTCH TO END FREEZE ON DEPORTATION OF GAY IRANIANS (Updated)

The most respected daily newspaper in the Netherlands, De Volkskrant, reports on its front page today that Immigration Minister Rita Verdonk (left) has sent a letter to parliament informing the legislators that the conservative Dutch government of right-wing Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende  (right)  has decided to end the six-month freeze on deportation of gay Iranian refugees from the Islamic Republic of Iran's lethal anti-gay pogrom who live in the Netherlands.

The freeze was imposed after widespread public protest in the Netherlands and right across Europe against the hanging of two gay teens by the Islamic Republic of Iran last July (the website Gay Egypt this week published a new analysis of the hanging of the two Iranian teens which says it was a particularly cruel and painful method of execution); and against Iran's lethal anti-gay pogrom that includes entrapment, arrests, torture, blackmail, kidhapping, and the executions of a dozen more young gay men since last July. The Dutch political party D66 has asked for an emergency debate on ending the freeze, and Dutch sources tell me the debate could come as early as next week. The decision by the Dutch government to ship Iranian gays who aren't granted asylum back into the fiery furnace of Iranian government persecution is perfectly heartless, and will arouse the condemnation of all who care about human rights.

This story was, as one Dutch correspondent I spoke to told me, "completely under the media radar screen" in the Netherlands until I alerted several Dutch reporters to it. De Volkskrant reporter Theo Koele, who was tipped to the story by me through a New York-based Dutch correspondent of my acquaintance, e-mailed me late this afternoon to tell me that his front-page story this morning had already created a "big scandal" in parliament today.The Immigration Ministry had tried to pull a fast one and sneak through this retrograde decision without informing the public. The official letter announcing the decision had not even been posted on the Ministry's website, as it should normally have been. And even parliamentary correspondents for major Dutch media were unaware of it until I began my inquiries about it two days ago through Dutch journalist friends. Now, the issue is on the front-burner in The Netherlands' media and on the political agenda of the pro-gay political parties.

It is this decision by the Dutch government that explains the dire circumstances in which Saba Rawi -- a gay Iranian refugee who fled Iran after he was arrested for kissing his boyfriend in the street, then tortured, raped and abused by police -- now finds himself. Saba has been serving as the Dutch representative of the Persian Gay and Lesbian Organization (see the editorial I wrote for this week's issue of Gay City News, "Stop the Deportation of Saba Rawi.") Because he is well-known to the Iranian government's Intelligence Ministry -- under which the anti-gay crckdown is being conducted -- for his activism in the Netherlands on behalf of gay Iranians and his criticism of the regime of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, if Saba is sent back to Iran he faces certain arrest, torture, or worse.

The Dutch gay rights organization COC told De Volkskrant that the decision to end the freeze on deportation of gay Iranians is "revolting," because COC knows well the anti-gay campaign of terror against gay people being waged by the Iranian government -- an inhumane campaign of persecution that is also well-known to DIRELAND readers through my many articles reporting on it for Gay City News and other newspapers, which have been reprinted on this blog (links to all of them may be found below, at the end of this post).

There is a strong possibility that the Dutch parliament will vote to uphold the government's decision on gay Iranians. As Simon Forbes of the British gay rights group OutRage just told me in an e-mail, "If the Christian Democrats (44 seats out of 150) and the Peoples Party (Verdonk's party - 28 seats out of 150) vote as a bloc with the Pim Fortuyn  group (8 seats) and Geert Wilders (similar to Fortuyn) then this will be passed as they will then have 81 votes out of 150.Once done they won't go back on it. It will also have impact on asylum policy in the rest of Europe (Sweden will probably follow suit)."

We ask that you take five minutes to phone, fax, e-mail, or write immediately to the Dutch Ambassador in Washington to protest ending the freeze on deportation of gay Iranians from the Netherlands, an action which threatens them with being sent back into the hands of Ahmadinejad's torturers and executioners. Contact:

H.E. Boudewijn J. van Eenennaam, Ambassador of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, The Royal Netherlands Embassy, 4200 Linnean Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20008. The phone number is 202-244-5300; the fax number is 202-362-3430. The ambassador can be reached via e-mail at webmaster@netherlands-embassy.org.

FOR BRITISH READERS, contact:  H.E. Count Jan d’Ansembourg, Ambassador of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, The Royal Netherlands Embassy, 38 Hyde Park Gate, London, SW7 5DP.  Telephone: 0207 590 3200.  Fax: 0207 225 0947. Email: london@netherlands-embassy.org.uk

For background on the new wave of anti-gay repression in Iran, see my previous articles: July 21, 2005 -- Iran Executes Two Gay Teenagers (Updated); August 11 -- Iran Sources Question Rape Charges in Teen Executions; August 12 -- Two New Gay Executions Scheduled in Iran, Says Iranian Exile Group; August 17 -- Iran's Deadly Anti-Gay Crackdown: With Two More Executions Scheduled, the Pace of Repression Steps Up.August 25 -- Iran's Anti-Gay Purge Grows: Reports of New Executions. September 8 -- Iran and the Death of Gay Activism. September 20 -- "They'll Kill Me" -- A Gay Iranian Torture Victim Speaks of His Ordeal ; September 29 -- Iranian Gays Urgently Appeal for Help ; October 6 -- Canada Introduces UN Resolution Condemning Iran's Human Rights Record; November 24, "Save Us"-- A Gay Iranian Who Married His Partner Begs for Help from the West ; January 12, 2006 -- "Kidnapped: Another Gay Iranian Torture Victim Speaks".....January 27, 2006 -- "A Call to Solidarity: U.S. Gay Groups Must End Their Isolationism; February 8, 2006 -- "An Iranian Trans Torture Victim Speaks from Inside Iran." Also, don't miss Rob Anderson's excellent article in the November 10, 2005 New Republic, "How America's Gay Rights Establishment is Failing Gay Iranians."

A NEW WEBSITE I RECOMMEND  You should visit War Crimes Watch, a new website that is an outgrowth of the recently published book, In the Name of Democracy: Ameriican War Crimes in Iraq and Beyond (left), edited by my old friend Jeremy Brecher, Jill Cutler, and Brendan Smith. The website says it "helps Americans probe our government's responsibility for war crimes and our own responsibility for halting them. " Check it out by clicking here.