Source: CNN, The Independent, BBC News, UK Gay News
LONDON -- After a year-long battle, 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.

"We keep cases under review where circumstances have changed, and it has been decided that Mr. Kazemi should be granted leave to remain in the UK based on the particular facts of this case," Britain's Home Office said in a written statement quoting an unnamed UK Border Agency spokesman.

Protests prompted the Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, to reconsider his case.

Family and supporters of Mehdi Kazemi, now 20, welcomed the decision yesterday not to send him back to Iran where his boyfriend was arrested by the state police and executed for sodomy.

Kazemi's uncle, known as Saeed, says his teenage nephew received an "unconditional" letter of asylum from the Home Office on Monday.

The office of Simon Hughes, the Liberal Democrat  member of parliament who took up Kazemi's cause, said the Home Office has granted Kazemi leave for five years.

Hughes said last night that he was “delighted” by the decision of the Home Office.

The MP played a vital role in Kazemi’s application for sanctuary in the UK following his return to the country from the Netherlands with a promise from Home Secretary Jacqui Smith that his case would be reviewed.

Kazemi arrived in the UK in 2004 on a student visa to study.  He later found out that his partner Parham had been arrested in Iran and had been forced to identify Mehdi as someone with whom he'd had a relationship.

Then, in April 2006, Kazemi learned that Parham had been hanged.   When his original application to remain in the UK failed and he learned that he would be deported, he fled to the Czech Republic a year ago, fearing execution if returned to Iran.

He then had a short stay in Germany before ending up in Venlo in the Netherlands, but a Dutch court ruled he could not claim asylum in the Netherlands.

"Like Mehdi and his family in Britain, I am delighted by the Home Office decision that my constituent Mehdi Kazemi can now stay in this country and will not be sent back to Iran," Hughes said in a press statement last night.

"As I have argued over the last 18 months, the Home Office should not send gay and lesbian people back to countries where they will be at risk of persecution, torture or worse," he said.

Hughes was expected to meet with Kazemi late Tuesday.

Peter Tatchell, of the London-based gay rights activist group OutRage, said the decision "is a victory of sorts in that Mehdi has gotten only a temporary leave to remain. At the end of five years, he will have to go through the whole appeal process again."

Tatchell cautioned that the decision still leaves other gay people unprotected, "Mehdi wouldn't have got leave to remain if there hadn’t been massive publicity of his case," he said. "There are many other gay and lesbian Iranian asylum seekers that are scheduled for deportation to Iran."

After reports in the London newspaper The Independent, Kazemi's case won support from MPs and peers who signed petitions supporting his claim for refugee status in Britain, eventually prompting the surprise intervention by Smith, the Home Secretary, who agreed to reconsider the case.

In an open letter to the British Government, Kazemi told the Home Secretary: "I wish to inform the Secretary of State that I did not come to the UK to claim asylum. I came here to study and return to my country. But in the past few months my situation back home has changed. The Iranian authorities have found out that I am a homosexual and they are looking for me."

Iranian human rights campaigners believe more than 4,000 gay men and lesbians have been executed since 1979.

Speaking from Strasbourg, Michael Cashman, the president of the Euopean Parliament’s all-party Intergroup for gay and lesbian rights, said this morning, "I wish to congratulate The Home Office and Government of the United Kingdom on the decision that I always knew in my heart they would take.

"Mehdi’s case clearly shows that NGOs and governments must work together to ensure that LGBT people are properly protected and dealt with in asylum cases."

Full article: Gay Iranian wins UK asylum fight | CNN
 Simon Hughes ‘Delighted’ that Mehdi, the Gay Iranian, Can Stay in UK | UK Gay News
Gay student who faced execution in Iran granted asylum in Britain | Independent
Gay Iranian granted asylum in UK | BBC News