International Social Activist...

It was late last night and I was watching the Glenn Beck show.

He made an analogy to the S.S. St. Louis, which led to deaths of hundreds of Jews in Hitler's camps, and spoke of a young gay Iranian man, studying in London (whose boyfriend was executed in Iran for being gay), and was denied asylum in UK and Netherlands.

Then, Irshad Manji gets on and she advocates that we email the first openly gay Muslim member of the UK parliament.

I'm sitting in front of my PC, so what the heck?

Here's what I got back this AM

Dear Jeremy

I am the first openly gay member of the House of Lords.  I was shocked and saddened to read about Mehdi Kazemi.  Mehdi is a gay teenager from Iran and faced imminent deportation.  He came to London to study in 2004.  His boyfriend was executed for being gay in April 2006.  Over 4,000 men and women face execution in Iran for being gay.

I raised this issue in the UK parliament on Tuesday and I asked the UK government to reconsider his case.  I am please to tell you that yesterday the UK government said they would reconsider his case and I am hopeful that he will be allowed to stay.

Your emails and support are gratefully received and I will let you know what the final decision is.  I have forwarded your letter to the government as a show of support from concerned individuals from America.

Thank you for writing to me and rest assured I will do my best to help this young man.

Kind regards,

Waheed

(Lord Alli)

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From: Jeremy Epstein ]
Sent: 14 March 2008 04:46
To: waheed alli
Subject: help the persecuted Iranian homosexual

Just heard about this story on the news. As a Jew, the analogy that Glenn Beck made to S.S. St. Louis was poignant.

I hope you'll send the message to the Iranians that this type of persecution isn't acceptable.

Respectfully,

Jeremy