Save Pegah Emambakhsh from British Prison and Iranian Lashes

What will happen to Pegah now? What will happen to human
rights in the United Kingdom?

by Roberto Malini - EveryOne Group -  roberto.malini@annesdoor.com - www.annesdoor.com

Dear Friends, the Campaign of Flowers, as well as the entire
Campaign for Pegah, is based on the recovery of the values of
brotherhood and solidarity in actions for the
defence of human rights.

We live in a difficult age and unfortunately the governments, the
magistracy and often the most well-known humanitarian
organisations in the world have relegated the Universal Declaration
of Human rights, the Convention on the Status of Refugees and other
rules on which we base our level of civilisation and respect of
minorities behind other priorities: security, immigration
control, the defence of nations and families.

The EveryOne Group is committed to defending the dignity and lives
of refugees, but also to reminding the European governments
that laws concerning human rights exist, they are very clearly stated
and they must not be deliberately misinterpreted. To deport the
refugees towards unjust sentences is a crime against humanity and
there are no alibis for governments who are stained with such
crimes.

To sacrifice human rights for "security", for the concept
of “nation” is the same principle on which the National Socialist
Party based its rise to power in the 1920s and 1930s.
The EveryOne Group was created from an ideal and grows every day.
We work day and night in contact with the activists,
with the people who believe in human rights and with the better side
of the political world in order to contribute towards changing things.

Many people are asking us what will happen to Pegah now. Friends,
I have been studying persecutions and genocides
for the last 30 years, I have published books, made documentaries
and organized exhibitions, I am the curator of museums
about the Holocaust and Genocides.

Unfortunately it is easy to read the minds of Gordon Brown and
Jacqui Smith in this moment. They are angry because the problem
of the arbitrary and unjust deportations has come to light.
I hope I'm wrong, but the history of persecution generally repeats
a pattern. I believe the UK Government is once again studying
a way to refuse Pegah asylum, motivating the decision
thus: “Pegah is unable to prove she is homosexual and
therefore we believe her case has been inflated”.

I don't believe they will deport her to Iran because they know
she would be faced with torture and murder. According to the
Convention (that they are well aware of) they will give her
all the time she needs to find a third country willing to grant her asylum.
And Italy will enter the game. With this formula, the UK Government
is confident of savings its face, saving the
political career of Jacqui Smith (which is otherwise at risk) and,
after a period of caution for fear of an international scandal,
continue the deportations of refugees towards their death.

This is the truth, and if those who read these lines, think it over
and continue to accept this situation, they will become accomplices
of indifference and the new genocide.

The members of the EveryOne group will not do that, they will
continue to speak out for and write about the truth. And there’s only one truth:
homosexuality cannot be proven, because it is a state of the
mind. To ask for video or photographic evidences would be the most
serious violation of the intimacy and dignity of a human being.
To ask for signed testimonies would mean exposing the witnesses
in their native land to persecution and sentences. Moreover,
it would be a violation of the privacy of the witnesses themselves,
even in a democratic country, not only in a regime, to force them to
”come out”.
To ask for documents related to a sentence in the countries
of origin goes against human rights conventions that state
that the request for testimony must be related to local
laws. If in Iran homosexuality is persecuted, those who declare their
homosexuality in the country in which they request asylum have the right
to be recognized as a refugee and to be granted asylum. Without any "ifs"
or "buts". The rest is just criminal and repressive politics.

To get back to Pegah, she is an extraordinary woman and is a
symbol of the new fury against the weak and different. We must
continue to watch over her, but we must also ask
quite firmly for respect of the international laws that protect
refugees in the future. We must also
urge the media - TV and press - not to fill our heads with
frivolity and false problems, but to help us when we bring
cases of violation of human rights to their attention, because the British press
has shown itself to be at the service of those in power, to be unable
to understand and report the truth, at the cost of hiding
serious cases like Pegah Emambakhsh’s.

If the individual citizens don't represent the pride, the freedom
and the civilization of the United Kingdom, the country will slip
into a regime that the citizens themselves are creating.

We have the same problems here in Italy and we must commit ourselves
in the same way. There is a campaign underway right now,
one of discrimination and oppression against the Roma and Sinti (Gypsies).
Like during the Nazi period, the authorities are pursuing
pedlars and beggars and the press is supporting this persecution.
And as if this weren’t enough, we too treat the problem of asylum for refugees
in a superficial and unjust manner. More flowers are
needed!
A shower of flowers and common sense! We must stick by Pegah,
my friends, and keep our eyes open wide, so that the horizon of
human rights won't become just a distant line.

A message from Pegah Emambakhsh to all the groups and people who
are helping her.

Thanks to a wonderful person, an Iranian woman who lives in Italy and who
has been working for many years in the field of human rights, a friend we are
proud to have among the members of the EveryOne Group, we are in almost
daily contact with Pegah who is imprisoned in Yarl’s Wood prison. Today,
September 8th, 2007, Pegah has sent through this mutual friend a message for
all the groups, activists, politicians and everyday people who are trying to
solve her case.

”Dear friends,
as you well know, I am having a difficult time right now, with no assurances
for the future and with a lot of pain in my soul. I cannot deny that I am still
very frightened, and the separation from my beloved children hurts so much
that at times it seems unbearable. You don’t know how much of a comfort it is
to me to know that you are out there. You don’t even know me, yet you are working
for my cause, sticking your necks out and fighting for me, you write to me and
send me wonderful flowers. I wasn’t expecting anything like this. Even many
of the Iranians I was in contact with here in the United Kingdom abandoned me
when they found out the reason I had applied for asylum. I haven’t heard from
them since, they don’t want anything to do with me.
I never imagined there were groups like you around. I hope the future offers me
the opportunity to meet each and every person who has shown me so much friendship.
I am feeling much calmer, I am happy to have all this protection, all this love that instils in me
new energy and a desire to go on living. My dear friends, I am taking good care of the
flowers you sent me. I am so proud of them! They have aroused a bit of jealousy
in the other women here at Yarl’s Wood. I read the letters and postcards you have sent
me over and over again. I have had a lot of time to think about what is happening to me and,
in spite of not feeling ready to speak in public yet, once I get out of here I want to do something
for humanity. Many thanks to you all. Pegah Emambakhsh".


Everyone Group - Roberto Malini, Matteo Pegoraro, Dario Picciau, Ahmad Rafat, Steed Gamero,
Fabio Patronelli, Arsham Parsi, Glenys Robinson, Salvatore Conte -  roberto.malini@annesdoor.com

Late morning on September 11th Pegah Emambakhsh was released

from the Yarls Wood Detention Centre and is now back with people who will

love and care for her. The Court of Appeal has also agreed to hear her case. It will

be listed within the next couple of weeks and heard some time in the next few months,

we believe. Pegah was so emotional as she left the detention centre and her supporters in

Sheffield were in tears as they took her home.

The Iranian woman is no longer considered an illegal immigrant, she is now

a refugee awaiting asylum. Her first thoughts went to the friends who have

helped her and rescued her three times from the plane deporting her to her death. The

EveryOne group, which is responsible for organising a vast international campaign from Italy,

was the first to receive the news of her release, which the “Friends of Pegah

Campaign” confirmed today via e-mail. “It had appeared a desperate undertaking, one with

no possible solution,” commented Roberto Malini (Gruppo EveryOne) “because

Pegah’s destiny had already been decided. Instead we fought with all our might for her

life, and stirred up a vast people’s movement campaign. Pegah is our “Ann Frank”,

an innocent woman, in prison for no crime, destined for deportation and death

by stoning.

But this time we did it. Her executioners didn’t win, the right to live won instead.”

Pegah is free, but she is still not out of danger.

This time, of course, the Court of Appeal will evaluate her case carefully, there will be

no irresponsible superficiality that led to the first verdict, but we have to remain on our guard.

“Yes, because Pegah’s case could become the first stone of a new juridical

structure,” says Matteo Pegoraro (Gruppo EveryOne) “a structure, a building

in which we can finally celebrate justice and respect for human rights, not violence,

abuse and horror. The British Government, in fact, is at a junction, it has the chance

to follow the path of true civilization, which cannot disregard the protection of the weak

and persecuted, nor ignore that of brutality, injustice, complicity in persecution

and genocide.

Pegah now needs time to recover from the ordeal of the past few weeks. She also

needs to get back in touch with the ordinary business of living her life in peace and

tranquillity. “The pressure on Pegah must be slackened,” concludes Dario Picciau (Gruppo

EveryOne”, “but the battle for the human rights of refugees and the persecuted will continue.

Tomorrow the President of the European Parliament will forward to Gordon Brown,

the British Prime Minister, a previously-announced letter in which he firmly asks for

Pegah to be granted asylum and greater respect for the international laws that protect refugees.

In the meantime, members of the Gruppo EveryOne are preparing a document

that shows the violations committed by the United Kingdom and other democratic countries

towards immigrants fleeing from nations they are persecuted in, as very rarely they are granted

refugee status.

Pegah’s case must become the symbol of a change which is absolutely necessary in the

field of human rights.”

The EveryOne Group - Roberto Malini, Matteo Pegoraro, Dario Picciau, Ahmad Rafat, Steed Gamero, Glenys Robinson,

Arsham Parsi, Fabio Patronelli, Salvatore Conte. Email  roberto.malini@annesdoor.com

 matteopegoraro@emergentesgomita.com

websites: www.everyonegroup.com (soon online) - www. annesdoor.com

 http://www.henrymakow.com/the_real_patriarchy_is_plutocr.html

You have a gender link with it all being one sided ... no men's problems unless their gay...

Well i think the feminist movement has done what it was set out to do. Brainwash people to hate men and believe women are the underprivileged.. When its fucking ever1 really.. oh well...

Gloria Steinman "a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle" (fame)... was a CIA op...

Don’t forget folks there is only one gender (SEX) that needs caring about and that's lil wymen..

your all fools...

as for global warming (now climate change) it's a lie too, they are doing this to TAX us all and make us into a fucking 4th world nation/s...

peace and love though

Paul
sorry it's off topic, but really right on topic...

P.S. when the NEW WORLD ORDER gets what it wants, then they will kill us all off, it's really that simple...

anyway go back to sleep