Gay Iranian teen faces deportation
A gay teenager from Iran who fled the UK for the Netherlands last year after his appeal for asylum was refused by the Home Office has been arrested by Dutch authorities.
He is reported to be due to be returned to the UK next week, where he may face deportation back to Iran.
19-year-old Mehdi Kazemi is currently being held by police in Rotterdam pending his return to the UK.
According to a relative he is on suicide watch and has threatened to go on hunger strike.
At the end of last year a court in the Netherlands, where he was arrested, ruled he must be returned back to the UK.
He fled England last spring after his visa ran out and a Home Office tribunal dismissed his appeal against deportation.
It is feared that if Mehdi is ordered to be deported back to Iran he may face execution for being gay.
Mehdi left Iran in 2004 to travel to England on a student visa and continue his education.
While he was in the UK he learned that Iranian authorities had arrested his boyfriend back in Iran, and that his boyfriend had been forced to name Mehdi as someone with whom he had had a relationship.
