After three years battling the UK's asylum system, a lesbian woman from Iran has been granted refugee status. In 2007 Pegah Emambakhsh, was within hours of being deported from UK as a failed refugee seeker, but she can now stay in the UK, it was revealed yesterday. She fled Iran almost four years ago when her sexuality became known to the religious authorities. Her same-sex partner had been arrested and was subsequently tortured and sentenced to death, and her father was also arrested, interrogated and tortured for information on her whereabouts. Many LGBT people in Iran have been tortured and killed since the Iranian Revolution in 1979.
Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News Staff
First published: Friday, 13th February 2009 - 10:00am