**Please note - this is an old news item

Council Motion on LGBT Asylum Seekers Welcomed

LGBT Youth Scotland welcomes Glasgow City Council’s unanimous approval of a motion calling on the UK Government to reconsider its approach to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people who are seeking asylum in the UK.

The recent cases of Mehdi Kazemi from Iran and Jojo Jako Yakob, a young Syrian man whose case was highlighted in a front page feature in the Scotland on Sunday newspaper, exposed the plight of LGBT asylum seekers to the wider Scottish public. Their stories and a number of other cases that LGBT Youth Scotland is aware of would suggest that LGBT asylum seekers face additional barriers to making their case and being granted protection from deportation to countries where they are likely to face further persecution and threats to their lives.

We would like to thank Cllr Alex Dingwall and Cllr Paul Coleshill who brought this important issue to the Council and all those who supported the motion below to show that the people of Glasgow believe that all those who face persecution on any ground deserve our protection.

'Councillor Dingwall, seconded by Councillor Coleshill, moved that "Council welcomes the decision of Home Secretary Jacqui Smith to review the case of Mehdi Kazemi, a gay teenager from Iran who faced deportation back to Iran where his partner had been arrested and executed."

'However Council believes that the UK Government should urgently review all similar cases where Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual or Transgender asylum seekers face persecution, imprisonment or execution if returned to their country.

'Council applauds the decision to review this case and agrees to write to the Home Secretary to express our hope that the Home Secretary will take similar action in respect of future asylum applications where anyone with a well founded fear of persecution on account of their real or imputed sexual identity is able to seek and obtain asylum in accordance with the UN Refugee Convention.”

'The Council approved unanimously.’