Obama and Clinton condemn Brown over human rights deportations

I'll come to Obama and Clinton's condemnation of Gordon Brown, but first I want to express outrage at the European Commission's decision to scale back anti-discrimination. They have indicated that discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation, age and race or belief will no longer be covered and that they will now only focus only on disability.

Photo: Gloucestershire Pride (previously known as 'Rainbow Day') will be on Saturday 9th August this year with march, bands, stalls and more.

Green MEP Jean Lambert, who has been working with the Commission and other MEPs to develop a wide anti-discrimination directive says the Commission is concerned that such a policy would not be supported by all member states. Jean said: "Age and LGBT campaigners are sorely disappointed by the lack of leadership that the UK has taken, instead having chosen to develop its own legislation outside of the European process. This now leaves UK citizens open to discrimination across Europe and little hope of a horizontal directive coming back to the table in the short-term. I will continue to demand that this situation is reviewed with the intention of developing a directive covering all types of discrimination as soon as possible."

Meanwhile Gordon Brown has been condemned by Democrats - the Hillary Clinton's campaign team has condemned him for the UK governments policy to deport LGBT people to countries where they face persecution. This is an issue I have raised several times in the local press and wider, so I am delighted Clinton and Obama have also picked up on it (although we wont discuss here why, if I had to choose in the Democrats, I'd be going for Obama).

Malcolm Lazin, head of American gay rights group, Equality Forum, has urged the prospective presidential candidates to write letters to Gordon Brown to urge him to change his stance: "Equality Forum calls on Senators Clinton, McCain and Obama to send letters to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown opposing the deportation gay and lesbian Iranians in the UK to Iran. The Kazemi deportation is an opportunity for the presidential candidates to affirm their administration’s commitment to a policy opposing human rights deportations."

Hillary Clinton's campaign national security director said that it was tracking the case of Mehdi Kazemi, a 19-year-old gay man living in Britain who faces execution if returned to Iran. See some of the Green party actions on the Kazemi case here. At present the deportation order for Mr. Kazemi has been deferred and is now "under review."

Obama's campaign team have also spoken out - they said: "The United States and countries around the world have both a legal and a moral obligation to protect victims of persecution based on sexual orientation or gender identity. Under an Obama administration, the United States will lead by setting a strong example, which includes making clear that asylum for persecuted people is a bedrock principle of American and international law. Moreover, Obama will exert diplomatic pressure and employ other foreign policy tools to encourage other nations to address human rights abuses and atrocities committed against LGBT men and women."

The British government needs this wake up call and others - they seem more inclined to believe
Iran than human rights groups on the issue of how gay people are treated in that country. In March Lord West of Spithead, Home Office minister in the Lords, said: "We are not aware of any individual who has been executed in Iran in recent years solely on the grounds of homosexuality, and we do not consider that there is systematic persecution of gay men in Iran."

Yet in 2005 Iran sparked international outrage when it publicly executed two teenage boys. Mahmoud Asgari and Ayaz Marhoni were hanged because according to the regime they were rapists, however gay campaigners insist the boys were killed under Sharia law for the crime of homosexuality.