How Not To Get Beheaded In Iran If You're Gay: Be Discreet, Says Home Secretary

Remember gay teen Mehdi Kazemi, who the British government wanted to pack home to Iran where he faced certain death? After a huge outcry he was given a reprieve, but the story doesn't end there. Home Secretary Jacqui Smith has proven herself to be a true c*** (yes, she really does deserve that moniker) in her response to calls for a halt to the deportation of gay and lesbian asylum seekers to Iran.

In a leaked letter to a Liberal Democrat peer, she had this to say: "We recognise that the conditions for gay and lesbian people in Iran – and many other countries – are such that some individuals are able to demonstrate a need for international protection. We do not, however, accept that we should make the presumption that each and every asylum-seeker who presents themselves as being of a particular nationality or sexuality, regardless of their particular circumstances, should automatically be ... allowed to remain in the UK...With particular regard to Iran, current case law handed down by the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal concludes that the evidence does not show a real risk of discovery of, or adverse action against gay and lesbian people who are discreet about their sexual orientation."

Maybe if Mrs Smith was a little more discreet about being such a c***, people like Stonewall's Ben Summerskill wouldn't be so outraged. Says he: "You only have to listen to people who were terrorised by the Metropolitan Police in the 1950s and 1960s to know that telling gay people to live discreetly is quixotic."

During interrogation in 2006, Kazemi's former boyfriend named Mehdi as his lover. He was executed.