CAGS
Croydon’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community group

CAGS, PO BOX 464
LONDON
SE25 4AT

www.cags.org.uk info@cags.org.uk

25th August 2006

Dear Richard Ottoway (and Andrew Pelling and Malcolm Wicks),

We notice that, at the time of writing, you have not added your signature to the 138 MPs on the Early Day Motion 2616. Over the last year the atrocities referred to in the motion have increased and brought world-wide condemnation.

We appreciate that it can be difficult to deal with Parliamentary matters during the summer recess, but, as lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered people in Croydon, we would urge you to sign the EDM in recognition that these killings are unacceptable.

Yours sincerely,


For Croydon Area Gay Society

EDM 2616                             IRANIAN EXECUTIONS OF MINORS                           19.07.2006

Bryant, Chris – Labour MP for Rhondda

That this House commemorates the anniversary of the public hanging on 19th July 2005 of two gay teenage boys, Mahmoud Asgari and Ayaz Marhoni, in Mashad in Iran;

notes that at the time of their alleged crimes the two boys were at most 17 years and possibly younger;

further commemorates the hanging in Nekra in northern Iran on 15th August 2004 of a 16 year old girl, Ateqeh Sahaleh, on charges of un-Islamic behaviour;

condemns these and all other Iranian executions of under-age minors, which are in direct contravention of the International Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which Iran is a signatory;

notes that as many as 4,000 Iranians have been executed for their homosexuality since the Islamic Revolution in 1979;

and calls on Iran to stop its campaign of torture, harassment and ill-treatment against gays and to end all executions of minors.