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A young Iranian actress named Kiana Firouz will attend the London premiere tonight of a film in which she plays a lesbian seeking asylum in Britain because the Iranian authorities are pursuing her. The Home Office rejects her application and sends her back to the Islamic republic, where homosexuality is a crime punishable by death.

Unfortunately for Kiana Firouz the film is not make-believe. It is based on her life. The Home Office has denied her asylum and she now faces the prospect of deportation to Iran followed by flogging, execution or both.

“Definitely she will be killed,” says Ramin Goudarzi Nejad, the London-based director of Cul-de-Sac.

“She would be arrested ... She would be tortured. She could face execution not for being a lesbian but for embarrassing the regime,” said Paul Canning, editor of the website LGBT Asylum News.

“She will be in incredible danger, not only because she’s clearly gay but because the film does not show the Iranian authorities in a good light. They will probably seek to make an example of her,” said one of her legal representatives.

Jafar Panahi, one of Iran’s leading film-makers, is at present locked up in the infamous Evin prison in Tehran for allegedly making a film critical of the regime. Yesterday a pro-reform website carried a claim that he has been on hunger strike since Sunday. Panahi’s plight was brought to the world’s attention at the Cannes Film Festival this week when the ... >>>