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Tell KLM: Listen to Your LGBT Flight Attendants
  1. Signatures
    366 out of 500
    Petitioning
    1. Head of Media Relations, KLM (+ 1 other)
      Petitioning
      close
      • Head of Media Relations, KLM (Joyce Veekman)
      • Interim Press Officer, KLM (Saskia Kranendonk)
  2. Created By
    Michael Jones
    Boston, MA
About this Petition Petition Letter Petition Updates

LGBT flight attendants with KLM airlines have pleaded with the company not to send them to Iran, where LGBT people routinely face punishment as varied as beatings, imprisonment or the death penalty. Flights to Iran generally require a stayover in the country, meaning that these flight attendants could be at risk in the country just for being who they are.

KLM, however, has denied their request, saying that there are already too many flight attendants who have asked not to travel to Iran. As Radio Netherlands reports, "KLM has already allowed a number of stewardesses not to serve on flights to Iran because ‘unpleasant things happened to them there,' but the company says it cannot make any more exceptions. No further changes will be made unless it becomes really unsafe for personnel."

How much more unsafe does Iran have to get for LGBT people, before KLM understands the precarious position that these flight attendants are in? In the past thirty years alone, more than 100 LGBT people have been executed in Iran, and LGBT people are regularly detained in raids, sent to prison, and given lashes.

Flight attendants should be allowed to make up their own mind on whether they think traveling to Iran is safe. But KLM should not be in the business of forcing their employees to travel and stayover in a country that criminalizes homosexuality with the death penalty. Forcing employees to undego that level of danger could cost KLM flight attendants their lives.

Send KLM a message urging the company to listen to their LGBT flight attendants.

Recent Signatures

Please listen to your LGBT flight attendants

Dear KLM

Recently, a group of KLM flight attendants requested that they not be forced to travel on flights to Iran, a country with well known and harsh penalties for those perceived to be gay. This group of flight attendants, worried about their safety traveling to a country that punishes homosexuality with beatings, imprisonment, and in some cases the death penalty, asked KLM to stop putting gay flight attendants on flights to Iran.

KLM, however, refused their request. As Radio Netherlands reported, "KLM has already allowed a number of stewardesses not to serve on flights to Iran because ‘unpleasant things happened to them there,' but the company says it cannot make any more exceptions. No further changes will be made unless it becomes really unsafe for personnel."

But how much more unsafe does Iran have to get for LGBT people before your company is willing to act? In the past 30 years, more than 100 people have been executed in Iran because they were gay, and in recent years, there has been a harsh crackdown on people perceived to be homosexual, with police conducting raids, imprisoning men and women, and sentencing men and women to public lashings.

Does KLM really want to put its gay flight attendants in this kind of danger?

It should be up to each individual flight attendant whether they feel safe enough to travel to a country like Iran. But under no circumstances should your company force gay employees to travel to a place, and stayover in a place, where their safety and their lives could be put at risk.

Please listen to the concerns of your gay employees, and not reject their request simply because it's inconvenient for your company. KLM should act in the best interests of their employees, and in this case, given your current reaction, that's simply not what KLM is doing.

Thank you for your time.

[Your name]

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