Iran executes three men on homosexuality charges
Saeed Kamali Dehghan, guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 7 September 2011 14.41 EDT
The men, only identified by their initials, were hanged on Sunday in the south-western city of Ahvaz, the capital of Iran's Khuzestan province.
"The three convicts were sentenced to death based on the articles 108 and 110 of Iran's Islamic penal code, for acts against the sharia law and bad deeds," the Isna agency quoted a judiciary official in Khuzestan as saying.
Iran Human Rights, an independent NGO based in Norway, said the men were charged with "lavat" sexual intercourse between two men. It is not clear whether the three men were homosexuals or merely smeared with homosexualityaccused of being gay.
Isna said the men were also convicted of robbery and kidnapping.
Three other people were also executed on the same day on charges related to drug-dealing, rape and robbery.
It is believed that the execution of the three men is the first time for many years that any Iranians have been given death sentences on the basis of their sexuality.
In the past, Iran has executed convicts for homosexuality but they were typically simultaneously convicted of other charges that carried the death sentence, such as male rape.
"The executions for sodomy might be among the rare cases where the Iranian authorities admit to having executed men convicted of homosexual acts ... Iranian authorities normally present such cases as rape, but rape has not been mentioned in this case," said Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, a spokesman for IHR.
Mohammad Mostafaei, a prominent Iranian lawyer who has represented people accused of homosexuality and now lives in exile in Norway, said in an email: "It is not clear whether these three men had any lawyers or were tried without legal representation. Who are their lawyers? I believe they are innocent.
"We should not forget what [president] Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in a speech during his visit to New York for the UN general assembly when he said we don't have homosexuals in Iran and no one will be punished for homosexuality in the country. Many innocent people have indeed been sentenced to death or hanged in secret based on such ambiguous accusations in Iran [in recent years]."
Ahmadinejad famously said in New York: "In Iran, we don't have homosexuals like you do in your country. This does not exist in our country."
In August 2010, an 18-year-old Iranian, Ebrahim Hamidi, a client of Mostafaei,faced execution on charges of homosexuality on the basis of "judge's knowledge" which is a legal loophole that allows for subjective judicial rulings where there is no conclusive evidence. Hamidi, who has been temporarily reprieved after his case drew widespread international attention, is not gay.
In July, human rights groups raised alarm over a sharp escalation in the use of capital punishment in Iran where almost two people a day were executed in the first six months of 2011.
Islam advises against execution during the holy month of Ramadan but capital punishments have again taken place since the fasting month came to an end last week.
Iran executes three men on homosexuality charges | World news | The Guardian
Iran: where bill posters are raped
The Times July 06, 2010 12:00AM
AMONG the many harrowing tales from Iranian refugees, few can match Farrokh's account of how he was raped by the Basij for sticking posters on a wall.
Sitting in his flat in the southern city of Kayseri, the 27-year-old,
who is gay, told his story yesterday, growing agitated and chain-smoking while he did so.
"I still can't believe anyone could do such a thing," he said.
Though Farrokh is far from Iran he would still not give his full name or be photographed face-on for fear of reprisals against his family. He was a human rights activist working clandestinely for the Iranian Railroad for Queer Refugees, a group that supports homosexuals in a country where gay sex is punishable by lashing or execution.
In last year's presidential elections, Farrokh campaigned for Mehdi Karroubi, a reformist candidate. He then supported the opposition movement in his home town of Karaj, an hour's drive from Tehran.
On the symbolically important 40th day after the death of Neda Agha Soltan - a young woman whose shooting death made her a worldwide icon of the opposition - he went out at night with two friends to stick pictures of her on walls. Two plainclothes security agents in a passing car caught them and took them to a Basij base.
They were made to stand blindfolded in a yard for 90 minutes and were asked repeatedly whether they were working for the MKO - an exiled opposition movement. Farrokh was then taken alone to a classroom where the two men began hitting him.
His problems really began when one of the men noticed that he had dyed hair and plucked eyebrows - a sign of being gay in Iran. They bludgeoned him with batons, kicked him and accused him of besmirching the honour of men. "I was begging for mercy," he said. "I told them I was a transsexual . . . I was saying I need a sex-change operation."
Transgender people are at least tolerated by the regime but it made no difference. They took him to another room and left him.
When they returned they told him to take off his jeans and underpants. "I did what most people do - I started crying," he said.
They told him mockingly that he was beautiful and they would like to do to his mother and sister what they were about to do to him.
The men knocked him to the ground face down and one man knelt on his head and arms while the other raped him. Farrokh passed out. When he came round he was naked but alone.
"I don't even know if he finished or if he was the only one," he said. In the small hours of the morning he was given his clothes back and taken to another building, where his father was waiting. The Basij had found his number on Farrokh's mobile telephone.
"We never talked of what happened but they knew," he said of his family.
For days he slept, but only fitfully, suffered fainting fits and was afraid to be alone. Then he went back to his human rights work. "I needed to look at it like a fight, a war situation. It helped me persuade myself that what happened was not a catastrophe," he said.
Farrokh fled to Turkey in December. Another man, with whose former partner Farrokh had begun a relationship, recorded his telephone conversations and threatened to betray him. His house was raided days after he left. He is awaiting settlement in the West but yearns for his home and family.
Farrokh believes the regime uses rape as a weapon. He said of his attackers: "They don't know what they are doing.
They see the (Supreme) Leader as their god and they think whatever they do to serve him is moral and good.
"What's important to the regime right now is survival and nothing is off limits," he said.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/new...ry-e6frg6so-1225888214366 The Australian[/url
