Petrelis Files

Iran Has Executed Two More Gays

The New York-based Human Rights Watch reports today that Iran has executed two men for engaging in homosexual behavior. Interesting that Human Rights Watch doesn't mention the public hanging of two gay teenage boys in July in Mashad, in its announcement.

OutRage! UK called attention to the latest executions on November 14. Here is an excerpt from their release, along with the email address of Iran's president, to whom letters of protest should be sent:

>Two more young men were hanged in a public square in Iran after being found guilty of “lavat” (a homosexual relationship), according to reports in the semi-official daily newspaper, Kayhan, on 13 November.

>The two men, identified only as Mokhtar N. and Ali A., were aged respectively 24 and 25 years old.

>They were hanged in public in Shahid Bahonar Square in the northern city of Gorgan.

>The newspaper said the “criminal past” of the two young men included kidnapping and rape, but the press report made it clear that the “crime” for which they were hanged was “lavat”, which means sex between men or sodomy.

>Human rights groups point out that Iran often pins false charges of rape, kidnapping, spying, alcoholism and adultery on people it executes, in order to minimise public sympathy for the victims and discourage public protests.

>The UK LGBT human rights group OutRage! is urging people to email protests to the Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad:

> ahmadinejad@president.ir

The following is excerpted from the Human Rights Watch release:

>Iran’s execution of two men last week for homosexual conduct highlights a pattern of persecution of gay men that stands in stark violation of the rights to life and privacy, Human Rights Watch said today.

>On Sunday, November 13, the semi-official Tehran daily Kayhan reported that the Iranian government publicly hung two men, Mokhtar N. (24 years old) and Ali A. (25 years old), in the Shahid Bahonar Square of the northern town of Gorgan.

>The government reportedly executed the two men for the crime of "lavat." Iran’s shari`a-based penal code defines lavat as penetrative and non-penetrative sexual acts between men. Iranian law punishes all penetrative sexual acts between adult men with the death penalty. Non-penetrative sexual acts between men are punished with lashes until the fourth offense, when they are punished with death. Sexual acts between women, which are defined differently, are punished with lashes until the fourth offense, when they are also punished with death. [...]