Petrelis Files

NYT Reverses Reporting on Iran's Gay Teen Hangings

[This was sent to Ms. Mathis, spokeswoman for the paper, over the weekend, and I hope to receive a reply from her on Monday morning. This reversal in reporting a key fact is significant.]

Catherine Mathis
The New York Times

Dear Catherine,

As a gay activist, I have been involved with organizing street protests and candlelight memorials for Iranian teenagers Ayaz Marhoni and Mahmoud Asgari since July 2005, when news and horrific photos of their hanging in Mashad began circulating on the web.

I believe one reason they were executed was because they engaged in homosexual relations, and that the Iranian government threw extra charges at the boys to obscure the inherent gay element to their hangings.

There have been questions raised by non-governmental organizations, particularly Human Rights Watch, about why Marhoni and Asgari were put to death in the public square, and HRW has never gone on record stating conclusively either that the boys were gay or killed for homosexual relations.

In the July 29, 2005, Times article by Nazila Fathi on the case, she never used the words gay or homosexual, even to report that in the gay and human rights communities, debate raged about whether the hangings were gay-related or part of a larger anti-gay campaign by the Islamic Republic's leaders. Fathi also prominently cited the investigation by HRW and quoted a researcher for the NGO high-up in the story.

The Times today reports on gays in Iran, and the Asgari and Marhoni hangings are now presented in the context of the country's attitudes toward its LGBT citizens, and they are for the first time identified as gay.
From the article:

For a country that is said to have no homosexuality, Iran goes to great lengths to ban it. Gays are punished by lashing or death if it is proved that they have had homosexual relations. Two gay teenagers were executed in 2005 in Mashad, a northeastern city.

This raises the question of what has changed from July 2005 to today write unquestionably that the teenagers were gay?

Given that the Times has gone from one extreme to another in its reporting on this very important case, on a key element, an explanation is called for.

I hope you can answer my question and address my concerns at the beginning of the work week.

Best regards,

Michael Petrelis

Taken from the NY Times of July 29, 2005:

Human rights advocates have condemned the execution last week of two young men convicted of sexually assaulting a 13-year-old boy, calling it a violation of international law.

The ages of the two men were not announced by Iranian officials at the time of the execution, which took place on July 19 in Mashad in northeast Iran. But Human Rights Watch said they were 18 and 19, and the younger man was a juvenile when the assault took place.

"Death is an inhumane punishment, particularly for someone under 18 at the time of his crimes," Hadi Ghaemi, an Iran researcher for Human Rights Watch, said in a statement issued Wednesday. "All but a handful of countries forbid such executions. Iran should as well."

The two were hanged in public in Mashad after they received 228 lashes. They were convicted of raping a 13-year-old boy 14 months earlier, theft and drinking alcohol, which is banned under Iran's Islamic law. Their lawyer, Ruhollah Rezazadeh, was quoted by ISNA, the student news agency, as saying that one of the young men was under 18 when he was executed. [...]

ISNA carried photographs of the execution showing two hooded men tightening ropes around the necks of two blindfolded young men. [...]