Iran is a nation that makes the news bulletin almost daily, usually because of global concerns over the nuclear capabilities that the Middle East state may or may not be developing. However there is good reason for the global GLBT community to be concerned about Iran – recent confirmation that the ruling government has been carrying out regular executions of gays and lesbians.
The admission was made by an Iranian Parliamentarian who was in London for the Inter-Parliamentary Union peace conference. The Times in England broke the story after using Freedom of Information to obtain meeting minutes, wherein the Iranian official affirmed that his country has a death policy for same-sex attracted individuals. His acknowledgement of the executions is confirmation of what human rights groups have suspected for years, with some groups estimating that over 4000 Iranian gays and lesbians have been executed since the imposition of strict Islamic (Sharia) law in 1979.
At first glance, the admission appears to be highly contradictory to the claims made earlier in the year by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad when he famously stated in a speech at Columbia University in New York City that, ‘In our country we don’t have homosexuals.’ However, as Canadian-based activist group Iranian Queer Organisation (IRQO) observes, Mr Ahmadinejad’s denial was not a demonstration of his ignorance about the existence of gays and lesbians, but rather ‘an intense denial of queer rights in Iran . . . that any question regarding the situation and social rights of homosexuals is irrelevant and meaningless.’
These two official responses add weight to the personal accounts of harassment, torture, and death coming out of Iran. In 2005 the Iranian Students News Agency ran a shocking story of two Iranian teens who had been detained, severely beaten and then executed. Earlier this year Human Rights Watch reported that the arrest and brutal beating of 87 men in the city of Esfahan was part of a broader morality campaign that, according to comments by the Iranian chief of police, had resulted in the detainment of 150,000 people.
Iranian law makes it clear that the minimum penalty for same-sex contact is 60 lashes, though those arrested are often viciously tortured and then executed.
Despite the dangers in their home country, Iranian gays and lesbians seeking refugee status in countries such as Australia have frequently had their applications refused. One young gay Iranian was denied refugee status by the Australian Refugee Review Tribunal on the basis that he could avoid persecution in his homeland provided he ‘acted more discreetly.’
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HAVE YOUR SAY: What should be done about Iran’s policy? How should GLBT refugees be handled?
