November 13, 2007
Gays should be hanged, says Iranian minister Dominic Kennedy
Homosexuals deserve to be executed or tortured and possibly both, an Iranian
leader told British MPs during a private meeting at a peace conference, The
Times has learnt.
Mohsen Yahyavi is the highest-ranked politician to admit that Iran believes
in the death penalty for homosexuality after a spate of reports that gay youths
were being hanged.
President Ahmadinejad, questioned by students in New York two months ago
about the executions, dodged the issue by suggesting that there were no gays in
his country.
Britain regularly challenges Iran about its gay hangings, stonings and
executions of adulterers and perceived moral criminals, Foreign and
Commonwealth Office (FCO) papers show.
The latest row involves a woman hanged this June in the town of Gorgan after
becoming pregnant by her brother. He was absolved after expressing his remorse.
Britain said that this demonstrated the unequal treatment of men and women in
law and breached Irans pledge to restrict the death penalty to the most
serious crimes.
A series of reported executions of gays, including two underage boys whose
public hanging was posted on the internet, has alarmed human rights
campaigners.
The Pet Shop Boys dedicated Fundamental, their Grammy-nominated album, to
Mahmoud Asqari and Ayad Marhouni, who were hanged in Justice Square in Mashhad
in 2005. Graphic photographs of the execution of the youths, who were under 18
when arrested, were released by the Iranian Students News Agency.
Gay rights groups in Britain, such as Outrage!, accuse Iran of cloaking
executions for homosexuality with bogus charges for more serious crimes.
Under the Freedom of Information Act, the FCO released papers to The Times
about the death penalty being used in Iran for homosexuality, adultery and sex
outside marriage.
Minutes taken by an official describe a meeting between British and Iranian
MPs at the Inter-Parliamentary Union, a peace body, in May. When the Britons
raised the hangings of Asqari and Marhouni, the leader of the Iranian
delegation, Mr Yahyavi, a member of his parliaments energy committee, was
unflinching. He explained that according to Islam gays and lesbianism were not
permitted, the record states. He said that if homosexual activity is in
private there is no problem, but those in overt activity should be executed [he
initially said tortured but changed it to executed]. He argued that
homosexuality is against human nature and that humans are here to reproduce.
Homosexuals do not reproduce.
Nicole Pichet, a researcher who also took notes of the gathering, told The
Times that the discussion began with British MPs discussing the underage gay
hangings. Mr Yahyavi responded by saying homosexuality was to blame for a lot
of diseases such as Aids.
Ann Clwyd, the Labour MP and head of Britains delegation, said yesterday:
It is of great concern that these attitudes persist and we made it clear what
we felt.
Iran, Mauritania, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, the United Arab Emirates, Yemen and
Nigeria apply the death penalty for homosexuality, according to the
International Lesbian and Gay Association.
Sharias victims
2005
Homosexuals Farbod Mostaar and Ahmad Chooka sentenced to death. Iran said
Chooka had kidnapped, knifed and raped a student
A woman called Soghra was sentenced to stoning for adultery and being an
accomplice to her husbands murder
Two men executed in public after being found guilty of a homosexual
relationship. A newspaper said they were convicted of sodomy, rape and
kidnapping
Zhila Izadi, 13, sentenced to stoning after becoming pregnant with her
brothers child
2006
Malek Ghorbany sentenced to stoning for adultery
Leila Qomi sentenced to stoning for adultery and assisting a man who killed
her husband. He received 100 lashes
2007
Jafar Kiana stoned for adultery. His female lover Mokarrameh Ebrahimi
sentenced to the same fate
Source: Foreign and Commonwealth Office documents released under Freedom of
Information Act
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Have your say
Why aren't so-called civilized countries like the United Kingdom and the
USA not standing up when it concerns gay people who are hanged, tortured and
maimed in countries that are so-called friends of these countries?
Pakistan, Egypt and other countries get hundreds of millions of support from
these countries, but meanwhile trample all possible right of gay people!
When does the hypocrisies of fi the UK and the USA stop?
Adrian Masters, Amsterdam,
The Jewish/ Christian Old Testament is of the same opinion as far as gay men
are concerned ! Interestingly enough, there is no mention of Lesbians at all
(Moses most likely didn`t know what they were), and I doubt if the Koran
mentions them either.
The question , however, remains....why should I be prepared to `respect´
religions that adhere to such barbarism ?
John, Berlin, Germany
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