Read the interview of Ahmed Nejad at Democacy now in which he was asked about growing Iranian influence in Iraq since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, the persecution of Iran's gay community, and his position on the Israel-Palestine conflict.
His reply to the gay question in Iran was atrocious and shocking... Regarding the resolution of Israel-Palestine question and death penalty he camouflaged answers failed to save him... Later part of the program is the reaction from Iranian American activist Kourosh Shemirani of the Queer Iran Alliance.... Regards Afthab *Full interview at http://www.democracynow.org/2008/9/26/iranian_president_mahmoud_ahmedinejad_on_iran * * * *AMY GOODMAN: *When the Iranian president visited New York last year, he gave a speech at Columbia University. He was asked about attitudes to homosexuality in his country. *PRESIDENT MAHMOUD AHMADINEJAD: *[translated] In Iran, we don't have homosexuals like in your country. We don't have that in our country. *AMY GOODMAN: *On Wednesday, I asked the Iranian president to clarify his statement. *PRESIDENT MAHMOUD AHMADINEJAD: *[translated] I didn't say they don't exist; I said not the way they are here. In Iran, it's considered as a very unlikable and abhorrent act. People simply don't like it. Our religious decrees tell us that it's against our values, and all divine laws, actually, believe in the same. Who has given them permission to engage in homosexual acts? It's considered as an abhorrent act. It shakes the foundations of a society, the family foundation. It robs humanity. It brings about diseases. It should be of no pride to the American society to say that they defend homosexuals and support it. It's not a good act, in and by itself, to then hold others accountable for banning it. And it's not called freedom, either. Sure, if somebody engages in an act in their own house without being known to others, we don't pay any attention to that. People are free to do what they like in their private realms. But nobody can engage in what breaks the law in public. Why is it that in the West all moral boundaries have been shaken? Just because some people want to get votes, they are ready to overlook every morality? This goes against the values of a society. It is the divine rule of the Prophets. And then, of course, in Iran, it's not an issue as big as it is of concern here in the United States. There might be a few people who are known. In general, our country would not accept it. And there's a law about it, too, which one must follow. *AMY GOODMAN: *July 19th is a day that is honored around the world, where two gay teenagers, Iranian teens, were hung. This is a picture of them hanging. They were two young men, named Mahmoud Asgari and Ayaz Marhoni. Do you think gay men and lesbians should die in Iran? *PRESIDENT MAHMOUD AHMADINEJAD: *[translated] No, there is no law for their execution in Iran. Either they were drug traffickers or they had killed someone else. Those who kill someone else or engage in acts of rape could be punished by execution. Otherwise, homosexuals are not even known who they are to be hung, in the second place. So, we don't have executions of homosexuals. Of course, we consider it an abhorrent act, but it is not punished through capital punishment. It's basically an immoral act. There are a lot of acts that can be immoral, but there's no capital punishment for them. I don't know where you obtained these pictures from. Either they're a network of drug traffickers or some other—or people who generally might have killed someone else. You know that we take our sort of social security seriously, because it's important. What would you do in the United States if someone picked up a gun and killed a bunch of people? If there is a person to complain, then there's capital punishment awaiting the person. Or drug traffickers, if they carry above a certain amount, volume, of drugs with them, they can be executed in Iran. .............. .............. Right now, we're joined on the phone by the Iranian American activist Kourosh Shemirani from Queer Iran Alliance. He's published widely on the subject of how international gay rights advocacy about Iran can face the danger of slipping into pro-war propaganda. Kourosh, welcome to *Democray Now!* Your overall response to the Iranian president's comments on the issue of the hanging of the young gay teens to Israel and Palestine? *KOUROSH SHEMIRANI: *Thank you, Amy. Well, it seems like this year President Ahmadinejad is under stress more and more. He's trying to be more diplomatic in what he's been saying in the past few years. About the execution of the supposed gay teenagers, that has not really been proven. There's been big debate about that from the human rights organizations about whether they were hung because they were gay. So, even, you know, bringing that up with him, I think, is a little tricky. And he was able to dismiss the—actually, I mean, the government has been able to dismiss that accusation easily, because the case itself was never brought to light and is not—the facts that are not known. And he—but what he basically said that was quite interesting is that he said that, you know, homosexuality or sodomy is not punishable by death in Iran, which is, of course, not true. There is that law in Iran. And another thing, that is true, because there are so many different laws on the book that negate this one law, that he can say that it doesn't exist on the books. I mean, the legal system in Iran is so complicated that you can have a law that says one thing and many laws that negate it. And that's the case with sodomy. So, in a way, with him being forced to say that the law doesn't exist is a continuation of him trying to sort of cover for himself. In a Larry King interview the day before, two days ago, he basically said that we do not—the government does not go into people's private lives, and people's private homes is their own place, we do not intervene in what they do in their own home, which is again not true. So he's trying to sort of put an act of faith on the various policies and the various things that happen to Iranians, in general, gay Iranians, in particular. And at this point, I'm not really sure where it's going. He's been recently playing cat and mouse with the media, is asking about these questions. Before coming, he had a very long interview with an official Iranian news agency, Press TV, about the question of Palestine-Israel, and he has been stressing the fact—the idea that the Iran government is not against Israeli people, they're just against Zionism. And this has become a very big sort of debate in Iran about whether or not, you know, Iranians and the Iranian president should say that we're friends with the Israeli people, and he stood by that. So, he's changed his rhetoric on that to a large extent. And this year, he's getting a lot more play with the way he's talking about Israel. I think he has said—this point that he's made about the Palestinian people having the right to choose their own destiny, and the referendum, choosing whether they want to live in a Zionist regime, he's said these things before. It's just the US media has not reflected it until this year. *AMY GOODMAN: *Kourosh Shemirani, we're going to have to leave it there. I want to thank you for being with us --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Green Youth Movement" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/greenyouth?hl=en-GB -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
