Gay youth hung in Iran - UPDATED
Hmm, this brings a new focus to the war that is going on. In this picture of their final moments, two teenage boys - one under 18 - were publicly hanged by the Islamo-fascist regime in Iran yesterday for being gay.
Good fodder for discussion about other implications of what we are fighting the war for, as well as some perspective on how trivial some of our big issues really are in this and other more tolerant countries.
More information at:
(The link on his page for the main story goes to a non-English page.)
UPDATE, NEWS STORY:
Iran executes gay teenagers
Boys didn't know sex was "punishable by death"
By OutRage! News Service
Two gay teenagers were publicly executed in Iran on 19 July 2005 for the 'crime' of homosexuality.
The youths were hanged in Edalat (Justice) Square in the city of Mashhad, in north east Iran. They were sentenced to death by Court No. 19.
Iran enforces Islamic Sharia law, which dictates the death penalty for gay sex.
One youth was aged 18 and the other was a minor under the age of 18. They were only identified by their initials, M.A. and A.M.
They admitted to having gay sex (probably under torture) but claimed in their defence that most young boys had sex with each other and that they were not aware that homosexuality was punishable by death.
Prior to their execution, the teenagers were held in prison for 14 months and severely beaten with 228 lashes.
Their length of detention suggests that they committed the so-called offences more than a year earlier, when they were possibly around the age of 16.
Ruhollah Rezazadeh, the lawyer of the youngest boy (under 18), had appealed that he was too young to be executed and that the court should take into account his tender age (believed to be 16 or 17). But the Supreme Court in Tehran ordered him to be hanged.
Under the Iranian penal code, girls as young as nine and boys as young as 15 can be hanged.
Three other young gay Iranians are being hunted by the police, but they have gone into hiding and cannot be found. If caught, they will also face execution.
News of the two executions was reported by ISNA (Iranian Students News Agency) on 19 July.
A later news story by Iran In Focus, allegedly based on this original ISNA report, claimed the youths were executed for sexually assaulting a 13 year old boy. But the ISNA report does not mention any sexual assault.
A report of the executions on the website of the respected democratic opposition movement, The National Council of Resistance Of Iran, also makes no reference to a sexual assault.
The allegation of sexual assault may either be a trumped up charge to undermine public sympathy for the youths (a frequent tactic by the Islamist regime in Iran).
Or it may be that the 13 year old was a willing participant but that Iranian law (like UK law) deems that no person of that age is capable of sexual consent and that therefore any sexual contact is automatically deemed in law to be a sex assault.
If the 13 year old was sexually assaulted, why was he not identified and also put on trial (under Iranian law both the victims and perpetrators of sexual crimes are punished)?
"This is just the latest barbarity by the Islamo-fascists in Iran,
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Comments
hard to believe
It is hard to believe that things like this are still happening in our world. I am so sheltered and distand from these conflicts that too often I I don't give them thought. Although I know that horrible things are happening around the world, it is easier for me to simply ignore them and focus only on what is happening in my life. I have to stop ignoring reality. Yes, my life has gone fairly well, and I live in a very save place. But I should know by now that the majority of people in this world live in a harsh and different reality from my own.
It is so easy for me to distance myself. I read about these events. Men being killed for being gay. Women being killed for having an abortion. Children dieing of starvation. It is unbelievable that I am able to ignore these things, but I and millions of other people do. I have to stop going about my every day life as if nothing is happening. I have to do something. I'm not sure what- but I do.
argggh
wake up people , there's things you can do,email the story to Amesty International,write to local politicians, email fax or write to head's of state.contact the european court of human rights. do something -your lack of action = acceptance
And who will listen?
Amnesty Int'l knows about this, it's been doing everything it can for decades to stop things like this, but no one's paid them any attention. Western governments don't care, and anyway can't do anything about it. Short of a sociopolitical revolution in Iran, there is very little that can be done to stop them from murdering us there- nothing short of an invasion would make any noticeable impact in the short term, and that would inevitably kill tens of thousands of innocent civilians, far more than the Iranian state has.
Right now, we're basically powerless to help the Iranian people, and since a coup orchestrated by the CIA overthrew Mohammed Mossadeq, the last democratically elected leader Iran has had, in the 1950s, the Iranians have no way of helping themselves short of overthrowing the government entirely.
However, there are other deaths that we do have the power to stop. Why is it that we don't notice when tens of thousands of innocent Iraqi cilivians are murdered by the war that our governments are responsible for? They had just as much right to live as the gay victims of Iran's theocracy. Does no one here care unless it's 'one of us' that dies? Why are two deaths more worthy of notice than 100 000, especially when it's the larger catastrophe that we have the power to end?
Change is the only constant.
Lots of people (not me) think
Lots of people (not me) think that Amnesty International has no authority and no credibility when it comes to anything.
Notice how it's so easy for us to cry and scream and mourn over our 1700 dead soldiers (and we have every right to be sad about that), but hardly anyone sheds a tear for all the people who die every day who aren't "protecting our freedom". What you hear in the news is "17 Iraqis and two American soldiers were killed in a suicide bombing. This brings the American death toll to . . ." because we don't have a body count for anyone else.
And of course, if I say we should have sympathy, then all these conservative people are going to jump me a scream, "You're sympathizing with the terrorists! You're not supporting our troops! You're blaming the victims! You care more about foreigners than about people from your own country!" Obviously, those people are stupid, considering that they jump to completely unfounded and illegitimate claims all too quickly. I only take issue with the fact that it is not really socially or politically acceptable to care a whit about anyone but people from your country, about anything but your own country's ability to do things. It's like isolationist globalism, if such an oxymoron is possible. We want to be a powerful nation that influences the world around us without actually caring or learning about that world.
Iran is screwed up. There's no way around it. There's really not much we can do, though, except to try and bring stuff like this to light and hope people listen. Putting sanctions on Iran will accomplish very little. We've tried it all over the place, and all it's done is create animosity for the US and help further the starvation and poverty of people in the countries we impose sanctions against. Military action, whether for human rights or Iranian nuclear ambitions, is even more so ill-advised because, not only are we bogged down in Iraq and to a lesser extent Afghanistan, but we also have to deal with Israel and Palestine bickering again, and we really can't afford to have the rest of the world hate us any more than it does now. I really don't see where we go from here, except to keep reporting stuff like this and trying to get it mainstream media exposure. Though I'm sure quite a few people would see the pictures of the two gay Iranian teens and go, "Serve's them right!"
'Tis a sad world we live in right now.
This story made me sick. I c
This story made me sick. I can't believe that things like this are still happening in the world. I'm not sure at the moment, what I can really do about this, but I'm going to try and do something. You can write to the Iranian Embassy in your country and protest this disgusting behaviour...but other than that...I just don't know. God this world is fucked up.
It is so sad to see childre
It is so sad to see children being killed for just being who they are.
This is just horrible and sickening.
"I choose to be myself no matter what the world says I should be."
i agree
Do we only care about people that are part of "our group"? Yes, there is tremendous prejudice against queer people in the world, but we do not have to reciprocate it! The other 90% of the world's population actually has some value, too. When are we going to stop accepting the "us and them" labels and have "us" include everyone in the world?
People can be so narrow...I d
People can be so narrow...I don't even know how to properly respond to this other than by stating the obvious and calling it sick, appalling, etc. And being thankful that I'm not there, whcih of course just sounds selfish.... That's just so sad....
Ugh
What's perhaps even more outrageous is the fact that American news agencies aren't picking up on this stuff.
Michael
Some people's kids...I tell ya!
big fucking deal, are you all
big fucking deal, are you all really suprised?
those fuckers would kill anyone, anytime ,anywhere.
i highly doubt they really gave a shit if they were fags
anyhow, they just found an excuse for killing them.
them being fags where just a bonus.
with all the other thousands and possibly millions of
people that die each day because of this bullshit war,
i seriouslly doubt anyone would give two shits if two
fags "civil rights" were violated and killed off.
besides.don't they believe in that in afterlife some great
alah or some shit will save them and turn them into cows
or whatever? ( only to be milked forcefully )
alot of innocent people died because of the war.
these fags are nothing special.
sad but true.
...sometimes it pays to be "in the closet"
and not parading around with rainbow bandanas and
fag pride t-shirts acting all tooty fruity hairy fairy
and shit
While I realise we're suppose
While I realise we're supposed to be on the same side here, your comments demonstrate how little you know of Islam, Iran, Iraq and what gay people in Muslim societies are up against.
Dave
Oh god,
Makes me really appreciate that the penalty where I am is only 20 years.
Dave
sigh
It might actually be true, the comment about young men having sex with each other. From what I heard in Saudi, gay sex does happen in Islamic countries, and might be more comment because of the segregation between males and females.
It's all really sad, but...like others have said, we can't do much about it.
Sometimes I lie awake at night staring at the stars and wondering where the hell is my ceiling?
I've heard very similar thing
I've heard very similar things.
Actually, a guy I dated in Xinjiang, China said that in Kashgar (a predominantly Uyghur and Muslim city in the far west of Xinjiang) said that sex between men is pretty common, but isn't viewed as "gay," per se.
Anyway, it really hurt to read that article. It makes me sick that a government would display such inhumanity and execute kids (or anyone, for that matter).
As thick as this might sound, for all their self-proclaimed "righteousness," Islam and Christianity seem to have long histories of having some pretty fucked-up values. I just don't get it: Two people having consensual sex is evil, dirty and wicked, but publicly executing children is perfectly acceptable.
"Sometimes a little brain damage helps."
-- George Carlin
thats just
wrong, and sickening. I hope the stupid government in Iran burns in hell.
~Deano
And still I dream he'll come to me,
And we will live the years together.
(les mis)
Let's invade the self-righteous motherfuckers
Those fuckers responsible for this heinous crime will go unpunished as usual. If you think protesting to the Islamic Fucking Republic Of Iran Embassy will do shit, think twice, those sons of bitches will ignore the protests. And the governments of the first-world countries won’t do shit either, because they have lucrative deals with that country’s fucked-up government. Hell, European presidents shake hands and even kiss Iranian envoys (isn’t that gay?). It’s all about money, who cares if some kids find their necks in the noose for loving! The only way to end inhumanity in Iran is to invade the country and overthrow the government, just like what the US did to Iraq.
.
Yes, then instead of just having gay kids die, you'll have gay and straight people of every age die in the violence (which hasn't ended in Iraq). Does that seem more fair?
Dave
How are people so inhuman? Th
How are people so inhuman? This shit makes me sick.
When people what these news s
When people what these news stories they say to themselves "how terrible" than go right on eating their dinner.
"Does the Walker choose the Path, or does the Path choose the Walker?"
do something
--------------------------
I made a research and saw a movie
On Islam, and they mention sex between men isn't considered bad or anything, as long as there are no feelings involved. So a gay man and a woman in that religion are treated as bad i guess.
Reading all the atrocities those people do i go real mad, i almost threw out reading disgusting stories for my report.
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A Open Heart that never Lies