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THERE'S NO EXCUSE FOR KILLING CHILDREN ! Posted 30 June 2006 The worldwide gay community will never forget the murder of two boys, Mahmoud Asgari and Ayaz Marhoni, in Iran on 19 July last year. They were executed by the short drop method from the back of a lorry resulting in several minutes of deliberately prolonged agony before their deaths (see GayEgypt.com investigation - www.gayegypt.com/march2006.html) They were both children and under 18 at the time of their alleged "crimes". The Iranian government claims that they were guilty of rape were greeted with scepticism from the outset, but subsequent testimony has shown that they were in fact two children in love who had charges fabricated against them in order to appease international opinion. According to research by Simon Forbes of Outrage “Mahmoud and Ayaz were charged with the capital crime of homosexuality after a disapproving family member reported their relationship to the police. “At least one, and possibly both, of the hanged boys were members of Iran's persecuted Arab minority. Racism appears to have played a part in the stereotypical way they were portrayed by the regime as being ‘underclass' thieves and hooligans." For information on GayEgypt.com's latest findings regarding the brutal nature of the hangings please see www.gayegypt.com/march2006.html and for more general background information please see www.gayegypt.com/july2005.html. DEMONSTRATIONS IN 22 CITIES WORLDWIDE ! A NOTE ABOUT THE LONDON IRAN EMBASSY DEMO. London 4.00 PM DEMONSTRATION HAS BEEN CANCELLED AS THERE WASNT SUFFICIENT TIME TO ARRANGE STEWARDS FOR THE EVENT. However GayEgypt.com is asking would be demonstrators to attend the meeting at the House of Commons see under United Kngdom in the list below. GayEgypt.com does hope to organize a better planned and large demonstration for next year - details will be published nearer the time. With regards to that please contact: Alisdare at gayad@hotmail.co.uk or on 07962 836 463. Several gay rights groups, including the London based Outrage, Paris based IDAHO (International Day Against Homophobia), The Iranian PGLO ( Persian Gay and Lesbian Organization ) and GayEgypt.com are supporting street protests around the world. GayEgypt.com, which has long been running the internet's most comprehensive gay message boards for Iranian cities, including Mashad - the city where the boys were executed, is calling for protests outside Iranian Embassies worldwide and is organizing one such protest in London (see below). The Persian Gay and Lesbian Organization (PGLO), which has members in several European countries and Canada, is also one hundred percent behind the worldwide demonstrations. "We enthusiastically support the call for demonstrations on July 19, and we are very grateful to our brothers and sisters for organizing these demonstrations for our beleaguered Iranian gay people," declared Arsham Parsi, the group's human rights secretary. GayEgypt.com hopes that however angry, all protests will be peaceful and respect the law in whatever country they are held. GayEgypt.com is asking Egyptians to take up an initiative of the Persian Gay and Lesbian Ogranisation who are asking their supporters in Iran to commemorate the anniversary privately in their homes by lighting candles. Street demonstrations in either Iran or Egypt would be too risky. Here is a list of the main events planned so far, but please come back again to see if new events have been planned for other cities. AUSTRIA Vienna Where: Office of IranAir (official airline of the Islamic Republic of Iran), A-Wien 1010 Opernring; What: Street demo When: TBA Who to contact: HOSI Wien and Kurt Knickler, kurt.krickler@hosiwien.at BELGIUM Brussels Where: Brussels Stock Exchange What: Street demo When: 8PM to 11PM Who to contact: Stephen Barris, ILGA stephenbarris@ilga.org CANADA Toronto Where: University of Torontdo, Hart House, Music Room, 7 Hart House Circle. What: Discussion and Talk including Arsham Parsi, Human Rights Secretary of the Persian Gay and Lesbian Organization (PGLO) Contact: pglo@pglo.net When: 5-9PM. Who to contact: pglo@pglo.net Vancouver Where: Vancouver Art Gallery - Robson Plaza What: street demo When: 6PM Who to contact: Finn Kovaltsenko, aidengreer@shaw.ca EGYPT Countrywide Where: Privately in the home of all sympathising with the plight of our brothers and sisters in Iran. What: Candlelit vigil. When: At any time convenient. Who to contact: Ali Asali at freedom4egypt@hotmail.com. GayEgypt.com is calling on it's supporters and anyone willing in London to protest outside the Iranian Embassy at 4PM. (See below.) FRANCE Marseilles and Paris Where, When and what: TBA Who to contact: Louis-George Tin and IDAHO, also UEEH (Université d'été Euroméditérranneenes des Homosexualités) GERMANY Berlin and Frankfurt Where, When and what: TBA Who to contact: LSVD MEXICO Mexico City Where: Contempo Cine: Londres 161, 1er piso; entre Florencia y Amberes; What: Street demo When: 7PM Who to contact: Lars Ivar Borge (Editor) gay magazine Enkidu info@enkidumagazine.com, Telephone 044 55 2517 5098 NETHERLANDS Amsterdam Where: Homomonument What: street demo When: 10PM Who to contact: Mike Tidmus, tidmus@mac.com or René van Soeren of COC, rvansoeren@coc.nl POLAND Warsaw Where: 22 Królowej Aldony street What: candelit vigil When: 9PM Who to contact: ukasz Palucki, luke.santi@eranet.pl. RUSSIA Moscow Where, when and what: TBA Who to contact: Nicolas Alexeyev, GayRussia.ru email nicolas_alexeyev@yahoo.com SWEDEN Stockholm Where: Embassy of Iran What: street demo When: 5PM Who to Contact: Bill Schiller and Tupilak, bill.schiller@sr.se UNITED STATES Fort Lauderdale Where: TBA What: street demo When: TBA Who to contact: Michael James (Editor) "Independent Gay News." MJames@OurIndependent.com Telephone 954.563.0470 New York Where: Iranian Mission to the U.N., 622 Third Avenue (at 40th St.) What: street demo When: 5:00 P.M. Who to contact: IGLHRC, 212-268-8040 Provincetown Where: Town Hall Square What: street demo When: TBA Who to contact: Andrew Sullivan, andsul@aol.com San Diego Where: U.S. Federal Building What: street demo When: 4:00 pm Who to contact: Michael Mussman, michaelmussman@yahoo.com San Francisco Where: Harvey Milk Plaza, Castro and Market Streets What: street demo When: 5:00 pm Who to contact: Michael Petrelis, mpetrelis@aol.com Seattle Where: Seattle Central Community College Plaza, Pine and Broadway What: Street demo When: 7pm Who to contact: Editor, Seattle Gay News, sgn2@sgn.org Sioux Falls Where: Calvary Cathedral, 500 S. Main Avenue What: Street remembrance. When: 9PM Washington, D.C. Where: DuPont Circle What: street demo When: 5:00 P.M. Who to contact: Rob Anderson rcand@mac.com, Tel. work (202) 508-4446 home (202) 550-8812 UNITED KINGDOM London 4.00 PM DEMONSTRATION HAS BEEN CANCELLED AS THERE WASNT SUFFICIENT TIME TO ARRANGE STEWARDS FOR THE EVENT. However GayEgypt.com is asking would be demonstrators to attend the meeting at the House of Commons see below. GayEgypt.com does hope to organize a better planned and large demonstration for next year - details will be published nearer the time. With regards to that please contact: Alisdare at gayad@hotmail.co.uk or on 07962 836 463. London 6.30PM: Where: House of Commons, Committee Room 12 What: Talk and discussion. Speakers to include Chris Bryant MP, Jean Lambert MEP, Iranian gay activist, Simon Forbes and Peter Tatchell When: 6:30 pm Who to contact: Peter Tatchell, peter@tatchell.freeserve.co.uk & Brett Lock, brettlock@gmail.com USEFUL WEBLINKS ON THE MASHAD MURDERS AND GAY RIGHTS IN IRAN GayEgypt.com's account of the executions and what led up to them. GayEgypt.com's investigation into the brutal methods of the execution. "Tehran's lies exposed" article on PeterTatchell.net Doug Ireland's commentary on the latest preparations for worldwide demonstrations. Wikipedia on the executions. NCRI's (National Council of Resistance Movement's) account of the hangings. A gay Iranian torture victim speaks out Gay City News - August 2005 - Iran's anti-gay purge grows. The Nation looks at the social and ideological parameters framing the debate surrounding the executions. Persian Gay and Lesbian Organisation. Dokhtare Khoshgel - website for Iranian lesbians Sign the petition supporting the Iranian gay and lesbian community. NINE REASONS TO PROTEST ON 19 JULY 2006 1. Iran continues to execute men and women for consensual sexual activities outlawed by sharia law including homosexuality. 2. These two boys were aged just 15 and 17 at the time of their "crime." 3. Their executions were part of a campaign of harassment and intimidation not just against Iran's gay community but also against Iran's minority Arab community. Both boys are believed to have belonged to Iran's minority Arab community. 4. They were executed by the notorious short-drop execution method resulting in minutes of deliberately prolonged agony prior to death. Even where capital punishment still exists, such barbaric practises have long been abandoned. 5. What type of barbaric system of justice allows children to be interviewed by journalists on the way to the gallows as can be seen in the photo showing them in the back of a van - minutes prior to their execution ? Let the Embassy know how angry you feel about it, not to mention the fact that these were innocent children ! 6. Since the executions of the two boys, Iran has continued to execute men for consensual homoexual behaviour. See for instance Human Rights Watch News November 2005. 7. Iran continues to use the barbaric practise of stoning against both men and women. A young woman, Malek Qorbani, in eastern Iran currently is in prison awaiting such a sentence to be carried out for alleged adultery For more info click here. 8. The gay community in the West must stand up to the Islamo-fascists and not hide behind the excuse of "let's put our own house in order first". The cringing cowardly silence of most of the liberal Left in the United States and Europe is not going to change anything. Gay rights are a universal right. They should not be limited to domestic arguments over adoption or marriage rights. 9. Can you think of a worse crime against the gay community than the execution of two young boys for consensual homosexual activity in a public square using a short drop method of hanging to prolong the agony of their last moments on earth ? If that's not a cause worth protesting, then what is ? AIMS OF THE PROTEST GayEgypt.com backs the protest aims already outlined by IDAHO and Outrage. Namely 1. End all executions in Iran, especially the execution of minors. 2. Stop the arrest, torture and imprisonment of Iranian lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people and repeal the Iranian penal code's criminalization of same-sex relationships. 3. Halt the deportation to Iran of LGBT asylum seekers and other victims of Tehran's persecution. 4. Support Iranians struggling for democracy, social justice and human rights. 5. Oppose foreign military intervention in Iran; regime change must come from within – by and for the Iranian people themselves. INTERVIEW WITH AN IRANIAN GAY MAN The following interview is published with the permission of Doug Ireland who is currently, among other work, keeping a close eye on developments for the 19 July protests see here. Gay and Underground in Iran Activist faces risk that “no physical sign of me will remain” BY DOUG IRELAND The regime of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has received its greatest media attention from concerns that Iran is developing nuclear weapons, but on July 19 protesters worldwide will call attention to a wave of gay executions begun a year ago with the hanging of two gay teenagers in Mashad. As lesbians and gays around the world prepare to commemorate the July 19 anniversary of last year’s hanging of two teenage gay boys in the Iranian city of Mashad, Gay City News, with the aid of a Persian translator, spoke with an underground gay activist with the Persian Gay and Lesbian Organization (PGLO) who lives in the Islamic Republic of Iran. We’ll call him Mani (a pseudonym) and, to protect his security, can identify his hometown only as a large Iranian city. He’s 24, has a doctorate in pharmaceutical medicine, and works as a technical manager in a pharmaceutical plant. “I was born in Tehran in 1982,” said Mani. “My childhood was full of life’s ordeals. Until the age of seven, I lived with both my parents. But then my mother separated from us, leaving for the Czech Republic, and I felt lonelier. This made our lives more difficult. It was during the Iran-Iraq War [1980-88]. My father was a commander at the front and we were living with my father’s new wife.” Mani has known he was gay since he was a child. “I think I was ten years old when I felt I was very attracted to a boy and had fallen in love with him. My mother was very compassionate in this regard, and helped me to understand my nature,” he said, recalling a summer he was able to spend with her. “My first sexual experience was with a Czech boy when I was living in the Czech Republic, and for me it was fascinating and exciting.” Things changed for the worse when Mani returned to Iran. “I didn’t think being gay would cause complications. When I returned to Iran, I began missing my Czech friend and set out to find a new friend. But, I was met with the disapproval of my father and his new wife. They reacted very badly.” In his teen years, he said, while living with his father, “they controlled me excessively and, like an Iranian girl, I was very restricted and tightly monitored.” From then on, Mani was the target of opprobrium, at home and at school. “At the university,” he related, “I was often harassed by university administrators and by my classmates because of my sexual orientation and demeanor. They even wanted to expel me from university just for wearing an earring, but they didn’t manage to do so because, as a veteran commander of the Iran-Iraq war, my father had a lot of pull.” These experiences convinced Mani to become a gay activist. Since his university days, Mani said, “I have always tried to serve the Iranian gay community.” He is now the PGLO’s health affairs secretary. “I have been working with PGLO for about two and a half years now. In my capacity as the health officer of the organization, my most important activity is the AIDS project, which has been well received. My other activities include serving as a health advisor, working on the introduction of new medication, providing psychiatric counseling, and generating awareness and information concerning homosexual health issues.” As a mental health counselor, Mani has observed the psychological ravages of living in an officially homo-hating society. “Because the government and the ayatollahs suppress any accurate or positive information about homosexuality,“ he said, “many homosexuals don’t accept themselves and instead assume they are sexual deviants, and seek to cure themselves by different means, including superstitious prayer, oblation, and supplication. Not that many Iranian gays have a healthy and accepting attitude toward their sexuality. Many of those who are cognizant of their homosexuality are daily sinking into despair.” The officially endorsed “rigid religious reactions” to homosexuality, Mani said, “mean that homosexual individuals suffer severe emotional disorder, such as the loss of psychological and gender identity and split-personality, all of which combine to form a dejected, deflated, depressed, and unmotivated youth.” “Look,” said Mani, “you must understand that, in Iran, if a homosexual falls in love, he has committed a grave crime. Here, homosexual love equals death, the gallows, and stoning. So, this is a major part of what I term the condemned’s life. He is oppressed and sinks into despair and self-hate and, in too many cases, ultimately opts for suicide.” How could it be otherwise, Mani argued, “when we’ve frequently observed that solely for the offense of same-sex love and sleeping together, people have been condemned to death by hanging or stoning. There have been many such executions of gays carried out by the malicious and criminal Iranian regime.” Mani said the government’s massive campaign of Internet entrapment targeting gays, and heightened police surveillance of gays through informers—many of them homosexuals themselves who’ve been arrested and tortured into becoming snitches—is wreaking havoc on Iran’s gay community. “The best way for gays to meet in Iran is either via the Internet or at parties. Unfortunately, recently the Ministry of Intelligence has multiplied its monitoring of both. Private parties are constantly raided, and we have witnessed the disappearance of many gay people after they established contact with strangers via the Internet. Afterwards, they’re arrested when the strangers turn out to be sex police agents, and are falsely accused of such crimes as transporting drugs, robbery, rape, etc., and then are sentenced to death by a judge in a bogus court with false witnesses, without these executions being reported in any newspaper or in the news media in general. And as long as the ayatollahs’ constitutional Guardian Council exists in Iran and has its thumb on everything the government does, the situation will remain the same.” Mani deplores the widespread AIDS discrimination in Iran. “Unfortunately, nothing is done about AIDS in Iran,“ he said. “All that you hear about what Iran is doing to fight AIDS is merely empty propaganda devoid of action. When they reject patients suffering from AIDS at hospitals, when no doctor will see the patient, when they won’t operate on an HIV-positive patient, and when no law protects the HIV-positive or guarantees them treatment, then there is simply no room even to discuss the AIDS issue.” In Iran, he said, “Condoms are available at most pharmacies, but condom use is negligible. The soaring birth rate and the statistics for abortion and venereal diseases all point to widespread negative attitudes toward the condom, which the government health officials do nothing to correct. In most men’s opinions, using a condom means having a bad or diminished orgasm, and they feel it destroys the natural expression of love and desire. Moreover, if you‘re seen buying a condom, it tells the person who observes you that you‘re going to have sex—and sex itself has a negative connotation in Iranian society today. So most people are simply ashamed to buy condoms.” Mani said the Tehran regime is denying the extent and reality of the AIDS problem in Iran. “The government,“ he said, “refuses to accept the latest UNESCO statistics estimating that the number of those who have contracted HIV in Iran has surpassed 300,000. We at PGLO are trying to gather accurate data on gays, but I’d say that a majority of those who carry the HIV virus aren’t aware of it.” Asked what would happen to him if the government found out about his gay activism with the PGLO, Mani answered, “I would definitely be killed in the most horrendous way, and my family, too, would be harassed and persecuted. No physical sign of me will remain. But I believe my name will live on as a defender of homosexual rights in everyone’s memory.” What would Mani like to say to Western gays? “You who live serenely and comfortably on the other side of Iran’s frontiers, be aware that those who think and feel and love like you do in Iran are executed for the crime of homosexuality, are assassinated, kidnapped, and barred from working in offices. You have festivals, and they prisons. You select Mr. Gay of the Year, but they don’t even enjoy the right to have gravestones. Be fair and tell us what difference there is between us and you. Isn’t it time that all homosexuals around the world rise up and come to our defense? “Listen to this poem by Sa’adi [the classic Persian 13th century poet who celebrated same-sex love’]: “All human beings are different parts of the same body, who “Have inherited the same essence in creation “No part will rest in peace “If one is suffering pain “You will not deserve the name of human “If you are indifferent to others’ pains.” Doug Ireland can be reached through his blog, DIRELAND, at http://direland.typepad.com/direland/. OPEN LETTER FROM PETER TATCHELL OF OUTRAGE TO HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH AND THE INTERNATIONAL GAY AND LESBIAN HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION An Open Letter to Scott Long & Paula Ettelbrick Of Human Rights Watch and the International Gay & Lesbian Human Rights Commission From Peter Tatchell, OutRage! London 14 July 2006 Dear Scott and Paula, While I have great respect for your human rights work and that of your respective organisations, I am totally baffled by the decision of HRW and IGLHRC to not support the 19 July protests against the Iranian regime’s persecution of LGBT people. The 19 July protests were initiated by OutRage! and IDAHO (the International Day Against Homophobia), with the support of the main Iranian LGBT group, the Persian Gay & Lesbian Organisation (PGLO). You say you support the PGLO. But you appear to not trust their judgement that the 19 July protests deserve support. The agreed common, universal demand of all the 19 July protests worldwide is: Iran: Stop Killing Gays! Stop Killing Kids! OutRage! has proposed an additional five demands for the 19 July protests, which local protests are free to adopt or not. These five demands have been endorsed by PGLO. They are: 1. End all executions in Iran, especially the execution of minors. 2. Stop the arrest, torture and imprisonment of Iranian lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people and repeal the Iranian penal code's criminalisation of same-sex relationships. 3. Halt the deportation to Iran of LGBT asylum seekers and other victims of Tehran's persecution. 4. Support Iranians struggling for democracy, social justice and human rights. 5. Oppose foreign military intervention in Iran; regime change must come from within - by and for the Iranian people themselves. You were both advised of these demands in a news release issued by OutRage! on 26 June. I fail to see why HRW, IGLHRC and others cannot support these clear, simple demands. They are totally consistent with your human rights commitments. Perhaps you can explain? Which of these demands do you disagree with? Based on their sources inside Iran, PGLO and Afdhere Jama of the queer Muslim magazine Huriyah have concluded that Mahmoud Asgari and Ayaz Marhoni were gay lovers and were hanged because they were gay. On this evidence, and on the balance of probabilities, I share their conclusion. I am not prepared to give the benefit of doubt to the murderous regime in Tehran and to its stooge newspapers like Quds – which have a proven record of lying and trumped up charges against people who are executed. Nevertheless, when I drafted the main demand of the 19 July protests and the additional five demands, I deliberately omitted reference to Mahmoud and Ayaz to allow the creation of the broadest possible coalition to support the 19 July protests. I wanted the involvement and support of those who had doubts or uncertainties about the Mahmoud and Ayaz executions. Despite this, you have chosen to not support the 19 July protests. That is, of course, your right. But I find it disappointing to say the least. You say you respect, admire and support the PGLO, but you seem unwilling to accept its considered opinion that the teens were gay, that they were executed for homosexuality, and that the 19 July protests merit support. While it is not your fault, your lack of support for the 19 July protests will doubtless be exploited by homophobes and apologists for the Iranian regime. We already know that HRW’s and IGLHRC’s equivocation last year on the Asgari and Marhoni executions was ruthlessly exploited by such people to undermine solidarity with Iranian LGBTs and, in particular, to dismiss their reports of homophobic persecution as bogus and to ridicule the claims of Iranian LGBT asylum seekers. While I am sure your public meeting will be useful, your support for the five demands and the 19 July protests would have been appreciated and valuable. As for the allegation that some people are obsessed with only gay victims and have long ignored other equally abhorrent abuses by the Iranian dictatorship: I deplore any such one-sidedness, but this allegation does not apply to me or OutRage! OutRage! has been supporting the Iranian human rights struggle for 14 years and sees the LGBT rights as part of the global human rights movement. We endorse the freedom struggle of all Iranians, which is why we also campaign for the human rights of Iranian women, union activists, students and persecuted ethnic and religious minorities. I have personally supported the Iranian democratic, socialist and human rights struggle for 35 years (first against the Shah and then against the Ayatollahs). My motto is very simple: oppose the oppressors and support the oppressed. That is why I am backing the 19 July protests. Yours in solidarity! Peter Tatchell www.petertatchell.net |
| Latest news 22 May 2012: Cairo psychiatrist claims he can "cure" 70 to 75 per cent of gay teenagers. |