Iran’s Mehdi P., from Tabriz; Moshen G., from Shiraz; and Nemat Safavi, from Ardebil, are all awaiting execution for allegedly having gay sex — when they were under 18. Guilty of “lavat” (i.e. sexual conduct between two men, regardless of penetration), the three boys do not yet have dates set for their state-sponsored murders, but one attorney fears it could happen any day, according to Human Rights Watch. Lavat is “punishable by death so long as both the active and passive partners are mature, of sound mind, and have acted of free will” — something that not only conflicts with the boys’ age at the time of the alleged “offenses,” but also a gross violation of international law, which forbids, under any circumstance, the executive of juvenile offenders. Meanwhile: “In 2008, the Deputy Attorney General of Iran announced that Iranian judicial authorities would ban the juvenile death penalty for non-murder-related offenses, effective immediately, pending parliamentary approval.”
Will Iran Cancel the Death Sentences of 3 ‘Homosexual Conduct’ Criminals?
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Anonymouse me
So…. About my liberal stance of not going to war against Iran… I changed my
mind.
paul canning
THANK YOU for picking up on this.
I emailed numerous outlets two days ago. I have also alerted Amnesty UK. No response as yet.
In dealing with a UK outlet it was obvious that someone like Human Rights Watch had to confirm what Iranian Railroad for Queer Refugees said a week ago – namely that the executions could happen at any time so action is urgently needed. Now that HRW have put out a statement I’m sure a story will appear on Monday.
This blog (in Spanish) is devoted to the cases http://nematsafavi.blogspot.com/ and has suggestions on what can be done, primarily:
* alerting the media
* contacting Iranian embassies (it has links)
It also has a avatar for use in social media.
Spanish, French and Italian gay sites as well as some progressives have been onto it.
IRQR are asking for donations which they say will help with the legal case in Iran http://irqr.net/donation.htm
If there is any action you can take please do. These gay kids haven’t been hung yet.
YellowRanger
[img]http://x9e.xanga.com/3d9f4400d5632257904635/m205268162.jpg[/img]
Sometimes the simplest solutions really are the best…
Bill Perdue
We need to organize in every locality to demand that LGBT members of Congress take a stand on this. And contact sympathetic politicians, news media and religious groups, including muslim student groups, and ask that they speak out.
In the wake of the ongoing mass demonstrations in Iran by workers, students, women and ourselves the killer ayatollahs have escalated their repression with widespread arrests torture, sham trials and murders.
The right wing cultist regime in Iran is trying to stamp out resistance but it won’t work. We can do our part to help the insurgents by doing all we can to help save the lives of these young men.
mallory
unfortunately, they’re as good as dead. There is no justice in this world.
CHIP1218
Iran will not listen to a single thing an American citizen or politician says. We are their second biggest enemy, after Israel and before Britain. The only thing of help would be if a country like Russia asked them to stay the execution.
Tallskin
Just to add to the debate and to provide illumination as to the mindset of muslims on this issue – remember the discussion thread is used mainly by western muslims living in Britain!
The topic under discussion is the Somali man stoned to death for adultery and his pregnant female partner who will be stoned to death after she’s had the baby. But the “abominable behaviour of sodomy” is touched upon….
http://forum.mpacuk.org/showthread.php?p=667624#post667624
Be afraid, be very afraid
romeo
I linked to the page for the underground railway, and I would like to send them some money, but I would prefer to get a little more information about them. Can anyone viewing this site give us a little verification about the organization? There’s hardly any information on their website. I had suggested something exactly like this in another thread about Uganda and had no idea that something already existed. Fundraisers here in the States could be organized for these kinds of very needed efforts, but we need a little more info.
Took a class in Islam as part of a diversity requirement in college. Didn’t come to the same conclusions as the professor, though I mouthed a lot of garbage to get an A. Islam is the last gasp of the past. It stopped developing around the 12th century, and that has caught up with it. It has no future in the world that is upon us, and it knows it. That’s why all the ugly attitude and lashing out. Muslim countries produce nothing of consequence except oil, and that’s coming to an end. Their cultural mindset limits their ability to think creatively and participate in the very competitive world of the future. Even America may have problems with that. Islam doesn’t even have a significant agriculture.
So, yes, protesting to Iran would be counterproductive. Helping the gays there get out is more to the point. As for the boys facing imminent execution, it makes me sick at heart and angry, but it sounds like there are some chances for them in the legal system and delicate negotiations taking place. Hope so.
@ Tallskin #7: No, we don’t need to be afraid, we need to be very, very angry!
Joseph
Romeo, I like how you think taking a single class on Islam makes you an expert on the religion and the culture.
romeo
Islam was so ill-conceived at its inception, that one class was all it took, that and knowing a few muslims, thank you very much. It profited from the vacuum left by the fall of the Roman Empire, and, of course, it’s charming motto “Islam or the sword.”
Islam ain’t much, Joe.
Keith Kimmel
Sad. Reminder of how good we have it here…
Frank Amsterdam
@romeo: “Islam is the last gasp of the past. It stopped developing around the 12th century”
The orthodox Christians who still cite Leviticus to counter same-sex marriage, are still living 3000 B.C. And if they would be allowed, they would still practise stoning, seeing the evil strategies they are deploying.
Thank god (sic!) I live in The Netherlands.
Frank
Joseph
Frank is right. Any religious fundamentalists, if given the chance to be in power, will go to the extreme. It doesn’t matter if it’s Islam or Christianity or whathaveyou.
And, yes, Romeo, Islam (like all religions) is a fraud: Mohammad was a smart con-artist in the right place and the right time. But your over-arching thesis that Muslims are by definition backwards is wrong. I’ve been to Muslim countries, where oil isn’t their primary industry, and they thrive and do contribute to the world. It’s only the extreme fundies who want their culture to remain in the 12th century that are the problem.
It’s going to be a painful process, sadly, but Islam will make it to the 21st century. Those countries have to if they are to survive.
Markie-Mark
@Romeo
I send the IRQR money from time to time and I’ve signed up for the refugee sponsor program (RSP)and send them $50 a month. I cannot promise you that they are legit, but I wanted to do something and this seems to be the only outlet. But you can search for articles about Iran on the Gay City News website. You’ll find some articles by Doug Ireland that might give you some information. And if you figure out how to contact Doug Ireland he might give you some information. Also, Arsham Parsi, who runs the IRQR is very responsive. Hope this is all helpful
Bill Perdue
The three abrahamic groups of cults – christites, islamists and judaicists – are open enemies of GLBT equality and human progress in general.
Historically it’s the christites who’ve done the worst damage to us. The difference between the European christites and the islamists is that political conditions allow the islamists to kill us at will. Iraq is a perfect example. Since society there was degraded by the US/English invasion and occupation the mad shiite ayatollahs and the sunni ‘police’ have launched death jihads against us that have taken hundreds of lives.
There should be no doubt that given the chance Ratzinger der Papenfuehrer and more than a few anglican archbishops would kill us, torture us and steal our wealth. They did it for a thousand years and we have every reason to believe they’d do it again. The difference between islamists and christites is their ability to harm us, not their intent.
Those of us who live in the US and the EU have far more to fear from them than small muslim minorities. Doug Irelands Direland is at http://direland.typepad.com/ and Peter Tatchells link is at http://www.petertatchell.net/. Both discuss asylum questions and asylum organizations.
By all means check them out. THEN SEND MONEY.
romeo
Thanks to Markie and Bill — I’ll take a chance and send money. I feel very strongly about this. Also, all things considered, we should publicize this and other similar orgs here in the States so we can get serious about funding them. These are our own people, it’s no different than helping refugees from the Nazis seventy years ago.
As for some of you other guys, LOL !!! I hope you didn’t think my critique of Islam was a defense of Christianity, Inc.? LMAO !!!
Of course I oversimplified in my general statement, this kind of blog requires that. But the premise is sound. It’s only when Islamic societies can reform and modernize that they have any hope for a future. Turkey, Algeria, Indonesia, Malaysia all make this effort, but all of them have more or less crippling fundamentalist insurgencies. That Islam can prosper if it changes is to my point, that it can’t change because of the nature of its mindset is even more to my point. I just don’t see it being able to pull it off in time.
And just look at all the potential and outright enemies it has on the borders of the Muslim world, India with a billion people, China with a billion and a quarter, Europe East and West with nearly a billion. All of them with a bad history with Islam and all of them better armed, more technologically advanced, and richer. As I said, Muslims sense this, and that’s why we see their self destructive behavior.
terrwill
If the past behaviour of these subhuman islamic facist scumbags is any indication these poor kids are good as dead. The last outrage occured over two Gay teens who were arrested when they were 14 and 16 years old, they were sentenced to 200 lashes each. After about ten lashes your flesh tends to be ripped from your body. Therefore they were lashed about 25 times, then sent to a filthy cell to “recover” from their torture. Once their flesh somewhat healed, they were subject to the same punishment again and again until the 200 lashes were administed. For all practical purposes these subhuman scumbags tortured these 2 kids for about 2 years straight. God knows what other horrors they were subjected to while in prison. Then upon the nearing of the completing of the sentence they suddenly were charges with “child molestation” of another boy and sentenced to death. Death in Iran by hanging unlike more “civilized” manners of hanging where the victim is placed upon a trap door, the door opened and the fall causes the neck to break usually resulting in immmediate death. In Iran they placed these two kids now 16 and 18 years old on the back of a flatbed truck in front of thousands of cheering scumbags. Took off the blindfolds so they could see each other and then slowly drove the truck forward so these kids were strangled a slow and painfull death while seeing each other and the cheering mobs. This whole part of the planet deserves a metorite to slam into it and vaporize it……..
1EqualityUSA
Terrwill, please stop giving Maggie ideas!
terrwill
1EqualityUSA I hate you! you actually made me laugh with that post………unfortunately the reality is that there are a good percentage of the rightwing-nutbag zealots who would love to see that scenario reenacted in the US
1EqualityUSA
Iraq too…”Human Rights Watch reports that death squads in Iraq are singing out and killing men considered not “manly” enough or whom they suspect of homosexual conduct.
“The most trivial details of appearance — the length of a man’s hair, the fit of his clothes — could determine whether he lived or died,” the report says.
Human Rights Watch says the campaign is most intense in Baghdad, but has “left bloody tracks” in other cities as well.
“Murders are committed with impunity, admonitory in intent, with corpses dumped in garbage or hung as warnings on the street,” the report says. “The killers invade the privacy of homes, abducting sons or brothers, leaving their mutilated bodies in the neighborhood the next day.” (A month or two ago)
Bill Perdue
No. 20 · 1EqualityUSA – those Iraqi jihadist death squads are the result of the US invasion and occupation. Sunni police and shiite militias have both been armed and trained by the US military command.
The US military command, in spite of many requests, has never lifted a finger to come to the aid of GLBT folks in Iraq.
The US is solely responsible for the terrible conddtions our LGBT brothers and sisters face in Iraq.
We should demand that Obama and Hillary Clinton declare a humanitarian emergency and open the gates of US military and diplomatic sites in Iraq to GLBT folks needing ayslum and fly them to the US for full asylum and social services as long as they need it.
romeo
I’m with you on that one, Bill. I think we’ll have more luck with Hillary. I’m going to give it a try. At least the State Dept. will have to reply and be on record.