REPORT: 2 HANGED FOR GAY SEX IN IRAN

A human rights group reports that two men have been hanged in Iran, apparently for the crime of having gay sex.

According to Iran Human Rights (IHR), the two men were among a group of four prisoners that were hanged in public in Shiraz, Southern Iran on August 6.

It said that the official website of the Iranian Judiciary in Fars province confirmed that the two, identified as “Abdollah Gh. Ch. and Soleiman Gh. Ch.”, were executed for sodomy.

Homosexuality is punishable by imprisonment and even the death penalty in Iran. The country has in the past insisted that it only executes people charged with rape and not adult consensual gay sex.

IHR noted, however, that “since there was no mention of rape in the report there is possibility that these men were sentenced to death for sexual relationship with the same sex.”

Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, the spokesperson of IHR, commented: “We urge international condemnation of today’s barbaric executions. Iranian authorities should be held accountable for these inhumane acts.”

A recent report by Iran’s parliamentary research department discovered that despite the country’s strict conservative Muslim culture, 17% of 142,000 students surveyed said that they were homosexual.

In 2007, the then President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, famously told an audience at Columbia University in the US that “In Iran, we don’t have homosexuals”.