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1 Iranian homosexuals living on the edge 2/08 2 Iranian and Chilean LGBT activists honoured 3/08 3 Call for action against bogus AIDS cures 3/08 3a Britain Halts Deportation Move Against Gay Iranian, 19-Year-Old Fears Execution at Home 3/08 4 Iran: Private Homes Raided for ‘Immorality’--Authorities Escalate Arbitrary Arrests, Harassment 3/08 8 Arsham Parsi Interview on YouTube 5/08 9 Britain Halts Deportation Move Against Gay Iranian, 19-Year-Old Fears Execution at Home 5/08
February 2, 2008 1 by Dudi Cohen "My government kills homosexuals by asserting we are an enemy of GOD. My president denies us even our existence as human beings when he claimed there are no homosexuals in Iran during his speech at Colombia University. If he can say there are no homosexuals in Iran, it is because we cannot show ourselves. We stay hidden because if we are visible they will lash us; they will hang us; they will kill us. They tell us that we are fighting with God by falling in love with the same sex," the letter continued. "I want to understand that if this is the case, then why has God created us like this?" 'What's wrong with me?' Sepehr eventually left Iran and many like him are forced to do so as well, often seeking political asylum in the West. Those denied have no choice by to return to Iran, where more often than none, they face the death penalty. "I left Iran by bus to Pakistan because I was being threatened. If arrested, I risk being killed in a public execution with no trial… I finally ended up in Malaysia in May 2007 where I applied for asylum," he wrote. Ironically, Sepehr is looking for his salvation from the very God in whose name he was being persecuted: "Now I am praying. I am crying. I am begging my God to help me. "I had plans. I wanted to write books. I wanted to share my experiences. I wanted to help gay men to better understand who they are. I wanted to speak with people to help them to understand that I deserve to live too. But this is my life now. I can't understand is what I have done so wrong that I deserve to be beaten with a gun… I cannot continue this life. I am still young. I want to be alive but I don't know how."
5th March 2008 2 by Tony Grew IGLHRC's Felipa Award "recognises the courage and effectiveness of groups or leaders dedicated to improving the human rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex (LGBTI) and other individuals stigmatised and abused because of their sexuality or HIV status." Previous winners include the Jamaica Forum for Lesbians, All-Sexuals and Gays, whose leader Brian Williamson was murdered in 2004 and the Blue Diamond Society (BDS) of Nepal. "We are so honoured this year to be able present this award to two extraordinarily powerful voices for LGBTI human rights," said Paula Ettelbrick, IGLHRC's executive director. IRQO provides absolutely vital assistance for lesbian and gay Iranians fleeing the threat of death in their home country, literally helping to save and rebuild countless lives. Andres Rivera has been an enormously courageous pioneer for the rights of trans people in Chile. It is truly our pleasure to honour all that these remarkable activists have done to promote human rights and dignity for LGBTI people." In 2005 Andres Rivera, a trans man, founded Organizacion de Transexuales por la Dignidad de la Diversidad, the only NGO in Chile dedicated to fighting for trans people's rights, which he currently heads. He has worked with government and the local health system to facilitate the evaluation, treatment and surgery of trans people, and organised the first Rancagua debate on the Civil Union Pact. Himself the victim of employment discrimination, he fought a landmark lawsuit, bringing issues of gender identity into the public view, finally winning the right for trans people to legally change their name and sex in 2007. "I receive this award with humility and honour," said Andres Rivera. "On behalf of murdered trans people, of those who fight to build a more egalitarian and fair world, and of those trans people who day-by-day live with the pain of not being considered human beings." IRQO serves as the representative of thousands of Iranian queers, giving visibility to a population the Iranian government is aggressively trying to silence. Based in Toronto, Canada, with members working out of Europe and Iran, IRQO has played a key role in documenting LGBT rights violations in Iran and in mobilizing public opinion to pressure Iranian authorities to end the inhumane treatment of sexual minorities. The organisation also helps gay and lesbian refugees around the world to fight deportation orders that would return them to Iran, where they could face torture or the death penalty-and helps them obtain asylum in friendly countries. IRQO strives to increase the self-esteem of Iranian queers by offering phone counseling inside Iran and raising awareness of homosexuality in the Persian-speaking media. Arsham Parsi, IRQO's executive director, said: "We are thrilled that the international community has come to acknowledge the LGBT rights struggle in Iran." We can no longer claim that no one cares about our plight. This is not an award just for IRQO. We accept this award on behalf of all Iranian queers who have been long fighting for their basic human rights. The stipend will allow IRQO to continue its campaign for human rights and to challenge homophobia in Iran." Nominations for the Felipa Award are solicited each year from activists around the world. Nominees go through a rigorous review by the staff, board and the International Advisory Committee of IGLHRC. The award embodies the spirit of Felipa de Souza, who endured persecution and brutality after proudly declaring her intimacy with a woman during a 16th Century inquisition trial in Brazil.
6th March 2008 3 by PinkNews.co.uk staff writer Human Rights Watch says the UN and its member states are failing to address serious threats to life and health posed by the promotion of unproven AIDS 'cures' and by counterfeit antiretroviral drugs. "Fake cures have been promoted since AIDS was first identified," said Joseph Amon, HIV/AIDS programme director at Human Rights Watch and author of the article. "In the era of expanded antiretroviral treatment programmes, the failure of governments to monitor these false claims and ensure accurate information about life-saving antiretroviral drugs undermines global efforts to fight AIDS." In Gambia in February 2007 President Yahya Jammeh claimed to have developed a herbal cure for AIDS that was effective in three days if people taking the treatment discontinued taking antiretroviral drugs and refrained from alcohol, caffeine, and sex. Following the announcement, Gambian journalists who criticised the so-called cure were fired, and the UN resident coordinator in Gambia, Fadzai Gwaradzimba, was permanently expelled for asking for scientific proof of the treatment’s effectiveness. Last week the Gambian government announced with much fanfare that Jammeh had been awarded an honorary degree in Herbal and Homeopathic medicine by the Brussels-based Jean Monnet European University. In accepting the degree, Jammeh announced that he had discovered cures for obesity and impotence, adding to his previously declared 'cures' for infertility, diabetes, and asthma. Also in 2007, the president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, announced the discovery of IMOD (an abbreviation for immuno-modulator drug), a herbal AIDS treatment made from seven local Iranian herbs. The government has promoted the drug as a "therapeutic vaccine" and as the "first choice" for treatment in resource-constrained developing countries. The President's Office for Technology Cooperation has also promoted the remedy and sought partners for joint marketing, clinical trials, and manufacturing. According to news reports in November 2007, the Iranian Minister of Health and Medical Education stated that all patients with "Countries are gambling with the lives of people living with HIV by promoting unproven AIDS remedies,” said Mr Amon. "The UN should condemn this practice and work with governments and civil society groups to ensure that effective AIDS treatment and information about it are provided."
March 14, 2008 3a by Mary Jordan, Washington Post Foreign Service London, March 13 - Britain halted deportation proceedings Thursday against a gay Iranian teenager who has said he would probably be hanged because of his sexual orientation if he is returned to Iran. Mehdi Kazemi, 19, moved to Britain in 2005 to study and has said he then learned that his boyfriend in Iran had been hanged after being convicted of sodomy. Homosexuality is a severe crime under Iranian law, and Kazemi's case has drawn concern from gay rights groups around the world. An initial appeal for asylum was turned down here. But Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, Britain's top law enforcement figure, said Thursday that "in light of new circumstances" Kazemi's appeal would be reconsidered, handing him a temporary reprieve that his supporters hope will ultimately lead to his being granted the right to stay in Britain. When the government first rejected his appeal, Kazemi fled to the Netherlands, where lawmakers took up his cause. He remains there but is expected to return to Britain within days. A Dutch court this week refused to grant Kazemi asylum on the grounds that he had initiated proceedings in Britain and needed to return there to continue them. In recent years, the British government has been under enormous public pressure to reduce the number of refugees and asylum seekers it admits. Critics say too many foreigners abuse the system. Kazemi has said he did not arrive in Britain with the intention of staying, but then found out that Iranian officials would be looking for him if he returned. Gay rights leaders in Britain said that Kazemi's partner was tortured into naming Kazemi before he was killed and that Kazemi has been suicidal over the whole ordeal. An uncle who lives in Britain was also quoted in a British newspaper as saying that if authorities didn't kill Kazemi, his father in Iran would. Eighty members of Britain's upper house of Parliament signed a letter sent to Smith urging the government to "show compassion and allow Mr. Kazemi to have a safe haven in the United Kingdom." "There is no doubt that he will be persecuted and possibly face state-sanctioned murder if he is forced to return," said Roger Roberts, a member of the House of Lords from the Liberal Democratic Party, who initiated the petition. "It's cruel to even suggest sending him back," said David Allison, a spokesman for Outrage!, a gay rights group in Britain. "The history of gays in Iran has been horrific." Human rights advocates have long deplored the treatment, including executions, of gay men in Iran. Last year while in New York City, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was asked about executions of homosexuals in his country, and he replied: "We don't have homosexuals like in your country. I don't know who told you that."
March 28, 2008 4 by Scott Long “When police routinely break down doors to enforce a brand of morality, it means a line has been crossed to invade people’s privacy at any time,” said Joe Stork, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “Iran’s repressive system of controlling people’s dress, behavior, and personal lives violates fundamental rights.” Sources inside Iran report to Human Rights Watch that on February 28-29, police in Esfahan raided a private home and arrested 30 or more men attending a party. They have been jailed for almost four weeks without access to lawyers and without charge. Police reportedly referred them to a forensic medical examiner to look for “evidence” that they have engaged in homosexual conduct. In May 2007, during a nationwide crackdown to enforce dress codes and conduct, police raided another private party in an apartment building in Esfahan. They arrested 87 persons, including four women and at least eight people whom they accused of wearing the clothing of the opposite sex. Victims told Human Rights Watch that police stripped many of them to the waist in the street, and beat them until their backs or faces were bloody. Several reportedly had bones broken. Of those arrested, 24 men were tried for “facilitating immorality and sexual misconduct,” as well as possessing and drinking alcohol. In June 2007, an Esfahan court found all of them guilty of various combinations of these charges. Most were sentenced to up to 80 lashes and to fines of 10 million to 50 million riyals (US$1,000-5,000). The verdicts are under appeal and have not yet been enforced. Sources in Iran have told Human Rights Watch that since the May 2007 arrests, police have intensified surveillance, harassment, and abuse against people connected to the 87 arrested men, or otherwise suspected of homosexual conduct. Several described being detained by police and interrogated to reveal contacts. According to one man’s account, police “poured water over me. … They threatened me, they said ‘cooperate with us.’ … They are after everyone, they said, ‘You are completing your gang, you are creating new members, where do you gather?’” They told me, ‘Go out and meet people.’ In essence, I should spy for them.” Human Rights Watch learned that in December 2007 at another private gathering in Esfahan, police arrested 16 more people, subjecting them to forensic examinations. Authorities released them after four days in detention. Other reports indicate that in March 2008, Esfahan police entrapped several men over the internet by answering personal advertisements, and interrogated them to reveal the names of friends and contacts. Police found erotic pictures of men on another man’s mobile phone after arresting him, and a court reportedly sentenced him to three years of imprisonment. Iranian law provides punishments up to death for penetrative same-sex sexual activity between men on the first conviction, and punishes non-penetrative activity with up to 100 lashes. Homosexual conduct between women is punishable with death on the fourth conviction. Iran’s Penal Code requires four reiterated confessions, or the testimony of four “righteous men” as eyewitnesses, to prove lavat, or sodomy. However, judges are permitted to accept circumstantial evidence or inference. At the May 2007 raid in Esfahan, police reportedly brought four civilian witnesses to prove that “immorality” was taking place. The last documented death sentences for consensual homosexual conduct in Iran were handed down in March 2005. It is not known whether they were carried out. In extensive interviews with men and women inside and outside Iran, Human Rights Watch has documented widespread patterns of arbitrary arrest and torture based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Western sources have suggested that charges of consensual homosexual conduct are converted to charges of rape in the Iranian judicial system, but Human Rights Watch has found no evidence of this. “In Iran, for some people, the spy at the bedroom window or the knock at the door can mean the threat of a death sentence,” said Stork. “Privacy, freedom from arbitrary arrest, and freedom from torture are human rights. Police and judges must respect them.” For more of Human Rights Watch’s work on Iran, please visit:
30 March, 2008 5 by Christian Taylor, Since these arrests, police have intensified surveillance, harassment, and abuse against people connected to the 87 arrested men, or otherwise suspected of homosexual conduct. Many have told Human Rights Watch that they’ve been interrogated to reveal contacts and some have been asked to spy. In December 2007, at another private gathering in Esfahan, police arrested 16 more people, subjecting them to forensic examinations. These people were fortunate enough to be released after only four days. In March this year, Esfahan police entrapped several men over the internet by answering personal advertisements, and interrogated them to reveal the names of friends and contacts. One man who was arrested had erotic pictures of men on his phone and he was therefore sentenced to three years in prison. Under Iranian law, penetrative same-sex sexual activity between men can mean death on the first conviction. Non-penetrative sex can get them up to 100 lashes. Lesbians activity is punishable with death on the fourth conviction. The last documented death sentences for consensual homosexual conduct in Iran were handed down in March 2005, but it is not yet known whether they were carried out. In extensive interviews with men and women inside and outside Iran, Human Rights Watch has documented widespread patterns of arbitrary arrest and torture based on sexual orientation and gender identity. “In Iran, for some people, the spy at the bedroom window or the knock at the door can mean the threat of a death sentence,” said Joe Stork, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “Privacy, freedom from arbitrary arrest, and freedom from torture are human rights. Police and judges must respect them.”
March 31, 2008 6 by Scott Long Let's start with the facts. Homosexual conduct in Iran can get you the death penalty. Penetrative sex acts between men can bring death on the first conviction; non-penetrative activity, up to 100 lashes. Women earn floggings on the first three convictions; four strikes and you die. Peter Tatchell is wrong to assert, without real evidence, that gay men are routinely hanged in public; that mass "pogroms" have led to mass executions in recent years; or that fake rape charges are regularly tacked on to charges of consensual homosexual acts. Nor should anyone's asylum case hinge on such claims. The last documented death sentences for consensual homosexual conduct in Iran were handed down in March 2005. It is not known whether they were carried out. Ramping up the allegations means accepting the government's exaggerated standards of proof. And it can backfire - against people in Iran. Europe and the US have seen a public campaign in recent years to identify executions - often random ones - in Iran as killings of gay men. Pictures of the horrific public hanging in Mashhad in 2005 of Ayaz Marhoni and Mahmoud Asgari - convicted, in all likelihood, of the rape of a 13-year-old boy while both were minors - spread virally round the world like a postmodern Pieta. Monstrous, yes: but there is no conclusive evidence that they were gay or that consensual homosexual acts had anything to do with their judicial killing. In the months after that, campaigners in the US and Europe repeatedly claimed, without evidence, that hangings for rape in Iran were actually a "pogrom" against gay men. One US paper claimed four men were hanged for "being gay". They turned out to have been convicted of the rape of a woman and three girls - 10, 7, and 8 years old. Such mistakes can have dire consequences. In November 2007 in Kermanshah, Makwan Mouloudzadeh, 20, faced the death penalty on false charges of raping several boys seven years before. His accusers retracted their claims. No evidence suggested he had committed any crime under Iranian law. However, European activists wildly seized on him as another "gay" victim. They organised a mass petition to Ahmadinejad for mercy for "the young Iranian gay". Their pleas sent an inadvertent message: Makwan was innocent of one capital crime, but Europe believed him guilty of another. On December 5, Makwan Mouloudzadeh, probably neither gay nor a rapist, went to the gallows. Why so much confusion? Why the need to find "gay" victims, even when it endangers a man already on death row? Emotion makes discussion difficult. People asking what the evidence really is are likely to be called "apologists for Iran". Britain's slammed asylum door indeed breeds desperation. It's crucial to remember, though, that the reason asylum authorities seek pretexts to reject gay Muslims isn't "Iranian propaganda": it's home-grown propaganda stoking fears of Muslim immigration. Activists must combat racism in Britain, not just repression in Iran. The most cogent answer, though, shows the failure at the heart of Britain's policies on asylum - and torture. Home Office minister Lord West said of Mehdi: "We are not aware of any individual who has been executed in Iran in recent years solely on the grounds of homosexuality. And we don't consider there was systematic persecution of gay men in Iran." In other words: no execution, no persecution. If you aren't dead, you're OK. This is a disastrous evasion of the UK's responsibilities under international law. Human Rights Watch has shown how Britain tries to redefine its obligations on torture, so it can send people back to states where they face grave risk. Usually it happens in the context of counterterrorism. But with gay Iranians, too, the government aims to change the rules, denying that legal torture is "persecution". The UK should recognise - as the Netherlands has done - that with a law prescribing death or torture for gay Iranians, they need not demonstrate the details of past persecution. Lift the burden of proof from Mehdi and his gay compatriots. End the threat of deportation. Activists, though, must avoid playing the government's torturous game. Don't let the Home Office define torture down till a corpse on a gallows is the only proof that counts. Hold Britain to its real obligations. Otherwise, it will remain complicit in persecution. Scott Long
7 Thank you. AlterNet http://www.alternet.org/blogs/video/84695/ May 7, 2008. 8 Arsham Parsi, founder of the Iranian Queer Organization, has been called the first gay rights activist in Iranian history. Today, he tell his story.
March 14, 2008 9 by Mary Jordan, Washington Post Foreign Service When the government first rejected his appeal, Kazemi fled to the Netherlands, where lawmakers took up his cause. He remains there but is expected to return to Britain within days. A Dutch court this week refused to grant Kazemi asylum on the grounds that he had initiated proceedings in Britain and needed to return there to continue them. In recent years, the British government has been under enormous public pressure to reduce the number of refugees and asylum seekers it admits. Critics say too many foreigners abuse the system. Kazemi has said he did not arrive in Britain with the intention of staying, but then found out that Iranian officials would be looking for him if he returned. Gay rights leaders in Britain said that Kazemi's partner was tortured into naming Kazemi before he was killed and that Kazemi has been suicidal over the whole ordeal. An uncle who lives in Britain was also quoted in a British newspaper as saying that if authorities didn't kill Kazemi, his father in Iran would. Eighty members of Britain's upper house of Parliament signed a letter sent to Smith urging the government to "show compassion and allow Mr. Kazemi to have a safe haven in the United Kingdom." "There is no doubt that he will be persecuted and possibly face state-sanctioned murder if he is forced to return," said Roger Roberts, a member of the House of Lords from the Liberal Democratic Party, who initiated the petition. "It's cruel to even suggest sending him back," said David Allison, a spokesman for Outrage!, a gay rights group in Britain. "The history of gays in Iran has been horrific." Human rights advocates have long deplored the treatment, including executions, of gay men in Iran. Last year while in New York City, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was asked about executions of homosexuals in his country, and he replied: "We don't have homosexuals like in your country. I don't know who told you that. |
