Fridae

Mahmoud Asgari, 16, and Ayaz Marhoni, 18, were publicly hanged in Mashad, provincial capital of Iran's northeastern Khorasan province on charges of homosexuality, according to the Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN), an UN humanitarian news and information service. Iran enforces Islamic Sharia law, which dictates the death penalty for gay sex.

However, conflicting stories about the public execution of two young men in Iran on July 19, 2005 have been circulating on numerous news sites and gay discussion lists. It is not clear whether the men were executed specifically for homosexual acts or for sexually assaulting a 13-year old boy.

In a press release, British gay right's group Outrage!, which translated a report by Iranian Student News Agency (ISNA) in Farsi, said that the teens "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."

It was also reported by ISNA that the teenagers were held in prison for 14 months and severely beaten with 228 lashes, suggesting that the teens committed the so-called offences more than a year earlier, when they were possibly around the age of 16.

Outrage! also reported that a later news story by Iran In Focus, which was allegedly based on this original ISNA report, claimed the youths were executed for sexually assaulting a 13-year-old boy. The ISNA report however made no mention of any sexual assault nor did the respected democratic opposition movement, The National Council of Resistance Of Iran, in its report on its web site.

The inconsistency of the reports led Outrage! to believe that allegations of sexual assault were used as a smokescreen to justify the killings and to undermine public sympathy for the two youths, both of whom maintain they were unaware homosexual acts were punishable by death, an Associate Press report said on Sunday.

The Human Rights Watch (HRW) however said in an update sent directly to gay rights Internet groups on Jul 27 that a news report published in Quds, a Farsi daily published in Mashad, interviewed the father of the 13-year-old apparent victim. The news report said that the boy in question was seized by two boys outside a shopping area some two years ago and was taken to a deserted area where five other boys were waiting.

According to the father's account, the boy was raped at knifepoint. The account was also supported by three passersby who interrupted the act. They were later attacked with knives and had their cars vandalised.

Scott Long, Director of the HRW's Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Rights Project, disagreed wth Outrage! in saying that Iran is not a closed society in the same way Saudi (Arabia) is. "Civil society and a press comparatively capable of independence would make it difficult for the government to manufacture a story of such detail from whole cloth without fear of contradiction."

"Some organisations have said they have internal sources indicating this story is false; I'd caution, however, that the National Council of Resistance, political wing of the Mojahedin Khalq Organization (MKO), which has been cited as one source to discredit the press version, is not always reliable in its recounting of internal Iranian events," Long said referring to HRW's recent report on abuses by the MKO.

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In the statement, he also discouraged gay news groups from "leaping to attribute 'gay' identity to people who commit homosexual acts in a place like Iran (in fact, in many places around the world). It may be both culturally and politically insensitive: that is, I doubt most people who commit those acts there would define themselves in that way; and for those who still face charges for homosexual conduct, true or false, whatever the circumstances, it may do them more harm than good."

He concluded, "I would suggest we break out of the straitjacket of defining this as a "gay rights" case, as though such names determine the limits of our caring, and remember that those two-whatever they may have done-were being killed for something that happened when they were children; that they were thus victims of a worldwide and persistent pattern of brutality against children, and indifference to children's lives; and that on that grounds alone, whatever violence they may have committed, they did not deserve this violence: they did not deserve to die."

Kursad Kahramananoglu, the Istanbul-based head of the International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA) also slammed the execution of the teens. He said, "It's entirely unacceptable that people are actually killed because of their sexuality."

He undertook to pursue the matter to the highest level - including the United Nations - should the exact details of the case become clearer.

David Allison, spokesman for the London-based LGBT advocacy group Outrage! also condemned the killings. "Killing teenagers for what they do together is absolutely abhorrent."

He added given that Iran was such an old civilisation, it was appalling that they should descend to such barbaric levels - especially against young people.

Citing Iranian human rights campaigners, Outrage! claims over 4,000 lesbians and gay men have been executed since the Iranian revolution of 1979. In total, an estimated 100,000 Iranians have been put to death over the last 26 years of clerical rule, including women who had sex outside of marriage and political opponents of the Islamist government.

Iran's Civil Code on age of criminal responsibility of minors
For the past four years, the Iranian authorities have been considering legislation that would prohibit the use of the death penalty for offences committed by persons under the age of 18. Under Article 1210(1) of Iran's Civil Code, the ages of 15 lunar years for boys and nine lunar years for girls are set out as the age of criminal responsibility, an AI statement said.

In January 2005, following its consideration of Iran's second periodic report on its implementation of the provisions of the CRC, the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child, the body of independent experts established under this Convention to monitor states parties' compliance with the treaty, urged Iran:

"to take the necessary steps to immediately suspend the execution of all death penalties imposed on persons for having committed a crime before the age of 18, to take the appropriate legal measures to convert them to penalties in conformity with the provisions of the Convention and to abolish the death penalty as a sentence imposed on persons for having committed crimes before the age of 18, as required by article 37 of the Convention."