Another anti-Iranian propaganda story unravels

Is the "Gay Executions in Iran" story being ginned up for political purposes?

by Cyrus Safdari - Sept 29, 2007

There's been a lot of talk about Ahmadinejad's statement about how Iran supposedly "doesn't have gays like you do" - which of course totally distracts from the substance of his speech in which he proclaimed that Iran was not going to attack anyone and that he didn't deny the holocaust as claimed but only questioned why the Palestinians had to suffer for it.

And the talk about gays in Iran inevitably returns to the old chestnut about how "two youths were executied in Iran for being gay."

But regarding the allegation of the "gay executions" in Iran, I recommend some reading:

The Washington Blade's report:

Research conducted by the International Gay & Lesbian Human Rights Commission, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International has found, so far, that the teenagers were convicted of and executed for sexually assaulting a 13-year-old male, a crime that occurred when the two teens may have been minors.

According to Human Rights Watch, local Iranian news reports tell a detailed story of the alleged crime, including interviews with the victim’s father and a description of how the 13-year-old’s bike was stolen before he was abducted and sexually assaulted at knifepoint.

It appears that reports claiming the boys were executed for being gay originated with the National Council of Resistance of Iran,, an opposition group that is classified as a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department.

“It was not a gay case,” said Paula Ettelbrick, executive director of the International Gay & Lesbian Human Rights Commission, taking issue with the Human Rights Campaign’s statement that was quick to condemn the execution as anti-gay.

Richard Kim's investigation into the origin and distribution of the allegation about gays being executed in Iran, as published in the Nation magazine entitled Witness to an Execution:

But was the story accurate? And what steps did organizations take either to confirm its veracity or to gauge what effects their campaign might have in Iran? It appears that the answer to the second question is very little. . .As for the accuracy of the story itself, the Outrage! press release that incited this storm claims that neither the original ISNA story nor the first NCRI report on the incident mentions sexual assault. But it appears that Outrage! was working from a faulty translation.

Also, Rostam Pourzal's recent article "Let's Not Trivialize Discrimination in Iran" published by Monthly Review.

And finally, as reported by the Gay City News:

For eight months, Human Rights Watch (HRW) has researched a report on abuses based on sexual orientation and gender identity in Iran, interviewing dozens in Iran and the diaspora, trying to separate fact from rhetoric and rumor.

As a prominent Iranian dissident said last week, 'We need cases!' documentation, not speculation.

When pictures of two young men hanged in the Iranian city of Mashhad circulated in July 2005, revulsion rode with them around the world.

Doug Ireland began a campaign in Gay City News to prove that the Mashhad case was one of consensual homosexual sex, and that the Ahmadinejad regime was carrying out a 'massive pogrom,' an 'intensifying crackdown.'

His reporting was deeply irresponsible. His claims about Mashhad relied entirely on second-hand sources.

Ireland never confirmed those reports. No one has.

His main source hasn’t shared information directly, even with the Persian Gay and Lesbian Organization. Ireland proclaimed the rape charges 'refuted.'

If we want to challenge Iran’s government, we need facts. There is enough proof of torture and repression that we can do without claims of 'pogroms.' If we want to act, we need a goal. That means listening to Iranian dissidents, straight and gay.

(SOURCE: Title: Debating Iran Author Scott Long. Impressum Gay City News, 5 (2006) 30 July 27-Aug. 2)

A follow-up from Human Rights Watch:

The preponderance of evidence suggested that the youth were tried on allegations of rape,
with the suggestion that they were tried for consensual homosexual conduct seemingly based almost entirely on mistranslations and on cursory news reporting magnified by the Western press.

Incidentally, as an interesting sidenote: as I understand it, the crime of sodomy in Iran can only be proven by the admission of the perpetrator himself, or the testimony of four other men.

Figure that one out!