Iran set to execute twelve men on charges of sodomy

Ten young Iranian men, including eight teenagers, are currently awaiting execution for sodomy, and two more are being re-tried on the same capital charge. And, in an exclusive interview with Gay City News, an Iranian student gay rights activist confirmed for the first time the existence of queer organizing on multiple university campuses throughout Iran.

The information about the ten youths currently under sentence of death for sodomy (lavaat in Persian) was released on November 25 in a joint appeal by the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC), the Iranian Queer Organization (IRQO), and COC of the Netherlands, the world’s oldest LGBT rights group, founded in 1946. The three organizations called on Western countries “with significant diplomatic and economic ties to Iran, including Germany, France, Canada, as well as the European Union, to pursue diplomatic efforts to cease these executions.”

Misaghi confirmed to [Doug Ireland] the existence of queer organizing on a number of university campuses throughout Iran, marking the first time that a student activist has spoken openly to a Western reporter about this new development. The reason there has been no reporting outside Iran on campus queer organizing, according to the activist, is that “based on what I’ve experienced, there is great secrecy on the part of student queer activists, most of whom use aliases in their work, and in issuing public statements will do so only in the name of a group. There is no visibility, no head figure, no out activists.”

Iranian security forces used rape, torture and mock executions in their campaign to crush anti-government protest this summer, an Amnesty International said today, citing a “climate of impunity” that has seen human rights in the country plunge to their lowest point in 20 years.

Amnesty said in a report that protesters were incarcerated in appalling conditions, raped and tortured into false confessions and sentenced to death after suspect show trials while official investigations into alleged abuses “seemed to have been more concerned with covering up abuses than getting at the truth”."