|
Addressing Homophobia in Iran
Boroumand Foundation
“It is painful for me to see how my fellow Muslims deny and condemn the
existence of homosexuality within Islam and refuse to accept me as a
member of their community.”
-- Arsham Parsi, Founder, Iranian Queer Organization. Philadelphia, May 1,
2008
“The punishment for sodomy [lavat] where penetration has occurred is
death, and the method of execution is at the discretion of the Sharia
judge.”
-- Article 110, Islamic Republic Penal Code
Washington, DC, 17 May 2008
On
May 17, 2008, as International Day Against Homophobia is celebrated in
countries around the world, the Islamic Republic of Iran continues to
violate the dignity, the privacy, and the right to life of its lesbian,
gay, bisexual, and transgendered (LGBT) citizens.
In Iran, same sex sexual acts between consenting adults are crimes. Since
1979, thousands of Iranians have been intimidated, harassed in their own
homes, arrested, tortured, subjected to cruel corporal punishment, and
executed. Some are diagnosed with psychological disorders while others are
forced to deny their sexual orientation or induced to repent as sinners.
In all cases they are compelled to live in fear behind closed doors
because of their sexual orientations or gender identities.
Articles 108 to 134 of the Islamic Republic’s Penal Code impose specific
punishments -- ranging from 60 lashes to execution -- for men and women
found guilty of homosexual acts. Article 123, for example, reads: “If two
men, unrelated to one another, lie, without necessity, naked under the
same cover, they will each be punished by up to 99 lashes of the whip.”
Article 110 imposes the death penalty for sodomy. These penalties are
maintained in the revised draft of the penal code submitted to the
parliament for approval in December 2007.
Over the years, Iranian authorities have confirmed in their statements
that Iran sentences individuals to death for homosexual sex. In 1991, for
example, in its reply to inquiries made by a UN special representative,
the Iranian government stated that: "according to the Islamic Shariat,
homosexuals who confess to their acts and insist on [their homosexuality]
are condemned to death."[1] More recently, in May 2007, the head of a
parliamentary delegation visiting the United Kingdom stated, in response
to inquiries by British MPs, that if homosexual activity is in private,
there is no problem, but that those engaging in overt activity should be
executed. He also said that homosexuality is against human nature.[2]
The Abdorrahman Boroumand Foundation (ABF) has documented at least 146
cases of executions of individuals charged with a “homosexual act” since
1979. In 1980 in Tabriz, for example, Mr. Nasser Farhati and four other
individuals were executed for “repeated sodomy, so much so that this
immoral and filthy act had become like a chronic disease with them.” In
1982, an un-named individual was executed for “the hideous act of sodomy
and adultery” in Mashad.
In 1990, the UN Special Rapporteur on Iran reported on the execution of a
Mr. Mansuri in Arak and of five other un-named individuals. In 2005, Mr.
Mokhtar N. was found guilty of a “homosexual act.” He was executed in
public in Bahonar Square in Gorgan.
ABF’s list of executions, which is far from being exhaustive, includes
individuals who have been executed for political or other unrelated
reasons and whose charges include a homosexual offense. Mr. Makwan
Moludzadeh, a 20-year-old from Kurdistan, was sentenced to death and
executed for homosexual acts committed at the age of 13, in violation of
Iranian and international law. His execution may have been prompted by the
reported enmity of the local prosecutor. (See also Mr. Mohammad Sa'id
Beizi and Mohammad Jamil Hosseini).
The list does not include, however, scores of individuals executed for
allegedly committing homosexual rape. Among these are believed to have
been homosexuals killed based on trumped-up charges, such as in the highly
publicized case of the teenagers in Mashad who received 228 lashes each
before being hanged in public in 2005. Investigating the accuracy of these
rape charges is difficult and will not be possible as long as the Iranian
authorities deny defendants’ basic rights, such as the right to an
attorney during interrogation or the right not to incriminate oneself, and
as long as they refuse independent human rights monitors access to trials.
ABF and other human rights and LGBT rights groups have documented many
instances in which individuals suspected of homosexuality have been
arrested and flogged[3]. (See Amir, and Farshad and Farnam) They note that
such corporal punishments have increased noticeably since 2003.
In July 2005, after an inconclusive medical report, a court in Esfahan
sentenced five young men to 75 lashes apiece and three years of exile to
the Khouzistan province for “having confessed one time to a homosexual
act.”[4] According to Arsham Parsi, founder of Iranian Queer Organization,
“being flogged has become routine for many Iranian gays who may even
express relief at the fact that they were ‘only sentenced to corporal
punishment.’ ”
Twenty-nine years of institutionalized violence and discrimination have
driven Iranian gays and transsexuals to an underground life marked by the
fear of being caught. It has also made them easy targets of violence in
recent government campaigns against “hooligans”. In the summer of 2007,
the Revolutionary Tribunal of Shiraz sentenced several “hooligans” to
prison and other punishments. Among them were two men whose punishment
included 175 lashes each for homosexual acts.[5] More recently, in March
2008, another “morality campaign” led to the arrest of 30 male guests at a
party in Esfahan. Security forces broke into a private home, and the
guests were arrested, detained for weeks with no access to legal counsel,
and reportedly examined for evidence of homosexual sex.[6]
The
sad reality of the discriminatory and violent treatment of sexual
minorities in Iran contrasts starkly with the Islamic Republic’s glowing
claims of providing equality to its citizens:
- “The judiciary power of the Islamic Republic has also worked out a bill
of citizens rights. One of the main principles incorporated in this bill
ensures the enjoyment of every person of equal rights so that his
individual rights and freedoms are guaranteed irrespective of his ethnic
origin and other factors such as race, color, sex, etc…”[7]
Other official statements such as: “[I]n Iran, we don’t have homosexuals,
like in your country. … We don’t have this phenomenon,”[8] only exacerbate
the problems faced by Iranians with a non-conforming sexual orientation or
gender identity. The authorities' efforts to address the issue by
providing certificates of mental disorder or encourage sex change
operations are neither a sign of tolerance nor helpful. While the state
assistance to sex change operations is reserved to transsexuals, many
homosexuals may resort to sex change operations in search of acceptance
and to escape violence.
A
BBC documentary aired in February 2008 reported on the exceptionally high
number of sex change operations in Iran. It contained interviews with
several individuals who had had or were about to undergo sex change
operations. For the most part, the interviewees justified their choice of
resorting to a painful, complicated, and potentially dangerous surgery as
a way to counter the lack of recognition in society or harassment by
authorities, rather than to address a fundamental uneasiness with one’s
own gender.
Vida, who underwent sex change surgery, says: - “When I was a boy…my
father had to call for a cab to take me to school. If, instead, I went out
walking, the police, the revolutionary guards, or the morality police
would arrest me, … take me in, and treat me disrespectfully. … As a boy, I
couldn’t do anything. [If someone bothered me, the authorities would say]
'Look at you, you’re asking for it,' and what could I say to that?” The
reportedly high rate of suicides following these operations and the
difficulties of integration for those who survive them underlines the need
for a different approach by the Iranian government and the civil society.
Such an approach should consist of decriminalizing homosexuality
completely and providing equality of rights to sexual minority
individuals.
The Iranian government should stop all violence against individuals on the
basis of sexual orientation and gender identity and repeal the laws that
criminalize their sexuality. The reintegration of LGBT individuals into
Iranian society can hardly succeed if the State denies their existence,
provides them with certificates for psychological disorder, and outlaws
their relationships. Laws punishing consensual sexual relationships
between adults are discriminatory and violate individuals’ right to
privacy under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to
which the Iranian government is party since 1975. (UN Human Rights
Committee in its Toonen decision, 1994.)
Even when laws regarding same sex relationships are not enforced in
practice, they are stigmatizing and serve to perpetuate prejudices and
discrimination against LGBT individuals in society at large. Decades of
violence, discrimination, and exclusion have made Iranian LGBT’s
vulnerable to violence within society and left them in need of legal
protection and visibility. Human rights activists inside Iran, the
reform-oriented media, and other civil society actors can play a crucial
role by including LGBT rights in their campaigns for awareness and
equality.
On the occasion of the International Day Against Homophobia[9], ABF has
translated into Farsi The
Yogyakarta Principles: On the Application of International Human Rights
Law in relation to Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity. These
principles were drafted and adopted by a group of 29 distinguished experts
in the field of human rights law on November 9, 2006 in Yogyakarta,
Indonesia.[10] The introduction to the Yogyakarta Principles highlights
the “policing of sexuality” as a key factor perpetuating “gender-based
violence and gender inequality.”
The Yogyakarta Principles emphasize the obligation of States to implement
human rights. They provide States, as well as other actors, including
national and international human rights organizations, media, and the
United Nations human rights system, with comprehensive recommendations. By
making this valuable tool accessible in Farsi to a broad range of actors
in Iran, ABF hopes to contribute to a much needed debate on Iranian
homosexuals, bisexuals, and transsexuals and their inherent rights to
dignity and equality.
______________________
[1] United Nations, February 13, 1991. Quoted in UNHCR, Chronology of
events 1989-1994. Question and Answer Research Papers.
[2] Times Online, November 13, 2007 quoting the minutes taken by an
official describing the meeting between British and Iranian MPs.
[3] http://pglo.net/IRQO/English/pages/119.htm
[4] Hamshahri newspaper, July 14, 2005
[5] Iranian Students News Agency, August 22, 2007
[6] http://www.hrw.org/english/docs/2008/03/28/iran18385.htm
Human Rights Watch’s press release regarding this event noted that in a
similar raid in May 2007, 87 guests in a party were arrested. Some were
stripped in the street and beaten “until their backs or faces were
bloody”. Others were detained, tried and sentenced to 80 lashes and heavy
fines for “facilitating immorality and sexual misconduct.”
[7] Answers to questions about the implementation of the Durban
Declaration… Letter of the Permanent Mission of the Islamic Republic of
Iran to the Anti-Discrimination Unit of the Office of the High
Commissioner for Human Rights, 14 March, 2008.
[8] Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, President of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Columbia University, 24 September 2007.
[9] The date was chosen because it marks the anniversary of the removal on
May 17 1990 by the General Assembly of the World Health Organization (WHO)
of homosexuality from their list of mental disorders.
[10] http://www.yogyakartaprinciples.org
|
