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But "only a few" according to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

Iran does have gays!

Peter Tatchell

Friday, 3 October 2008

The Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has done an astonishing volte-face by admitting in a US TV interview that there are lesbian and gay people in Iran. Only last year, in a speech at Columbia University in New York, he notoriously claimed there were no lesbians and gays in his country. "We do not have this phenomenon," he declared.

Last week, however, Ahmadinejad grudgingly conceded there "might be a few" gay people in Iran.

This about-turn shows that Iran realises its gay-denial stance has been widely condemned and ridiculed. The fact that the President has moderated his 'no gays' position since last year is evidence that global gay protests are having an impact on the regime in Tehran. However, although Ahmadinejad has conceded the existence of gay Iranians, he went on to make it clear that he doesn't approve of their existence one iota.

He denounced homosexuality as an "unlikable and foreign act" that is illegal because it is "against our values, and all divine laws... shakes the foundations of society... robs humanity... (and) brings about disease." The Iranian President made these remarks during his visit to New York to speak to the UN General Assembly last week. He was interviewed on 24 September by reporters Juan Gonzalez and Amy Goodman from the US current affairs TV programme, Democracy Now.

You can click to watch the full interview and read the full text on the Democracy Now website.

In the same TV interview, Ahmadinejad made this astonishing claim: "Sure, if somebody engages in an [homosexual] act in their own house without being known to others, we don't pay any attention to that. People are free to do what they like in their private realms. But nobody can engage in what breaks the law in public" he said.

This is complete nonsense. Iranian law stipulates the death penalty for homosexuality, whether in public or private. People suspected of being gay have their homes raided.

Private, discreet gay parties have been busted by the police and the party-goers arrested, tortured and flogged.

Years ago, some of those arrested at private parties simply disappeared. They were never seen again. It is presumed they were secretly executed.

When Gonzales and Goodman confronted Ahmadinejad with photos of two Iranian teenagers, Mahmoud Asgari and Ayaz Marhoni, who were hanged in July 2005, his reply showed either remarkable ignorance of Iranian law or wilful dishonesty: "No, there is no law for their [gays] execution in Iran. Either they were drug traffickers or they killed someone else... So, we don't have executions of homosexuals. Of course, we consider it an abhorrent act, but it is not punished through capital punishment. It's basically an immoral act. There are a lot of acts that can be immoral, but there's no capital punishment for them" said the President. This claim is factually untrue, none of the charges against Asgari and Marhoni involved drug trafficking or murder.

In years gone past, the Iranian government proudly boasted that it had the death penalty for gay sex and that it publicly hanged gay people. These latest statements by Ahmadinejad are much more defensive. He strenuously denies that gay people can face execution. This shows that the regime no longer has the confidence to openly proclaim its violent homophobia. The persecution of gays continues in Iran but now, unlike before, the regime seeks to hide it and deny it. This is strong evidence that the homophobic dictatorship in Tehran has been stung by international protests against its flogging and hanging of men involved in same-sex relations. It realises this persecution has been a public relations disaster which has greatly harmed Iran's international image. Hence the current denials by Ahmadinejad.

It is proof that the global protests against Iran's persecution of lesbian and gay people have been effective. We must maintain the worldwide campaign until Iran is so embarrassed by international condemnation that it completely halts the victimisation of gays.

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