http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/IRIN/8dcaa373b87d42b60ee8c395c49f9410.htm
IRAN: Activists condemn execution of gay teens
25 Jul 2005Source: IRIN
ANKARA, 25 July (IRIN) - Human rights groups the world over havestrongly condemned the recent execution of two gay teenagers innortheastern Iran.
"It's entirely unacceptable that people are actually killed because oftheir sexuality," Kursad Kahramananoglu, head of the InternationalLesbian and Gay Association (ILGA), the oldest and onlymembership-based lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT)organisation in the world, maintained from Istanbul.
While exact details of the case remained unclear, he vowed ifconfirmed, ILGA would pursue the matter to the highest level, includingthe United Nations, noting a rise in homophobia in the world today.
Kahramananoglu was not alone in his condemnation. "Killing teenagersfor what they do together is absolutely abhorrent," David Allison,spokesman for the London-based LGBT advocacy group Outrage said. Headded that given that Iran was such an old civilisation, it wasappalling that they should descend to such barbaric levels - especiallyagainst young people.
"To execute people simply because they are gay or have had gay sex justisn't acceptable in the 21st century," he exclaimed.
Their comments follow the public hangings of Mahmoud Asgari, 16, andAyaz Marhoni, 18, on 19 July in Mashad, provincial capital of Iran'snortheastern Khorasan province, on charges of homosexuality.
Asgari had been accused of raping a 13-year-old boy, though Outragebelieved those allegations were trumped up to undermine public sympathyfor the two youths, both of whom maintain they were unaware homosexualacts were punishable by death, an AP news report said on Sunday.
"The judiciary has trampled its own laws," Asgari's lawyer, RohollahRazez Zadeh, was quoted as saying, explaining that Iranian courts weresupposed to commute death sentences handed to children to five years injail, but the country's Supreme Court allowed the hangings to proceed.
Meanwhile on Saturday, Iran's Nobel Peace laureate Shirin Ebadi condemned the executions, reaffirming her determination to ban theexecution of minors.
"My calls for a law banning execution of under-18s have fallen on deafears so far but I will not give up the fight," the AP quoted her assaying, calling the executions a violation of Iran's obligations underthe International Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC).
Prior to the boys' executions, the teenagers were held in prison for 14months and severely beaten with 228 lashes. The length of theirdetention suggests that they committed the so-called offences more thana year earlier, when they were possibly around the age of 16, astatement by Outrage explained.
Citing Iranian human rights campaigners, Outrage claims over 4,000lesbians and gay men have been executed since the Iranian revolution of1979. In total, an estimated 100,000 Iranians have been put to deathover the last 26 years of clerical rule, including women who had sexoutside of marriage and political opponents of the Islamist government.
According to ILGA, Iran is one of at least seven countries today whichstill retain capital punishment for homosexuality. Others includeMauritania, Sudan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Yemen. Thesituation with regard to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is unclear.
In the wake of the hangings, Amnesty International (AI) on Fridaycalled on Tehran to put a final stop to state executions, explaining asa state party to the International Convention on Civil and PoliticalRights (ICCPR) and the CRC, Iran had undertaken not to execute anyonefor an offence committed when they were under the age of 18.
For the past four years, the Iranian authorities have been consideringlegislation that would prohibit the use of the death penalty foroffences committed by persons under the age of 18. Under Article1210(1) of Iran's Civil Code, the ages of 15 lunar years for boys andnine lunar years for girls are set out as the age of criminalresponsibility, an AI statement said.
In January 2005, following its consideration of Iran's second periodicreport on its implementation of the provisions of the CRC, the UnitedNations Committee on the Rights of the Child, the body of independentexperts established under this Convention to monitor states parties'compliance with the treaty, urged Iran:
"to take the necessary steps to immediately suspend the execution ofall death penalties imposed on persons for having committed a crimebefore the age of 18, to take the appropriate legal measures to convertthem to penalties in conformity with the provisions of the Conventionand to abolish the death penalty as a sentence imposed on persons forhaving committed crimes before the age of 18, as required by article 37of the Convention."
IRAN: Activists condemn execution of gay teens
25 Jul 2005Source: IRIN
ANKARA, 25 July (IRIN) - Human rights groups the world over havestrongly condemned the recent execution of two gay teenagers innortheastern Iran.
"It's entirely unacceptable that people are actually killed because oftheir sexuality," Kursad Kahramananoglu, head of the InternationalLesbian and Gay Association (ILGA), the oldest and onlymembership-based lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT)organisation in the world, maintained from Istanbul.
While exact details of the case remained unclear, he vowed ifconfirmed, ILGA would pursue the matter to the highest level, includingthe United Nations, noting a rise in homophobia in the world today.
Kahramananoglu was not alone in his condemnation. "Killing teenagersfor what they do together is absolutely abhorrent," David Allison,spokesman for the London-based LGBT advocacy group Outrage said. Headded that given that Iran was such an old civilisation, it wasappalling that they should descend to such barbaric levels - especiallyagainst young people.
"To execute people simply because they are gay or have had gay sex justisn't acceptable in the 21st century," he exclaimed.
Their comments follow the public hangings of Mahmoud Asgari, 16, andAyaz Marhoni, 18, on 19 July in Mashad, provincial capital of Iran'snortheastern Khorasan province, on charges of homosexuality.
Asgari had been accused of raping a 13-year-old boy, though Outragebelieved those allegations were trumped up to undermine public sympathyfor the two youths, both of whom maintain they were unaware homosexualacts were punishable by death, an AP news report said on Sunday.
"The judiciary has trampled its own laws," Asgari's lawyer, RohollahRazez Zadeh, was quoted as saying, explaining that Iranian courts weresupposed to commute death sentences handed to children to five years injail, but the country's Supreme Court allowed the hangings to proceed.
Meanwhile on Saturday, Iran's Nobel Peace laureate Shirin Ebadi condemned the executions, reaffirming her determination to ban theexecution of minors.
"My calls for a law banning execution of under-18s have fallen on deafears so far but I will not give up the fight," the AP quoted her assaying, calling the executions a violation of Iran's obligations underthe International Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC).
Prior to the boys' executions, the teenagers were held in prison for 14months and severely beaten with 228 lashes. The length of theirdetention suggests that they committed the so-called offences more thana year earlier, when they were possibly around the age of 16, astatement by Outrage explained.
Citing Iranian human rights campaigners, Outrage claims over 4,000lesbians and gay men have been executed since the Iranian revolution of1979. In total, an estimated 100,000 Iranians have been put to deathover the last 26 years of clerical rule, including women who had sexoutside of marriage and political opponents of the Islamist government.
According to ILGA, Iran is one of at least seven countries today whichstill retain capital punishment for homosexuality. Others includeMauritania, Sudan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Yemen. Thesituation with regard to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is unclear.
In the wake of the hangings, Amnesty International (AI) on Fridaycalled on Tehran to put a final stop to state executions, explaining asa state party to the International Convention on Civil and PoliticalRights (ICCPR) and the CRC, Iran had undertaken not to execute anyonefor an offence committed when they were under the age of 18.
For the past four years, the Iranian authorities have been consideringlegislation that would prohibit the use of the death penalty foroffences committed by persons under the age of 18. Under Article1210(1) of Iran's Civil Code, the ages of 15 lunar years for boys andnine lunar years for girls are set out as the age of criminalresponsibility, an AI statement said.
In January 2005, following its consideration of Iran's second periodicreport on its implementation of the provisions of the CRC, the UnitedNations Committee on the Rights of the Child, the body of independentexperts established under this Convention to monitor states parties'compliance with the treaty, urged Iran:
"to take the necessary steps to immediately suspend the execution ofall death penalties imposed on persons for having committed a crimebefore the age of 18, to take the appropriate legal measures to convertthem to penalties in conformity with the provisions of the Conventionand to abolish the death penalty as a sentence imposed on persons forhaving committed crimes before the age of 18, as required by article 37of the Convention."
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