Homosexual Iran - An essay by Kate

[nekokate]

Homosexual Iran
By Katheryn Cuttler

I've spent quite a lot of time researching on the internet since the sensationalising by various LGBT organisations of George Galloway's comments on The Wright Stuff regarding Iran's record on homosexuality. As a supporter and online friend of George, I've done as much research, as much digging and as much prodding as I can bear in order to try and set things in a clearer light and get somewhere closer to the crux of the matter. I have some very conflicting conclusions to draw - not all of them in George's favour, unfortunately. In my opinion, this is an issue impossible to be seen in stark, black and white terms.

The most recent case concerning Iran and gay intolerance - which sparked the debate in the first place - is of course the asylum claim of Mehdi Kazemi: Denied asylum in Holland, deported to the UK, and "saved" at the last minute by home secretary, Jacqui Smith.

The first thing to draw attention to is that, based on my research, there are currently 79 countries in the world that have laws against homosexual activity, with the punishments ranging from fines and community service all the way through to prison sentences and finally arriving at execution by the state.

Of those 79, what does The Islamic Republic of Iran have in common with Mauritania, Nigeria, Somalia, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, The UAE and Yemen? The answer is they all carry the death sentence as their most extreme punishment for the crime of sodomy. However, it's debatable and extremely hard to establish how often this sentence is passed down by these countries. It may well be that in some cases the law is taken about as seriously as the British law that, until recently, stated that the killing of a swan was treason, or that you can legally shoot a Scotsman in the back with an arrow if you are in audible distance of the bells of York cathedral, but we know as a fact its possibility is codified into their laws.

There are arguments for and against the stand George Galloway appeared to take - with evidence pointing toward severe, institutionalised homophobia in Iran and also toward knee-jerk reactionary over-blowing of individual legal cases - and I hope to succinctly present them both in this essay.

In any investigation, the first sensible thing to do would be to establish the known facts and separate them from rumour and opinion. This has proven to be incredibly difficult here due to the institutional secrecy surrounding Iranian legal matters. To many, I imagine it is understandable that the regime in Iran, facing as it is the imminent threat of attack from both Israel and the USA, uses non-cooperation as its prerogative when dealing with Western countries, or indeed any outside interference, but it can also be seen as akin to shooting itself in the foot since non-cooperation is very easily spun out of their favour when governments and organisations begin to rhetorically ask "So then, what do they have to hide?"

Without an official and definitive list of executions, the most glaringly obvious problem is the contradiction of "facts" by authoritative sources. Most websites and individuals who publish extensively on the issue of Persian gay rights have, by very definition of their involvement, an ideological disposition - that is to say they are likely to be filtering their work through a lens of bias, either one way or the other.

Reports from Homan, which is an Persian LGBT group set up as a resource for gay and lesbian Iranian exiles estimates that, since 1979 and Ruhollah Khomeini's overthrowing of the Shah, there have been around 4,000 executions of gay men. That figure may well be an exaggeration, but they base it on hangings for which one of the charges was "lavaat". Under Iranian law, lavaat is the crime of sodomy, which they define as any unnatural, deviant sexual act with a man, woman or beast, but in everyday terms it is used most commonly to refer simply to homosexual sex.

Of course, it would be lacking in intellectual rigour if I didn't take into account their exact wording here - they count cases where lavaat was one of the charges, which suggests it didn't have to be one of the convictions which led to their deaths. Still, it's a troubling figure for those who wish to give it credence.

As with all countries and all societies, homophobia is definitely present in Iran, and similarly authority and power always tends to heighten contempt amongst the powerful for the average citizen (as we saw recently with the apparent breakdown of order and prevailing of violence and oppression within various branches of the Hamas police force in Palestine). Iran's problems in this regard seem to be somewhat worse than many, since it allows its streets to be policed by an organisation called The Basij, which is a 20-million-strong paramilitary group of volunteers under the control of the Ayatollah.

The Basij has been criticized and condemned many times by the likes of Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International for its repeated violation of human rights and unfair, brutal "moral policing" of its citizenship involving the intimidation, unlawful detention and torture of ethnic minorities such as Arabs, Kurds and Azeri Turks; religious minorities such as Christians and Baha’is; also human rights activists, journalists, lawyers and trade unionists as well as the regular Persian majority.

I found a first-hand account of a gay Iranian man who was entrapped via an internet chat-room, arrested and lashed by Basijis and claims to have been threatened with the death penalty. At the time he spoke out he had fled to Turkey and was hoping to claim asylum.

http://direland.typepad.com/direland/2005/09/theyll_kill_me_.html

The report is admittedly rather sensational, and it is only fair to point out that its author, Doug Ireland, has links with OutRage!, which is widely considered to be one of the more militant gay rights organisations. However, I'm reluctant to believe the story is entirely fictional. The blatant and extreme homophobia it depicts is a very useful example of the accusation by gay lobbyists that The Basij - and by extension the Iranian legal system - has, at the very least, worrying elements of prejudice, and at the very worst is totally and institutionally homophobic. Perhaps the truth is somewhere in the middle of those two statements, but even cautious acceptance of this thesis makes it very easy to see how false accusations, false confessions and "trumped-up" charges could be levied in an Iranian Sharia court.

The reason I've touched on this is to give some context to another common assertion by many gay rights groups: Namely that in the handful of cases that Iran has actually allowed documentation to be released on, therein lies the possibility of not only false confessions obtained through torture or coercion, but also false accusations of rape in order to avoid a harsh sentence.

For instance, if two partners engage in consensual gay sex and are arrested and detained in dire conditions with the threat of possible execution on the horizon, one partner may claim he was in fact raped by the other, hence the charge of lavaat beh onf (forced sodomy).

It is claimed that this could well have been the case in the hangings of Ayaz Marhoni and Mahmoud Asgari. They were officially convicted of the rape of a 13-year-old boy and have become almost the "poster children" of the Iran versus gay rights argument due to the grainy photographs of their last moments, swinging alongside each other under a canvas banner in a Mashhad public square.

While this is easily the most famous case in this entire debate, it only continues to have the dual propaganda power it has developed due to the uncertainty surrounding the exact circumstances. In a similar way to the reports of the old Arab radio transmissions instructing the Palestinians to abandon their homeland (which the Left-wing demand never occurred and the Right-wing demand absolutely did, and the factual record being so blank as to offer no real evidence that it did, but also no real evidence that it didn't) this case does not seem to be able to be satisfactorily settled, although Amnesty International, Human Rights watch and The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission have all urged people to treat the case as merely an abomination of human rights, not as a gay issue.

Simon Forbes, a journalist associated with OutRage!, following an extensive investigation into the issue, wrote that "claims of rape are sometimes made to save the family's honour or to save the passive partner from execution and are part of an Iranian government propaganda offensive to scapegoat and demonise gay people".

I'm not sure I'm comfortable going all the way with Mr Forbes on this one, but I do have some sympathy with the first half of that quote. We have already seen evidence - both first-hand and through publications by human rights organisations - that there is indeed a corrupt and homophobic undercurrent throughout the paramilitary Basij, and as such the possibility of forced confession and false accusation cannot be dismissed outright. This is the case in many countries, of course, so it would be foolish and extremely politically dangerous to see this as a specifically Iranian flaw.

Nevertheless, covert and overt institutional homophobia, where it prevails, will indeed lead to more arrests of homosexuals and therefore more convictions of homosexuals, so while it is easy for one to raise a finger in the air, stare cockeyed over ones glasses and point out that homosexuals in Iran are not hanged specifically for homosexuality, in my opinion this is the intellectual equivalent of walking a tightrope. If we draw an analogy with the alleged institutional racism in the British police force we can better understand why pronouncements such as the one by George Galloway outraged OutRage! It is quite often stated, and rightly so, that the reason we have so many black prisoners in our jails is partly down to (as well as class and poverty issues) an inherent racism that courses in the veins of The Establishment, that spurious reasons are given for stopping and searching young blacks, and that sometimes even spurious evidence is presented in order to obtain a conviction. If this abomination is possible in our so-called "green and pleasant land", I don't see why it isn't possible in what no one can deny is a much harsher, much more fundamental country.

Interestingly, and perhaps slightly enigmatically, Paula Ettelbrick (from the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Committee) has stated "It’s clear that a pattern is emerging in which young men are executed as couples and that the crimes they allegedly committed always involve some form of sexual assault of another male." This is an important quote to ponder over, since it may well be that she is suggesting exactly what I am most strongly concerned about: That the convictions of some of these men may have been secured through the piling on of additional, fabricated evidence. If ignored, this gives credence to the assertion that these men are not being hanged for being gay, but for being rapists who just happen to be gay, which must surely ring alarm-bells for a lot of people. Why are so many homosexuals in Iran, by sheer coincidence, also rapists?

From Amnesty International:
"In November 2005 [...] two men identified as Mokhtar N., aged 24 years, and Ali A., aged 25 years, were publicly executed in Shahid Bahonar Square, Gorgan for the crime of lavaat ("sodomy"). The report went on to state that the men had committed previous crimes, including kidnapping, stabbing and rape. Amnesty International sought clarification from the Iranian authorities about the precise charges for which these two men were executed, but had received no reply by early February 2006."

To add to the confusion, there are also extensive and damning articles on homophobia in Iran written by a journalist named Amir Taheri who is himself Iranian. He has made claims as horrific as gays and lesbians being herded together and hanged from trees as well as San Franciscan gay rights activists being executed by gunshot in Tehran airport by Basijis in the first years of the Iranian Revolution. On further examination, however, Amir Taheri, although Iranian, is the neo-conservative journalist who made the totally false and disgraceful report, picked up by The National Post and then repeated by news outlets all over the world, alleging the Iranian regime intended to introduce a law whereby Jews and other minorities would be required to wear identifying badges on their outer clothing. With those credentials, I think we can safely ignore his articles.

Finally, back to George Galloway's comments. I have no choice but to conclude that Peter Tatchell, militant involvement with OutRage! and subsequent ideological disposition notwithstanding, actually has a strong point. He has demanded that George should provide proof of his assertion that the boyfriend of the asylum seeker, Mehdi Kazemi, was hanged not for homosexuality but for sex crimes against young men.

At the time of writing this essay it is actually impossible to know that for certain, because the circumstances of the case have not been released by Iran and there is no reliable source I can find anywhere, after extensive searching, that can shed any light on it at all. In fact, even more remarkably, the hanged man is only ever referred to as "the boyfriend" of Mehdi Kazemi - at no point has he ever been named, making investigation into the matter even more impossible. You cannot know the reason for the execution of one who is currently just a "phantom boyfriend".

I'm sure it won't be long before we start to hear whispers that maybe there never even was a boyfriend in the first place and this is all just an elaborate ruse to obtain asylum - although any Right-wing columnist who tried it would be hoist by his own petard since it is also in his interest to write apoplectically about how Iran does hang homosexuals! I'm not that kind of cynic, though, so I don't think I'll find myself embracing that particular theory anytime soon.

I'm not sure at all how to conclude this opinion-piece since I've asserted from the start my belief that there just isn't enough concrete evidence on either side of the debate to satisfy me. One of my main concerns, as I'm sure anyone can guess quite easily, is the prevailing attitude among many Left-wingers who are determined to see any questioning or highlighting of the Iranian government's unpleasantness as purely the beating of war-drums, and as Galloway put it during his appearance on The Wright Stuff, "The pink end of the khaki war machine".

I know exactly what George was trying to say - I'm not so naive as to be oblivious to the propaganda value of any and every pronouncement that paints Iran in a less that brilliant light considering the current international climate - but my own morals prevent me from acquiescing to such a flimsy excuse for what could be argued borders on apologism. I believe, perhaps stupidly, that people are intelligent enough to tell the difference between cynical propaganda and genuine, deserved and important condemnation and questioning of a country that, along with a lot of others in the Middle East, has very real problems.

If I were George Galloway, I'd be very careful to clarify exactly what I really mean when I dance on the tightrope of issues such as this one. Incidentally, if I were George Galloway I'd also require a very urgent sex-change operation, and ironically, Iran performs more sex changes per year than any other country except Thailand, although it is reported that this is actually symptomatic of the inherent homophobia and a fatwa by the Ayatollah which stated that transsexualism is, unlike homosexuality, acceptable, leading to many gay men seeking the operation in order to avoid further stigma and persecution.

- Katheryn Cuttler (16 March 2008)

[til661]

I haven't posted here for a while, though I still lurk. I just wanted to iterate what a good article you have produced.

I'd perhaps go further to one side than you and would possibly quibble with a couple of things but nonetheless an excellent piece. It is a problem that is interesting on two levels, both close to my heart, and I applaud your attempt to balance the two (LGBT rights and Anti-Iranism)

Nice one Kate



*Edit* And thank you to face for leaving my account open which was generous.

[faceless]

it was an excellent read indeed - the only thing I'd say was that the last paragraph seemed rushed.

no worries til, your posts were always good and genuine.

[nekokate]

[til661]

Thank you both but to prevent derailing the thread on to the article

[nekokate]

[til661]

[luke]

nice one kate, interesting read.

hello again til

[mickyv]

Thank you Kate for an interesting report, I appreciate the effort & time you put into it. And as I feared, you have verified that it’s next to impossible to get very reliable information on this subject, and hence very difficult to come to any strong conclusions. The possibility that the hanging of Gays is being achieved through trump up charges of other crimes is truly horrifying, but all we have is Paula Ettelbrick’s suspicion, which is itself uncertain, because maybe all the cases that have been so serious as to warrant the death penalty, may by self-definition have truly involved gang rape, which also applies to your “Why are so many homosexuals in Iran, by sheer coincidence, also rapists?”; ie perhaps Gays who don’t fall foul of committing crimes, are left alone, or at least tolerated, as would be seem to be indicated by the Times interview with the Iranian Government Minister who said that “if homosexual activity is in private there is no problem”, and as suggested by the comments of the Editor of an Iranian Gay Magazine as quoted in my original link from

http://www.ilga.org/news_results.asp?LanguageID=1&FileCategory=9&FileID=689

In the absence of anything definite I rather tend to err on the positive optimistic side, but of course the reality could be the opposite.

Regarding the less optimistic side I must say that nevermind the pro-war mongers, I have a very big problem accepting as gospel anything Peter Tatchell says about Iran, or indeed on most things ! I once came across a very nasty stitch-up piece by him on Cuba, which was obviously a nasty political hatchet job, completely full of very deliberate misrepresentations, exaggerations, & barefaced lies. I also distrust somebody who claims he was anti the Iraq War but for many years argued for "massive material aid" to be given to the CIA fronted Iraqi opposition groups, and including calling for the supplying of "tanks, helicopter gun-ships, fighter planes, heavy artillery and anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles", to all of Saddam’s enemies, including the Shi'ite Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, the very group he now attacks for the "terrorisation of gay Iraqis" ! Also ironically, he recently had to write, following all the years he spent calling for forced regime change in Iraq, that Gays were better off under Saddam !

Since the attack on Iraq, he has become increasingly anti-Muslim, and joined such other Muslim bashing “pro war” former Lefties, as Christopher Hitchens, Nick Cohen & Oliver Kamm in signing up to the 'Unite Against Terror' declaration, a statement of support for the War on Terror, and he actually wrote this about those who opposed the War in his very sign-up comment; “These same right-wing leftists back the so-called 'resistance' in Iraq” !!

Even on Gay Rights, if you research on Tatchell you will find many figures within the gay community, regarded many of his campaigns & tactics as counterproductive, as they are considered to have alienated many who were otherwise sympathetic to his cause. For example the gay and lesbian rights group Stonewall condemned his “Outing” campaign by “issuing a statement that used the word "blackmail" to describe Tatchell's tactics. Like Tatchell's campaign to lower the age of consent to 14, it was, said Angela Mason, the executive secretary of Stonewall, "a gift to the opponents" and "absolutely counterproductive". Mason regards Tatchell as "sincere but misguided"”

As it may be apparent I’m not a Tatchell fan, and far from being “misguided” or a just a “useful tool” for Right Wingers, I believe he is a nasty Islamophobe with some nasty right wing core values, and that he uses Homophobia as a vehicle to advance these.

[nekokate]

Thanks, mickyv

I'm with you on Tatchell - that's why I made sure to mention a few times in my essay that OutRage! was regarded as a lot more militant than other gay rights organisations. It seems, at the moment, that it's the only organisation that is still demanding that Iran absolutely definitely executes homosexuals.

Of course, Galloway is also accused of being too militant by other left-wing organisations in exactly the same way as Tatchell, so I do have respect for the guy - he's a conviction lobbyist.

[Salim201]

great essay, how about one on the the UK's enlightened record on gay rights?

[til661]

And they are comparable how?

[Mandy]

[faceless]

I'm sure any 'outburst from Kate' will be justified... comparing apples and oranges is never a good idea. The whole article and reason for it is about Iran, not about anything else. Salim's comment was just sarcasm, or at least that's how it came across.

If I wrote an article suggesting, for example, that Islam was the most intolerant religion in certain areas, does that mean that I should also describe the intolerance of 'The Free Church of Scotland' too? No, it doesn't, unless I was aiming the article at those who don't have the scope to understand the point being made.

[Mandy]