The Human Rights Watch has released a damning expose on the extreme homophobic violence in the Islamic Republic of Iran.
The recent report, entitled We are a Buried Generation, reveals how laws against gays put them at risk of harassment, sexual abuse and even death.
The study – based on the testimonies of over 100 individuals – documents the extreme violence which gay men and lesbians endure as a result of anti-gay legislation.
It notes that there is a “very real threat of prosecution” and “serious punishment [awaits] those convicted of same-sex crimes”.
Iranian law forbids sodomy, defined to include both consensual and coerced sexual relations between two men, and the punishment for this is death. For women involved in same-sex intercourse, it is 100 lashes for the first three offences and the death penalty for the fourth, the report explains.
Similarly, gender reassignment is promoted as a way of accommodating homosexuality by altering anatomy – technically making them legally heterosexual.
In addition, anyone supporting homosexual culture can be seen as violating national security laws and “crimes against God”. Gay people, it found, are disproportionately charged with such so-called offences.
According to the report, those charged stand little chance of receiving a
fair trial, as judges ignore evidentiary guidelines. Trials are held
outside the public eye, which HRW say lack transparency and offers
strong evidence of systematic persecution of LGBT Iranians.
The HRW claim that security forces often use torture to extract supposed confessions and rely on discriminatory laws to harass, arrest and detain “individuals who do not conform to socially acceptable norms on gender and morality”.
Navid, a 42 year-old gay man living in Tehran, told HRW how two plain-clothed agents, members of the local paramilitary basij, arrested, beat and sexually assaulted him in his home. Assaults like this are allowed with impunity.
The report has been lauded as comprehensive and ground-breaking by gay and human rights activists around the world, including Peter Tatchell, who led a five year-long campaign against the 2005 execution of two allegedly Iranian gay teenagers charged with rape.
President Mahmoud Amadinejad has publicly denied the existence of homosexuality in Iran.
