The Islamic Republic of Iran’s vicious campaign to eradicate homosexuality and render its homosexuals invisible has received a major blow with a new report from the world’s most prestigious human rights organization, Human Rights Watch (HRW).
The 104-page report, entitled “‘We Are a Buried Generation’: Discrimination and Violence against Sexual Minorities in Iran,” was issued December 15 by HRW, which has its headquarters in New York and operates on an annual budget of some $45 million with a staff of 275 working in 40 countries.
The report, based on 125 interviews, notes that Iran “bans same-sex conduct regardless of whether it is consensual in nature. The very real threat of prosecution and the serious punishment that awaits those convicted of same-sex crimes constitute discrimination against members of Iran’s LGBT minority whose consensual sexual practices are criminalized under any and all circumstances.
“For example, Iranian law prohibits sodomy, defined to include both consensual and coerced sexual intercourse between two men. The punishment for same-sex intercourse between two men (lavat) is death and for sexual relations between two women (mosaheqeh) is 100 lashes for the first three offenses and the death penalty for the fourth. Evidence indicates that the punishment has been enforced -- the threat of execution is real for Iran’s vulnerable LGBT community.”
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