Mahmoud Asgari and Ayaz Marhoni

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Mahmoud Asgari (Persian: محمود عسگري‎ ) and Ayaz Marhoni (Persian: عياض مرهوني‎ ) were Iranian teenagers from the province of Khuzestan who were hanged in Edalat (Justice) Square in Mashhad, northeast Iran, on July 19, 2005.

The case attracted the attention of the international media on two grounds: firstly, due to the belief that the boys had been executed for engaging in consensual homosexual sex, while the Iranian judiciary assert it was for the forcible rape of a third boy; and secondly, due to the fact that the two were believed to have been juveniles at the time of the offense, and one believed to have been a juvenile at the time of his execution.^[1] The facts of the case are still subject to heated debate.

Contents 1 Background 2 International concern 3 Controversy 4 Aftermath 5 Trivia 6 See also 7 External links 8 References 8.1 Footnotes 8.2 Other Sources

[edit] Background

Most interpretations of Shari'a (Islamic Law) permit the death penalty for homosexual acts, but the Convention on the Rights of the Child, of which Iran is a signatory, forbids the execution of juveniles. According to Asgari's lawyer, Rohollah Razaz Zadeh, "death sentences handed to children by Iranian courts are supposed to be commuted to five years in jail," ^[2] but the Supreme Court in Tehran upheld the death sentence. The ages of the boys remains unclear, with some sources claiming they were fourteen and sixteen at the time of their arrests and sixteen and eighteen when executed.

On July 19, 2005, the Iranian Students' News Agency posted an article claiming that two boys had been executed that day for participating in consensual homosexual sex.^[1][3] The report was taken up by gay-rights group OutRage! and spread to other human rights groups and western news agencies from there. The next day, an Iranian opposition group, the National Council of Resistance released a press release about the executions, stating that: "The victims were charged with disrupting public order among other things".^[4] No other charges were indicated.

[edit] International concern

On July 22, 2005, Amnesty International issued a news release saying:

"According to reports, they were convicted of sexual assault on a 13-year-old boy and had been detained 14 months ago. Prior to their execution, the two were also given 228 lashes each for drinking, disturbing the peace and theft."^[5]

In Tehran, Nobel Peace laureate Shirin Ebadi decried the imposition of the death penalty on minors and discounted the government's allegation that the two had raped a younger boy in the northeastern part of the country. ^[6]

London-based gay rights campaigning group OutRage! disputed the allegations of rape, citing "clandestine gay and lesbian activists inside Iran, members of the democratic and left Iranian opposition, and the websites of pro-government news agencies in Iran" as sources. OutRage! member Peter Tatchell pointed to the executions of over four thousand Iranian lesbians and gay men since 1979, and stated the executions were "... just the latest barbarity by the Islamo-fascists in Iran."^{[citation needed]}

Both Sweden and The Netherlands responded to the executions by announcing that they will immediately halt extraditions of gays to Iran. The Dutch government also announced that its Ministry of Foreign Affairs would investigate the treatment of gays and lesbians in the Islamic state, and would immediately halt all extraditions of gay Iranian asylum-seekers. Civil rights groups in the US, United Kingdom and Russia have also called for the creation of similar policies.^[7]

U.S. Congressman Tom Lantos characterized the executions as violations of Iran's obligations under international law and a sign of bias against gays:

"This sickening episode shines a bright light on the severe shortcomings of the Iranian legal system. No matter what legal sources or traditions a country bases its law upon, there is no justification for whipping and executing people amid an angry mob — particularly not when the convicts committed offenses while they were minors, who are specifically protected under international law. And in this case, authorities apparently chose to play on deep-seated feelings of bigotry toward homosexuality."^[8]

[edit] Controversy

Journalist Afdhere Jama interviewed numerous sources from Mashhad who maintain that Mahmoud Asgari, Ayaz Marhoni, and five other friends were originally accused of committing consensual homosexual acts on each other (Lavaat). One of the accusers is believed to be an older half-brother of Ayaz Marhoni.^[9]

The seven boys were taken into police custody, and then examined by a doctor for signs of rectal scarring. Asgari, Marhoni, and a 13-year-old friend tested positive, while the other boys did not. As punishment, Asgari, Marhoni, and the 13-year-old received lashes administered by law enforcement officers.^[9]

The father of the 13-year-old boy is said to be a senior Revolutionary Guards officer. Mashhad sources interviewed by Jama insist that the father’s position, one which deals largely with suppressing internal dissent, and defending the regime, grants him a very high social and political status. Sources believe this is why the typically unyielding Iranian government had so freely changed the 13-year-old’s account from consensual homosexual sex to rape. It also explains why Marhoni and Asgari, both minors, had received such harsh punishments.^[9]

[edit] Aftermath

Based on information available at the time, Paula Ettelbrick, executive director of the International Gay & Lesbian Human Rights Commission, said "It was not a gay case," taking issue with the Human Rights Campaign’s statement that was quick to condemn the execution as anti-gay. "We would welcome HRC’s involvement in demanding that our government speak out on human rights violations. It was just the wrong case,” she said.^[10] Ettelbrick said she was also disturbed by the religiously charged language used by some gay rights groups to condemn the execution, such as when Peter Tatchell of Outrage said in a statement, "This is just the latest barbarity by the Islamo-fascists in Iran."^[11] .

In March 2006 Dutch Immigration Minister Rita Verdonk ("Iron Rita") proposed an end to a moratorium on deporting gay asylum-seekers to Iran, stating that it was now clear "that there is no question of executions or death sentences based solely on the fact that a defendant is gay", adding that homosexuality was never the primary charge against people.^[12]. Under parliamentary pressure she was forced to extend the moratorium on deportation for a further six months. ^[13]

The one year anniversary of the hangings in Mashhad was designated an International Day of Action Against Homophobic Persecution in Iran by OutRage! and IDAHO (the International Day Against Homophobia), with vigils planned for Amsterdam, Berlin, Brussels, Chicago, Fort Lauderdale, Frankfurt, London, Marseille, Mexico City, Moscow, New York, Sacramento, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, Stockholm, Tehran, Toronto, Vancouver, Vienna, Warsaw, and Washington, D.C., and with hearings planned in the British House of Commons.^[14]

[edit] Trivia

The album Fundamental by the British musical group Pet Shop Boys is "Dedicated to Mahmoud Asgari and Ayaz Marhoni".

[edit] See also

• LGBT rights in Iran
• Homosexuality and Islam
• Judicial system of Iran

[edit] External links

• Original news article from ISNA (in Persian, with three photographs)

[edit] References

[edit] Footnotes

[edit] Other Sources

• Iran Executes Two - What Was Their Crime?
• Mixed reports on Iran teen hangings
• The Netherlands Freeze Gay Extraditions To Iran
• Iranian sources confirm trumped up charges
• Iran: Setting the Record Straight
• [6] Mashhad Place of Martyrdom