WORLDWIDE PROTESTS OVER IRAN HANGINGS OF TEENS AS NEW REPORTS FROM INSIDE IRAN QUESTION THE VALIDITY OF THE 'RAPE' CHARGE

Worldwide protests have been called against the death penalty and criminalization of homophobia in Iran in the wake of the hanging of two teen boys in the Iranian city of Mashad. August 11 has been designated as the day for a series of coordinated demonstrations in France, Ireland, the United Kingdom, and elsewhere. (Click on the photo of the two boys being hanged, at right, to see a larger version.)

In France, a coalition of 20 gay organizations has said that the July 19 hangings of the two Iranian youths for "homosexual acts" -- the boys  were also convicted of  "sexual assault," but there is enormous controversy over whether or not that charge was justified -- "illustrates perfectly the policy of repression and homophobic hate which persists in Iran," and recalls  that "the execution of two youths who were underage at the time of the 'crimes' they were charged with is itself a crime under humanitarian international law, since Iran is a signatory party to the International Conventions on Civil and Political Rights and on the Rights of the Child, which both forbid executions of minors."  The August 11 French protest demonstrations will be held in Paris at 7 PM at the Place Edmond Michelet (left) in front of the Centre Georges Pompidou museum on the right bank (the site is symbolic, as Michelet was an important figure of the French Resistance whom the Nazis deported to Dachau); and in Montpelier at 12 Noon at the Place de la Comedie, in front of the fountain of the Trois Graces (right). Here are the French groups calling the demonstrations: Académie Gay & Lesbienne, Act Up-Paris, AGLA France, ARDHIS, C'est l'bouquet!, Collectif contre l'homophobie, Commission LGBT des Verts (Green Party), Coordination InterPride France, Coordination Lesbiennes en France, Centre lesbien, gai, bi & trans de Paris et Ile-de-France, Ensemble contre la peine de mort, Homonormalité, Inter-LGBT, Panthères roses, Soeurs de la Perpétuelle Indulgence (couvents de Paname et d'Atlantique Sud), Solidarité Internationale LGBT, SOS homophobie.

In County Dublin on August 11, the demonstration will be held in Blackrock (overlooking Dublin Bay) in front of the Iranian Embassy at 72 Mount Merrion Avenue (for details, click here). The call to the Irish demonstration underlines the torture the two hanged Iranian boys were subjected to: -- "Both boys spent the last 14 months of their lives in police custody where they each received 228 lashes prior to being hung to death" -- and includes the slogan "Ban the Death Penalty in Iran."

In London, the August 11 demonstration will be held from 1-6 PM, in front of the Embassy of Iran at 16 Prince's Gate in Knightsbridge, quite near Royal Albert Hall and a five-minute walk from the Knightsbridge Underground station.

In San Francisco, the August 11 press conference and protest demonstration will be held at Harvey Milk Square (named after the first openly gay elected member of the city's Board of Supervisors, assassinated in 1978 by a homophobe), at thecorner of Castro and Market Streets, from 5-6 P. M. Local elected officials will speak.....and there are undoubtedly other protests this weekend of which I have not yet heard.

Meanwhile, in The Netherlands, the leading Dutch gay organization, COC, has established an online petition protesting the hangings (in Dutch and English) that has already secured over 20,000 signaturs. And three days ago in Amsterdam, the 10th annual Canal Parade for Gay Pride, organized by organised by the G. B. A. (the Gay Business Amsterdam Foundation) "was led by a boat draped in white carrying the photograph of the two teenagers hanged for being gay (left).. A sombre beginning to a parade that, despite the occasional shower, delighted the 350,000 onlookers lining the Amsterdam canals," reports ex-pat Brit Geoff Coupe's blog.

In Sweden, in the wake of the hangings the government has decided to freeze deportation of gay Iranians who'd previously been denied asylum, in response to a campaign by Swedish gay organizations -- which last Friday had held a protest rally featuring a message from a clandestine Iranian refugee hiding in Sweden. The refugee, Faroush Danahkar, had been condemned in Iran for "illegal relations" and lashed 99 times. His crime? At the age of 17, while at the beach, he had kissed a boy who was one year younger than he was.

The French gay coalition has also endorsed the international petition entitled "No Gays to the Scaffold" organized by the French group Ensemble contre la peine de mort (Together Against the Death Penalty.) The petition says: "I hereby assert my solidarity and my support to homosexuals and other members of sexual minorities who are being arrested, imprisoned, and even sentenced to death and executed in the world. Iran, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Mauritania, Sudan, Nigeria (northern states), Yemen, Pakistan, United Arab Emirates are the 9 countries where homosexuals risk death penalty the only motive being their homosexuality. This has to stop. Affirming and living freely one's sexual orientation is not a crime and should not have its place in the penal code. In the name of liberty and elementary human rights, valid to all women and men, I ask the international community to act with vigour so that the last countries still advocating for death penalty reform their penal code, and, in the meanwhile, commute the death penalty condemnations, and set free those arrested for the only reason them being homosexuals." There's an English-language sign-on page for the petition, so sign on by clicking here.

NEW INFORMATION FROM INSIDE IRAN ON THE HANGED BOYS CASTS DOUBT ON 'RAPE' CHARGE: Meanwhile, new information is continuing to come in from Iran casting doubt on the validity of the rape charge against the two hanged boys. Afdhere Jama, editor of the e-zine for Queer Muslims, Huriyah, says contacts of his in Iran affirm that the two boys hung in Mashad were lovers. "The first day I found out, I called my Iranian contacts from Huriyah," says Jama. "All agreed on the fact that these boys were murdered for being queer. One of my contacts who has been to gay parties in Mashad (the city where the boys were executed) swears the boys were long-term lovers, and another source told me one of the boys' family members outed the couple."

Jama told me that, "The level of surveillance in Iran has reached maximum since the reports of the hanged boys 'got out.' You would be surprised how far I had to go to find out what happened. Can you believe one of my contacts had to dress up as a woman -- with full facial nikkhab -- also wearing gloves.... and go into an Internet cafe... only to use Yahoo messenger he created right there for only -- yes -- just a ONE minute message to me? He had to travel a day to this Internet cafe to make sure nothing would get back to him. it is that scary. People are rightfully scared for their lives."

I have also had e-mail correspondence over the last ten days with the editors in Tehran of an Iranian underground publication for Iranian gays -- who have asked that neither their names nor the name of their publication be cited, as they are fearful of the heightened repressive atmosphere for same-sexers there. They, too, assert the 'rape' charge was trumped up and that the two boys who were hanged were lovers. I am trying to confirm the above refutations of the government's "rape" charge from still more and new sources within Iran and inside Mashad.

But there have always been good reasons to be suspicious of the charge of "rape" against the two boys. The sole source from within Mashad (where the boys were prosecuted and hung) which Human Rights Watch and other human rights groups relied on to confirm that the "rape" the government charged the boys with actually happened was a newspaper, Quds,  controlled by hardline, conservative religious elements completely supportive of the regime. Moreover, Mashad is considered one of the "holiest" cities in Iran, second in that status only to Qum (home of the late Ayatollah Khomeini). Mashad is the site of a shrine and mausoleum to the 9th century Imam Reza -- the 8th spiritual leader of all Shi'ite Muslims whom many considered the Imam of all Muslims, who was poisoned and is considered a religious martyr -- a shrine which has existed (and been partially destroyed, only to be rebuilt more lavishly) for over 1000 years; and the city is a major pilgrimage site drawing hundreds of thousands of pilgrims every year. This "holy" city of Mashad  is completely under the thumb of the hardline conservatives and clerics, and the prosecutor there holds his job at their pleasure.

THE BACKGROUND TO TODAY'S GAY REPRESSION IN IRAN: The distinguished Iranian scholar in exile Janet Afary has written a new book -- Foucault and the Iranian Revolution: Gender and the Seductions of Islam (University of Chicago Press, co-authored with Kevin Anderson) -- with an extraordinarily significant chapter on same-sex relations in Iran.

Prof. Afary (left), now teaching women's studies and history at Purdue University, is working on a major study of the history of sexuality in Iran that should be quite important when she's finished. But already, in her superb latest book (Chapter Five) she points out how the current regime in the Islamic Republic of Iran is stifling a tradition of homosexual culture that is over a thousand years old. For example, she writes that "Classical Persian literature -- like the poems of Attar (died 1220), Rumi (d. 1273), Sa'di (d. 1291), Hafez (d. 1389), Jami (d. 1492), and even those of the twentieth century Iraj Mirza (d. 1926) -- are replete with homoerotic allusions, as well as explicit references to beautiful young boys and to the practice of pederasty...

"Some of the famous love relationships celebrated by classical poets were between kings and male slaves. The beloved could also be the slave of another more powerful person. Many erotic Persian love poems, in which the lover describes the secret and sporadic nocturnal visits of the beloved, refer to such situations. Outside the royal court, homosexuality and homoerotic expressions were tolerated in numerous public places, from monasteries and seminaries to taverns, military camps, bathhouses and coffee houses. In the early Safavid era (1501-1723), male houses of prostitution (amard khaneh) were legally recognized and paid taxes. Bathhouses and coffee houses were also common locations for illicit [homosexual] sex...." But under both the Pahlevi family's rule and under the Islamic Republic in Iran, Afary tells me, professors of literature have been forced to teach that these extraordinarily beautiful gay love poems aren't really gay at all and that their very explicit references to same-sex love are really all about men and women!

Furthermore, Afary explains how the virulence of the current Iranian regime's anti-homosexual repressions stems in part from the role homosexuality played in the 1979 revolution that brought the Ayatollah Khomeini (left) and his followers to power. In her new book, she (and Anderson) write:

"There is also a long tradition in nationalist [Arabo-Islamic] movements of consolidating power through narratives that affirm patriarchy and compulsory heterosexuality, attributing sexual abnormality and immorality to a corrupt ruling elite that is about to be overthrown and/or is complicit with foreign imperialism. Not all the accusations leveled against the  [the deposed Shah of Iran and his] Pahlevi family and their wealthy supporters stemmed from political and economic grievances. A significant portion of the public anger was aimed at their 'immoral' lifestyle. There were rumors that a gay lifestyle was rampant at the court. [The Shah's] Prime Minister Amir Abbas Hoveyda (left) was said to have been a homosexual. The satirical press routinely lampooned him for his meticulous attire, the purple orchid in his lapel, and his supposed marriage of convenience. The Shah himself was rumored to be bi-sexual. There were reports that  a close male friend of the Shah from Switzerland, a man who knew him from their student days in that country, routinely visited him.

"But the greatest public outrage was aimed at two young, elite men with ties to the court who held a mock wedding ceremony. Especially to the highly religious, this was public confirmation that the Pahlevi house was corrupted with the worst kinds of sexual transgressions, that the Shah was no longer master of his own house. These rumors contributed to public anger, to sense of shame and outrage, and ultimately were used by the Islamists in their calls for a revolution. Soon after coming to power in 1979, Ayatollah Khomeini established the death penalty for homosexuality. In February and March 1978 there were sixteen executions for crimes related to sexual violations..." There's a great deal more material like this, largely unknown to Westerners, in Afary and Anderson's fine  book, which you can order by clicking here.

WEHN BRITISH BOBBIES ACT LIKE COWBOYS: My friend Richard Seymour, author of the longer "Letter from London" for DIRELAND on Sunday, has  a powrful piece on "The Slaying of Jean Charles de Menezes" -- the young Brazilian man riddled with eight bullets and killed by paranoid London police who mistook the innocent lad for a terrorist -- on the new MRzine website. You can read Richard's carefully documented piece by clicking here.