CANADA TO INTRODUCE UN RESOLUTION CONDEMNING IRAN'S HUMAN RIGHTS RECORD -- A new opportunity for mobilizing against Iran's anti-gay pogrom. PLUS, The New Republic Condemns Gay Rights Org's Silence on Iran

Canada's Foreign Minister, Pierre Pettigrew (right), announced late yesterday that his country will introduce a resolution at the UN condemning Iran's record on human rights. Pettigrew said that "Iran has not lived up to its international human rights obligations and has not conformed with past UN resolutions on this matter. We believe this must change," according to a Reuters dispatch. 

Pettigrew had previously criticized Iran for its July 19 public hanging of two gay teens in the city of Mashad. On August 15, Pettigrew issued a statement condemning the “deterioration” of the human rights situation in Iran, in which he specifically referred to the hangings of the Mashad gay youths (shown at left), saying, “We condemn the recent hanging of two teenagers and encourage Iran to respect its obligations as a signatory to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child,” and he criticized the “persecution of minorities in Iran.” Iran is a signatory party to the International Conventions on Civil and Political Rights as well as on the Rights of the Children, which both forbid executions of minors.

Also playing a role in Canada's decision to introduce a new UN resolution condemning Iran was the torture and murder by Iranian authorities of a Canadian photojournalist of Iranian origin, Zahra Kazemi (left). The Kazemi case made headlines for weeks in Canada after the stunning revelations in March of this year by Shahram Azam, a former staff physician in Iran's Defense Ministry who defected to the West. Azam said he'd examined Kazemi four days before his death, and had found evidence of a very brutal rape; a skull fracture, two broken fingers, missing fingernails, a crushed big toe and a broken nose; severe abdominal bruising, swelling behind the head and a bruised shoulder; and deep scratches on the neck and evidence of flogging on the legs.

Canada's decision to introduce this new UN resolution condemning Iran's deplorable human rights records gives the global gay community the perfect opportunity to capture world attention for the unfolding, lethal  anti-gay pogrom in Iran. It's about time that U.S. gay groups -- who have done almost nothing to protest the widespread, snowballing "moral crusade" of newly-elected President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's government against gay people -- finally end their silence and mobilize in support of Canada's UN resolution by specifically denouncing the enormous gay tragedy taking place in Iran today. If you're a member of or contributor to HRC, the NGLTF, or IGLRC, now is the time to let the leaders of these groups know that you expect a full-throated, activist campaign by them to protest and mobilize against the campaign of arrests, Internet entrapment, beatings, torture and hangings on trumped-up charges of gays, lesbians, and the transgendered by the Ahmadinejad regime. And that campaign must include expressing outrage at the regime's continued execution of minors, as well as of its treatment of women.

If gays are pariahs in the Islamic Republic of Iran, women are reduced to the status of third-class citizens. Women are banned from a wide range of social, economic and political activities; Islamic veil is compulsory. Women are separated from men in buses, universities, and many public places, while husbands and fathers are their "guardians," at home and outside. Women cannot travel, even within the country, without permission from their male guardians. They have no right to divorce, or custody of their children. The list is endless.

Misogyny and homophobia are the twin evils of religious primitivism, and the struggle against both is inextricably linked. All the more reason for gay groups here in the U.S. and in the West in general to link arms with the women's movement to jointly mobilize against Iran's sexual apartheid. And Canada has just provided the perfect opportunity to do so.

MUST-READ: The New Republic on "America's Gay Rights Establishment is Failing Gay Iranians."  Do not miss Rob Anderson's article, just published on The New Republic's online edition, which includes interviews with NGLTF's Matt Foreman, IGLHRC's Paula Ettelbrick, and HRC's Michael Cole, whose excuses for their inaction on Iran strike me as unbelievably feeble when they're not downright disingenuous. Anderson is unsparing in his criciticism of these groups for their silence on Iran's anti-gay pogrom, and provides a first-rate dissection of it. Anderson is also very kind to me, writing that "Ireland...has tirelessly reported abuses against gays and lesbians in Iran," and he goes on to quote from several of my previous articles in Gay City News on Iran. But that's not why you should read this piece. Read it because Anderson is right on the money when he writes: "...gay activists need to come to a consensus sooner rather than later because, while they argue, Iranian lives are on the line. For now, mainstream gay organizations have made clear where they stand. As President Ahmadinejad, a man who is partially responsible for these brutalities, passed through New York last month, gay activists failed to confront him. Now he has returned to Iran, where those who are proven to be gay are thrown in jail, tortured, and executed on trumped-up charges. When it comes to the Muslim world, gay and lesbian leaders are evidently uncomfortable talking in moral absolutes. But if this is not absolute evil, then what is?" There's a lot more, so read Rob Anderson's entire article by clicking here.....

MY INTERVIEW WITH AMIR, THE 22-YEAR-OLD GAY IRANIAN TORTURE VICTIM, which has been reprinted around the globe, appears in today's editiion of the Sydney Star-Observer, the Australian daily. Australia is one of the numerous countries in which gay Iranians face possible deportation. Let's hope Amir's horrifying account of his ordeal is read by Australia's deciders before they send any gay Iranians back into the jaws of the beast.....The same issue of the Star-Observer also carries an article on how the Hong Kong government has appealed a landmark High Court ruling that found laws punishing gay male sex with life imprisonment were unconstitutional and discriminatory.