Two gay men are hanged in Iran six years after they were jailed on ‘sodomy’ charges
- Mehrdad Karimpour and Farid Mohammadi were hanged in a Maragheh prison
- The two gay men were executed in Iran, where homosexuality is illegal
- They had been on death row for sodomy charges and were arrested 6 years ago
Two gay men in Iran, where homosexuality is illegal, have been executed after spending six years on death row.
Mehrdad Karimpour and Farid Mohammadi were hanged in a prison in the northwestern city of Maragheh, some 310 miles away from the capital, Tehran, where they had been convicted on charges of sodomy.
They were sentenced to death for ‘forced sexual intercourse between two men’.
The two men were sentenced to death for ‘forced sexual intercourse between two men’ and died in the northwestern city of Maragheh
Iran is considered one of the most repressive places in the world for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.
The men’s identities were confirmed in a report by the Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) on Sunday.
It added state-run outlets in Iran had yet to announce the deaths.
Sheina Vojoudi, who fled Iran and escaped to Germany, told The Jerusalem Post that the country’s prisons are ‘full of people who have committed no crime’.
LGBTQ+ rights campaigner Peter Tatchell also told the publication the execution follows ‘a long-standing regime policy of the state-sanctioned murder of gay men, often on disputed charges after unfair trials that have been condemned by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch’.
He added: ‘The international community must impose Magnitsky sanctions on the regime officials, judges and prison staff who authorized these executions – and on those responsible for the many other human rights cases of abuse in Iran’.
Iranian American journalist Karmel Melamed in a tweet called for ‘outrage’ from the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
Two men in Iran, where homosexuality is illegal, have been executed after spending six years on death row
He said: ‘The Ayatollah regime in Iran just executed two gay men for the crime of sodomy in Iran. This is Mehrdad Karimpour and Farid Mohammadi who were executed by hanging. Where’s the outrage from @StateDept @SecBlinken @glaad & other LGBT groups in U.S. to this horrific crime?!’
Last May Alireza Fazeli Monfared, 20, who identified as gay and non-binary, was abducted by several male relatives and murdered in Ahvaz, Khuzestan province in Iran.
Speaking about the killing, Amnesty wrote: ‘LGBTI people in Iran face pervasive discrimination, live in the constant fear of harassment, arrest and criminal prosecution, and remain vulnerable to violence and persecution based on their real or perceived sexual orientation and gender identity.
HRANA added that in July 2021, two other men were executed on the same charges as Mr Karimpour and Mr Mohammadi in Maragheh and that last year, Iran executed 299 people, including four convicted of crimes committed as children.
In 2021, Iran sentenced 85 people to death.
Last October, the UN’s independent investigator on human rights in Iran, Javaid Rehman told the UN General Assembly’s human rights committee that the country continues to implement the death penalty ‘at an alarming rate.’
Under Iranian law, sodomy, rape, adultery, armed robbery and murder are among crimes that can lead to the death penalty.
Last year a UN report found that in Iran ‘gay, bisexual and transgender children were subjected to electric shocks and the administration of hormones and strong psychoactive medications’, Pink News reported.
Alireza Fazeli Monfared, 20, (pictured) was allegedly taken by the three male family members and murdered
In February 2021, an Iranian cleric Ayatollah Abbas Tabrizian claimed that the Covid-19 vaccine turns people gay, on messaging platform Telegram, to almost 210,000 followers.
According to The Jerusalem Post, Tabrizian wrote on the platform: ‘Don’t go near those who have had the COVID vaccine. They have become homosexuals.’
Speaking to the publication at the time Mr Tatchell said the claims were ‘demonizing’ both the vaccine and the gay community.
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