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 30 Men Arrested On Morals Charges In Raid On
Iran Home
by 365Gay.com Newscenter Staff
Posted: March 28, 2008 - 5:00 pm ET
(New York City) Thirty men have been arrested in
a so-called morals raid on a private home in the Iranian city of Esfahan an
international human rights groups said Friday.
Citing sources within Iran the New York-based
Human Rights Watch said that the men were arrested in late February and have
been held for almost four weeks without access to lawyers and without formal
charges.
The men allegedly are accused of consensual homosexual conduct,
drinking alcohol, and other related "morals" offenses.
Police reportedly referred them to a forensic medical examiner to look for
“evidence” that they have engaged in homosexual conduct.
Human Rights Watch urged
Iranian authorities to release the men.
"When police
routinely break down doors to enforce a brand of morality, it means a line has
been crossed to invade people’s privacy at any time," said Joe Stork, Middle
East director at Human Rights Watch.
"Iran’s repressive system of controlling people’s dress, behavior, and
personal lives violates fundamental rights."
In May 2007, during
a nationwide crackdown to enforce dress codes and conduct, police raided another
private party in an apartment building in Esfahan. They arrested 87 persons,
including four women and at least eight people whom they accused of wearing the
clothing of the opposite sex. Victims told Human Rights Watch that police
stripped many of them to the waist in the street, and beat them until their backs or faces were bloody. Several reportedly had
bones broken.
Of those arrested,
24 men were tried for “facilitating immorality and sexual misconduct,” as
well as possessing and drinking alcohol. In June 2007, an Esfahan court found
all of them guilty of various combinations of these charges. Most were sentenced
to up to 80 lashes and to fines up to $5,000 (US). The verdicts are under appeal and have not yet been enforced.
Citing its unnamed sources in Iran, Human Rights Watch
said that since the May 2007 arrests, police have
intensified surveillance, harassment, and abuse against people connected to the
87 arrested men, or otherwise suspected of homosexual conduct. Several described
being detained by police and interrogated to reveal contacts.
According to one
man’s account, provided by Human Rights Watch, police “poured water over me. … They threatened me, they
said ‘cooperate with us.’ … They are
after everyone, they said, ‘You are
completing your gang, you are creating new members, where do you gather?’”
They told me, ‘Go out and meet people.’
In essence, I should spy for them."
Iranian law
provides punishments up to death for penetrative same-sex sexual activity
between men on the first conviction, and punishes non-penetrative activity with
up to 100 lashes.
Homosexual conduct between women is punishable with death on
the fourth conviction. Iran’s Penal Code
requires four reiterated confessions, or the testimony of four “righteous
men” as eyewitnesses, to prove lavat,
or sodomy. However, judges are permitted to accept circumstantial evidence or
inference. At the May 2007 raid in Esfahan, police reportedly brought four
civilian witnesses to prove that “immorality” was taking place.
The last documented
death sentences for consensual homosexual conduct in Iran were handed down in
March 2005. It is not known whether they
were carried out.
Human Rights Watch said that in interviews with men and women inside and outside
Iran, it has documented widespread patterns of arbitrary arrest
and torture based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
Some Western sources
have suggested that charges of consensual homosexual conduct are converted to
charges of rape in the Iranian judicial system, but Human Rights Watch said it has found
no independent evidence.
“In Iran, for
some people, the spy at the bedroom window or the knock at the door can mean the
threat of a death sentence,” said Stork. “Privacy, freedom from arbitrary
arrest, and freedom from torture are human rights. Police and judges must
respect them.”
Last September President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
during a speech at Columbia University, declared there were no homosexuals in
Iran. (story)
"In Iran we don't have homosexuals like you
do in your country. We do not have this phenomenon. I don't know who's
told you that we have it," Ahmadinejad said.
©365Gay.com 2008
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