"HUMAN RIGHTS REPORT SLAMS IRAN FOR HARASSING GAYS"

This article, released by the Associated Press, discusses Iranian law's violation of Human Rights and international law regarding the country's treatment of homosexuals.


Here are some highlights, quoted directly from the article:

Thousands of people are believed to have been condemned to death for homosexual activity since the 1979 Iranian revolution, and the public hanging of two men – one of them a minor – in 2005 for having consensual sex drew international attention.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was jeered when he said in a speech at Colombia University that homosexuality did not exist in Iran.

Iranian law criminalizes all sex outside traditional marriage. But the report said the government “appears to officially sanction harassment and abuse” of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Iranians, who are often seen as “diseased, criminals or corrupt agents of Western culture.”

Under Iran’s Islamic law, same-sex intercourse between two men is punishable by death, but the penalty is more lenient for lesbians – 100 lashes for the first three offenses and the death penalty for the fourth.