Iran executed two gay men by hanging Sunday in Maragheh Central Prison on charges of committing sodomy.
Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) has identified the two men as Mehrdad Karimpour and Farid Mohammadi. They were reportedly sentenced to death for “sodomy by force.”
The pair lost their lives following a six-year stint in prison, and HRANA has claimed the execution was carried out in secret and was not reported in the Iranian news or by authorities which they say is common practice in the Islamist nation.
In Iran, the penalty for sex between two Muslim men is punishable with 100 lashes, however if the “active party is non-Muslim and the passive party is Muslim”, they will receive the death penalty.
A man is brought to the gallows during his execution ceremony in the northern city of Noor on April 15, 2014. (ARASH KHAMOOSHI/AFP via Getty Images)
For women, lesbian sex, that being “a woman putting her sex organ on the sex organ of another woman” carries a penalty of 100 lashes.
Speaking to the Jerusalem Post, British LGBT campaigner Peter Tatchell condemned Iran saying:
“Iran is one of a dozen Muslim-majority countries and regions that enforce Sharia law and impose the death penalty for homosexuality. The execution of these men 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.”
Non-profit human rights organisation Iran Human Rights has reported that between January and October 2021, “at least 226 people” were executed in Iran “including one juvenile offender, nine women and 83 drug-related executions”.
Breitbart previously reported in 2020 “Iran was the top executioner in the Middle East last year, accounting for more than half the region’s 493 executions”.
The United Nations estimates there are currently “more than 85 juvenile offenders” who are currently awaiting execution in Iran.
Iran has a variety of barbaric punitive measures for those labelled as offenders – often on fabricated charges as a means of suppressing opposition to the Iranian Ayotollah Sayyid Ali Hosseini Khamenei. Similarly, torture is often reportedly used to extract confessions from those who are arrested in the Islamist nation.
Three men sentenced to death are seen dangling from cranes in east Tehran 29 September 2002. Residents of the Iranian capital were treated to a public display of revolutionary justice, with five convicted gang rapists executed by hanging at dawn at different sites. (BEHROUZ MEHRI/AFP via)
Alongside the death penalty, Iranian authorities also administer blinding, amputation and flogging – which can even be sentenced to non-violent offenders such as thieves. On one occasion Iran even executed an individual for drinking alcohol for the sixth time.
Iran also carries out political killings with Breitbart reporting that following anti-regime protests in 2019, at least 300 people were killed by Iranian security forces and paramilitary death squads.