Mahmoud Asgari (), and Ayaz Marhoni (), were Iranian teenagers from the province of Khorasan who were publicly hanged on July 19, 2005. Iranian officials say the teenagers were executed for raping a 13-year-old boy, while gay rights groups claim they were executed for "being homosexual". The case attracted international media attention and the facts of the case are heavily debated.
Execution Mahmoud Asgari and Ayaz Marhoni were executed on July 19, 2005, in Edalat (Justice) Square in Mashhad, northeast Iran, after being convicted by the court of having raped a 13-year-old boy. The case attracted international media attention and the facts of the case are heavily debated.
Shari'a (Islamic Law) in Shiite Iran prescribes the death penalty for homosexual acts but it requires four eyewitnesses to the event, but the Convention on the Rights of the Child, of which Iran is a signatory, forbids the execution of juveniles. According to Asgari's lawyer, Rohollah Razaz Zadeh, "death sentences handed to children by Iranian courts are supposed to be commuted to five years in jail", but the Supreme Court in Tehran upheld the death sentence. The ages of the two remain unclear, with some sources claiming they were fourteen and sixteen at the time of their arrests and sixteen and eighteen when executed, and others claiming that the older boy, Marhoni, was already nineteen, when the alleged crime(s) took place.
Media reports and international reactions On July 19, 2005, the Iranian Students' News Agency (ISNA) posted an article in Persian describing the execution of the two youths. Its headline stated that they had been executed for "lavat beh onf", which means "sodomy/homosexual sex by force" and is a legal term used for rape of men by men. Earlier on the morning of the executions, Quds, the local daily newspaper in Mashhad, published a report on the executions. It gave a detailed account of how the two had raped a 13-year-old boy, and included statements by the father of the rape victim.
The ISNA article became the center of the dispute. The gay-rights group, OutRage!, led by Peter Tatchell, published its own free translation of the article on July 21, suggesting that the two had been executed for engaging in consensual homosexual sex.Cited in Ireland, D. (2005) "Iran Executes 2 Gay Teenagers", retrieved August 1, 2005.
Two news sources heavily involved in Iranian exile politics had meanwhile contributed to the spread of the story in English. On July 20, 2005, an Iranian opposition group, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, the political wing of the People's Mojahedin, released a press release about the executions. It stated that: "The victims were charged with disrupting public order among other things." It did not mention the charges of rape. Iran Focus, a news website that is widely regarded as an affiliate of the People's Mojahedin, also published an article about the hangings, mentioning no charges at all.
On July 22, 2005, Amnesty International issued a news release saying:
"According to reports, they were convicted of sexual assault on a 13-year-old boy and had been detained 14 months ago. Prior to their execution, the two were also given 228 lashes each for drinking, disturbing the peace and theft."
On July 27, 2005, after researching reports on the hangings, Human Rights Watch released letters to Iran's president and the head of the judiciary. In writing to the Iranian leadership, Human Rights Watch condemned the use of the death penalty in Iran. It stated that the two "were put to death on July 19 after they were found guilty of sexually assaulting a thirteen-year-old boy some fourteen months earlier," but did not address whether those charges were accurate. Its public statement noted:
"Death is an inhumane punishment, particularly for someone under eighteen at the time of his crimes," said Hadi Ghaemi, Iran researcher for Human Rights Watch. "All but a handful of countries forbid such executions. Iran should as well."
In Tehran, Nobel Peace laureate Shirin Ebadi decried the imposition of the death penalty on minors but did not comment on the nature of the charges in this case.The group OutRage!, and some U.S. and British gay media , reported inaccurately that Ebadi had endorsed claims that the two were executed for consensual sex. In fact, even Iran Focus made it clear that Ebadi made no such claim and that her condemnation was based on longstanding opposition to the death penalty for crimes committed by minors: www.iranfocus.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=2955 .
The first reports in the Iranian media had all identified the hangings as the result of a rape conviction. However, these reports only came to light after later English-language accounts had suggested the two might have been killed for being gay. This made it appear plausible to some that the rape charges might have been simply a "cover story" put out later by the Iranian government—even though the story of rape had actually been the first one told. Several bloggers promoted the story heavily and gave wide coverage to the pictures of the hanging. U.S. blogger Doug Ireland referred to the charges of rape as "the Iranian government's story."
The hangings quickly became a political issue in disputes over U.S. and European policy toward Iran. The conservative U.S. commentator Andrew Sullivan posted the photographs in an entry on his blog called "Islamists versus Gays." Seeing the hangings as a reason gay people should support U.S. military action, he quoted a gay U.S. soldier who wrote him that:
"Your post on the Islamo-fascist hanging/murder of the two gay men confirmed for me that my recent decision to join the U.S. military was correct. I have to stuff myself back in the closet – something I thought I left a decade ago – but our war on terror trumps my personal comfort at this point. Whenever my friends and family criticize – I'll show 'em that link."
The Log Cabin Republicans, a conservative U.S. gay group, issued a statement reading, "In the wake of news stories and photographs documenting the hanging of two gay Iranian teenagers, Log Cabin Republicans re-affirm their commitment to the global war on terror."
Reason for prosecution The British group OutRage! alleged that the two had been executed for engaging in consensual homosexual sex. However, some human rights organizations, including Human Rights Watch and the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, have urged observers to refrain from casting the incident as a "gay" issue, and cast doubt on the claim that Marhoni and Asgari were hanged as a result of consensual acts. They have emphasized instead that the executions are a violation of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (Iran is a signatory to both), which prohibit the execution of minors.Kim, Richard. (2005.) "Witness to an Execution" . The Nation. Retrieved December 31, 2006.
OutRage! stated that "the allegation of sexual assault may either be a trumped up charge to undermine public sympathy for the youths, a frequent tactic by the Islamist regime in Iran" or that "it may be that the 13 year old was a willing participant, but that Iranian law (like UK law) deems that no person of that age is capable of sexual consent and that therefore any sexual contact is automatically deemed in law to be a sex assault."
OutRage! also questioned why the 13-year-old was not identified and also put on trial if he had been sexually assaulted. The two were believed to have been juveniles at the time of the offense, and one is believed to have been a juvenile at the time of his execution. Iran frequently executes people for offenses committed as children, a practice condemned by international human rights treaties.Human Rights Watch (2005.) "Iran: End Juvenile Executions" . Retrieved December 31, 2006.
The facts of the case are still subject to heated debate. The British activist Peter Tatchell has accused activists who have suggested the two were charged with rape of being "Western left-wing and Islamist apologists" of the "Iranian regime."Peter Tatchell, quoted in "Iran: Stop Killing Gays and Kids". OutRage! press release, June 26, 2006. Retrieved January 7, 2007. Some of the reports that were first used to discredit the rape charges originated with an Iranian dissident group accused of serious human-rights violations, one that is classified as a terrorist organization by the United States and Iran (the National Council of Resistance of Iran).
Controversy Within weeks of the hangings, both reporters and human rights organizations—while continuing to condemn the brutality of the hangings—began to produce more nuanced accounts. The U.S. periodical The Nation published a lengthy investigation of the story. It criticized the role of Peter Tatchell and OutRage! in spreading the belief the executed youths were gay before it had examined the evidence. The article concluded that, given Tatchell's "recent statements, it seems likely that his ideological disposition caused him to look past or dismiss information that cast doubt on the 'gay teenagers' story."
Faisal Alam, founder of the lesbian and gay Muslim group Al-Fatiha Foundation, published an opinion piece claiming that: "Very few people took the time to research the details of the case or even consult with experts who deal with such news on a daily basis. In fact it was almost a week later that we began to read more accurate accounts of why the teens were executed from international human rights groups including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission – all of whom have contacts in Iran and ways to confirm news of such incidents from independent sources. While no one will ever know why these two young men were executed in Iran, what remains clear is that the hysteria surrounding the executions was enormous and only fed to the growing Islamaphobia and hatred towards Muslims and the Islamic world."Alam, F. (2005.) "Gay Media's Failure to Accurately Report Adds to Growing Hatred Towards Islamic World" Retrieved November 12, 2006
OutRage! and Peter Tatchell continued to defend their claim that the two victims were hanged because they were lovers. It accused them of being "apologists" and of giving the "Iranian government the benefit of the doubt."OutRage! press release (August 4, 2005.) "Protest at execution of Iranian teenagers" . Retrieved December 1, 2006. Other gay and human rights groups that had researched the case had condemned the killings as gross rights violations. Nonetheless, Brett Lock of OutRage! wrote that those groups "showed little concern" about human rights violations in Iran:
"OutRage! is appalled that large sections of liberal and left opinion in the West shows little concern regarding the murderous brutality of the clerical fascist regime in Tehran. We deplore the gullibility of many gay, left and human rights groups concerning the abuse of LGBT human rights in Iran.... They have long swallowed Iran's homophobic propaganda."OutRage! press release (September 20, 2005). "OutRage!-Iran state flogging of gay men revealed". Retrieved December 12, 2006.
Tatchell accused those who disagreed with him over the case of "racism.""Tatchell's letter to 'The Nation'," circulated by OutRage! on the Euro-Queer e-mail listserve, August 16, 2005. OutRage! cited the case to "urge the international community to treat Iran as a pariah state."OutRage! press release (November 14, 2005.) [www.petertatchell.net "Iran Hangs Two More Gay Men"]. Retrieved December 1, 2006. Tatchell stated, "There can be no normal relations with an abnormal regime".Seattle Gay News (October 7, 2005.) "Celebrities join London protest against Iran executions and torture" . Retrieved December 1, 2006.