Three gay teenagers are on death row in Iran: please help to try and save them
Iran is preparing once again to execute young gay men arrested while they were a minor.
Guilty of ‘lavat’ (i.e. sexual conduct between two men, regardless of penetration), the three teenagers do not yet have dates set for their state-sponsored murders, but according to Human Rights Watch and Iranian Railroad for Queer Refugees it could happen any day with no warning.
They are Mehdi P., from Tabriz; Moshen G., from Shiraz; and Nemat Safavi, from Ardebil and who has been detained for over three years.
Under Iranian law lavat is “punishable by death so long as both the active and passive partners are mature, of sound mind, and have acted of free will” — something that not only conflicts with the boys’ age at the time of the alleged ‘offenses’, but also a gross violation of international law, which forbids, under any circumstance, the executive of juvenile offenders.
In 2008, the Deputy Attorney General of Iran announced that Iranian judicial authorities would ban the juvenile death penalty for non-murder-related offenses, effective immediately, pending parliamentary approval. Iran has signed two international treaties on the protection of children.
Nemat Safavi is part of the list maintained by Amnesty International of minors tried and awaiting execution in Iran. The European Parliament, the UN, and the Iranian Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi have all urged Iran to end juvenile executions.
Read more about the cases in the Human Rights Watch report.
What can I do
This blog (in Spanish) is devoted to the cases http://nematsafavi.blogspot.com/ and has suggestions on what can be done, primarily:
- alerting the media (there has been virtually no media coverage)
- contacting Iranian embassies (it has links)
It also has an avatar (’I ? Nemat’) for use in social media.
Spanish, French and Italian gay sites as well as some progressives in those countries and a few elsewhere have been reporting their cases.
IRQR are asking for donations which they say will help with the legal case in Iran. They are also calling for “all human rights organizations to take up this urgent cause. We ask that people write, fax, call, or email to Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and any LGBT and/or international organizations to support Nemat and vigorously oppose his execution and the laws against homosexuals.”
There is a Facebook group: Save Nemat Safavi
Youtube video about Nemat (in Spanish)
If there is any action you can take please do. As far as we are aware, these gay kids haven’t been hung yet.
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Categories: All WW, Campaigns, Human Rights / Freedom, International, News - Current Affairs
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I didn’t even bother reading this. I had read another article about the same boys, and the image of him being slashed was disgusting. I don’t think that I could bear to read any more. Gay people-all people have a right in society. Simply showing affecting is not harming anyone. We must do something to stop this!!!
One solution to do with countries with a babaric medieval cultural status and that is active military intervention to exterminate the problem at it’s roots.
One other is giving gay refugees coming from Iran a welcome home. But then, European countries don’t see the problem here. Asylum seekers are – as far as I know – usually send back to Iran because European governments don’t see the life threatening issues for them.
It’s sad that in a world of high tech development and after all the wise things we discovered through our existance, in 2009 people are still hanged for making love to each other.