Iran has given the world another outrage in its enforcement of the medieval Islamic Sharia law. The victim was Hassan Afshar, 19, who was hanged for what the Sharia court called “forced male-to-male anal intercourse.” Afshar insisted that that the sex was consensual, though in Iran you can also be executed for simply being homosexual — as we have previously discussed.
Afshar and two other adolescents were accused in December 2014 of forcing a teenage boy to have sex. Afshar was still a high school student and aged 17 at the time.
He was reportedly denied access to a lawyer and he was tried and sentenced to death in just two months — a ridiculous period for a death penalty case.
One estimate puts Iranian executions of gays and lesbians at between 4,000 to 6,000 gays and lesbians from the start of the Islamic Revolution in 1979 to 2008.
It is worth noting that our close ally Saudi Arabia also executes people for being homosexuals and funds the spread of Wahhabi teachings that support such Sharia executions.
@karens
I read that the authorities in Iran know who the gays are, and don’t usually pick them unless they want them for political reasons.
http://www.vocativ.com/culture/lgbt/iran-gay-laws/
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
@KarenS
Ultimately it is going to depend on the people of Iran to overthrow the regime. And they face formidable opposition aside from the mullahs – the Revolutionary Guard for example. BUT if the dissidents are clever enough they will present an argument that is compelling enough to win over their support. We ALL vote in our own best interests which is why people are flocking to both Trump and now Jill Stein. Power to the people!
That’s just so sad.
Autumn – there is a rising number of young Persians who are pro-West. They like Western clothes, Western haircuts, and they want more freedom. This is notable since the government has all schools starting with the youngest children begin the day with a “Death to America! Death to Israel!” chant. There is always hope. But so far the government and the extremists are far more organized and powerful.
And all this happened in California.
Good point Autumn, so much for justice being swift. Sentencing guidelines are another area I completely baffled by.
@Olly
re: trials
I agree it takes too long – you are right about billable hours but I believe there is also another factor – hoping that as more time goes by with the rapid news cycle the public outrage about the crime will be diluted.
Just last week the Guardian had an article about the British boy who attended a Trump rally in Vegas and tried to take a gun off a cop to assassinate him on June 20. His trial is going to be August 22nd.
In the meantime, Michael Slager — the rogue cop who shot Walter Scott in the back five times – and is out on bail is just now coming up for trial in October!! I understand that because the feds are involved it took longer to set the trial for Dylan Roof, but IMO Slager’s should have taken place sooner
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jul/30/said-son-intended-assassinate-donald-trump-michael-sandford
@SierraRose
You are right about HIV being heterosexual overall for the World, for the reasons you stated plus higher viral loads in Africa.
But in America, the HIV problem is overwhelming a gay problem.
http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/group/msm/
And you will notice above, I slammed AMERICAN gays. Because that is where most of us here live. This whole thing reminds me of Black Lives Matter, where there is hoopla galore over some cop shooting a black man, while there is Radio Silence about the overwhelming facts of black on black crime. The same day some black thug gets killed by a cop, there will be twenty blacks shot by other blacks in Chicago that gets ignored.
The same thing with the gays. Iran hangs a gay or ISIS chunks a couple of gays off a building. And the world goes crazy. Meanwhile, sure and steady, every day in America alone, about 80 gays get infected with HIV, all for the “quality” of some gay clown’s little org*sm. ‘Cause he don’t want to wear no condom. And a lot of those people are going to die from that.
Sooo, if we can slam a group like ISIS, or a group in Iran, how come we never can bring ourselves to slam the group that is killing more gay men than any other – – – gay men themselves???
Answer: We can’t say bad things about gays or we’ll get called homophobic. Even if its true.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Too bad the USG overthrew Iran’s lawfully elected govt. (which was secular), installed a brutal ruler who was our lackey, in turn leading to his overthrow by a set of religious lunatics.
I really wonder why so many religious people are absolutely obsessed with other people being gay or being sexual, period. I wish religious people would focus on living a good life, being kind to others, feeding the hungry, helping the poor, in general being decent to others, and quit worrying about sex so much. In the US some chrisitians like to put you in reeducation camps where people commit suicide.
Killing people for being gay shows a love of power, not love. It is one more instance of the cruelty visited by too many religious people on anyone who will not toe the mark of their ideas of choice.
They should have just given him HIV positive. Which is a drug in Iran.
“he was tried and sentenced to death in just two months — a ridiculous period for a death penalty case.”
What, not enough billable hours? Apparently in Iran it takes the same time from charging to execution as it takes to possibly get to trial in the United States. Forget about carrying out the sentence in the U.S. That’s a completely different world right there. Lots and lots of attorneys in this country accumulating billable hours. What a racket.
Squeeky Fromm, not all or even most deaths from AIDS are gay men. Women are the fastest growing group of those infected with this terrible disease. It is also spread by heterosexual sex, sharing of needles, and other means of contacting bodily fluids. On a global basis, the biggest risk factor for contacting HIV/AIDS is poverty. Those living in poverty, especially women, are put at greater risk by several factors including malnutrition (making it more difficult to fight off this or other illnesses), lack of education (including knowledge of prevention methods), other untreated STIs (making it easier for the virus to enter the body), lack of employment leading to an exchange of sexual favors for food and other necessities for themselves and their children. The difference in design of women vs men makes it much easier for a woman to be infected by her male partner than for a male to be infected by his female partner. Globally, well over half of those infected with this virus are women and the numbers continue to grow.
I still harbor hope that the Iranian people will rise up and overthrow the theocratic government. There are many young people there who have access to the internet and are probably organizing under the mullah radar as best as they can. Imagine what that country would be like if the US/UK hadn’t removed Mossadegh from power.
This is the major reason I have trouble taking liberal feminists seriously. They complain about White, Conservative males as being the greatest threat to their liberty and yet not a word regarding Islam and it’s treatment of women.
Same with homosexual activists.
Sooo, Iran only killed 6,000 gays in 29 years? That’s about 200 per year. From 1979 to 2008? Gee, they got a long way to go to catch up to American gay men who have killed about 600,000 of their partners simply by eschewing a condom!
Heck, there were 6,955 dead gays in 2013 alone from directly from HIV. (Or as the CDC put it:”In 2013, there were an estimated 12,963 deaths (due to any cause) of people with diagnosed HIV infection ever classified as AIDS, and 6,955 deaths were attributed directly to HIV.)
So yes, I think it is bad that they hung this guy in Iran. And from what I read elsewhere, they tend to accuse them of rape simply to justify executing them. But OTOH, how can we be outraged at Iran for 6,000 deaths, and ignore the perpetual slaughter of gays in America through simple gay selfishness. Not wanting to wear that raincoat!
They kill 200 per year, and it makes the news. Meanwhile, in America, gays needlessly kill 200 gay men every 10 days, and we just ignore it.
Because you can’t say bad things about gays, or you will be called homophobic.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
“Forced , male to male anal intercourse”?
Did something get lost in the translation because forced implies rape doesn’t it?
As opposed to consensual right?
Ah,the Mullahtocracy in Iran.
The wonderful, catastrophic, regime destabilizing gifts of the CIA just keep giving don’t they?
There is nothing religious about killing people. Killing is the worst form of human depravity.