Photo:Iranian Student News Agency

Update: 9:00 am, Thursday, July 21:

Additional reports have confirmed that the two young men were executed by the Iranian government for the crime of "homosexuality."

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Two boys, one aged 18 and one underage minor, were lashed 228 times before being hung by Iranian authorities in the northeastern city of Mashad, PageOneQ has learned.

Within hours of the execution, Members of Iran�s parliament expressed outrage, not for the deaths of the two young men, identified only by the the initials A.M. and M.A., but at journalists who reported the ages of those who were put to death.

According to Iran Focus News, one member of parliament was dismayed that the focus was on the age of the boys "[I]Instead of paying tribute to the action of the judiciary, the media are mentioning the age of the hanged criminals and creating a commotion that harms the interests of the state."

[...]

An Iranian blogger who goes by the name of Mr. Behi, weote extensively on his blog about the executions, describing that the two were convicted of homosexuality. An Iranian press report explained that the two had been execuited for sexually assaulting a 13-year-old boy.

"Two young Iranian boys, one less than 18 years old were executed in front of the public in Mashad, east of Iran for the crime of homosexuality. I am here in this line, writing and I have deleted this ten times because it is so difficult to transform feelings to words and images I foreseen for my country.

"It seems that Iranian judiciary is doing it's best to show the world that Iran is transforming into a Taliban like Islamic system. Our culture of joy and happiness, ceremonies and poems, celebration and dancing is blocked by those who think their destiny is to cry and beg for mercy from God and hate and punish others who do not want this way of ascending to the heavens."

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[ 21 July 2005: Message edited by: Hephaestion ]

[ 21 July 2005: Message edited by: Hephaestion ]

*sigh*

I will edit the title to take delicate sensibilities into account.

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Originally posted by anne cameron:
They weren't hanged for being homosexuals, they were hanged for sexually assaulting a 13 year old boy.

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anne, in my reading of that story, although I agree it is ambiguous, that charge is something the official news agency came up with, possibly defensively.

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Originally posted by Hephaestion:
You literally throw up over a photo like that?! The kids are still alive in that photo.

*sigh*

I will edit the title to take delicate sensibilities into account.

(But how can you ever manage to watch tv or look at a newspaper?!)

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I have a nervous tummy and I don't watch TV and, when reading the newspaper, I always read the headline first before looking at the picture.

EDITED TO ADD: I find the fact that they're still alive more upsetting than had I seen their dead bodies. One of the most distressing photographs I have ever seen is a woman up past her elbows in dirt as her executioners prepare to stone her to death.

[ 21 July 2005: Message edited by: EFA ]

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UPDATE, 9:00am, Thursday: Additional reports have confrimed that the two young men were executed by the Iranian government for the crime of "homosexuality."

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BINGO! I don't trust one gawddamn WORD out of the "official sources" in places like Iran or Saudi Arabia when it comes to "sex crimes", and *particularly* when it's dealing with gay or lesbian people.

Of course, who's to dispute the word of these rotten bastards now that the two boys are dead?

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... The English language Iran In Focus also reported the executions, saying the teens were hanged in public in the city square. It quotes sources as saying the teens were executed for having sex with another minor but this could not be confirmed. The report does not name the victim. Under Sharia law the victim of a sexual assault must also be executed.

Both news services say that prior to their execution, the teenagers were held in prison for 14 months, severely beaten and given the lash 228 times.

A report of the executions was also carried on the website of the respected democratic opposition movement, The National Council of Resistance Of Iran.

Ruhollah Rezazadeh, the lawyer for the younger teen reportedly had appealed the death sentence but the Supreme Court in Tehran ordered him to be hanged.

Under the Iranian penal code, girls as young as nine and boys as young as 15 can be hanged.

Three other young gay Iranians are reportedly being hunted by police, but they are said to have gone into hiding and cannot be found. If caught, they would also face execution.

The British LGBT rights group OutRage has called for sanctions against Iran. The organization has called for western states to break off diplomatic relations, impose trade sanctions and treat Iran as "a pariah state".

"This is just the latest barbarity by the Islamo-fascists in Iran,” said OutRage spokesperson Peter Tatchell.

"The entire country is a gigantic prison, with Islamic rule sustained by detention without trial, torture and state-sanctioned murder.

"According to Iranian human rights campaigners, over 4,000 lesbians and gay men have been executed since the Ayatollahs seized power in 1979," said Tatchell.

Iran In Focus reports that members of Iran’s parliament are applauding the court for carrying out the death sentence on the teens.

"These individuals were corrupt. Their sentence was carried out with the approval of the judiciary and it served them right,” the publication quotes Ali Asgari, a member of the Majlis Party Legal Affairs Committee.

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Originally posted by anne cameron:

Two teen-agers hanged in Iran...how many slaughtered by foreign invaders in Iraq... and the US sharpens it's sword to invade Iran... and Africa is dying and...

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So because bad things are happening in the world, we shouldn't care about this injustice?

I guess if you get hit by a drunk driver, the judge should just let the driver go because "how many slaughtered by foreign invaders in Iraq... and the US sharpens it's sword to invade Iran... and Africa is dying and..."

"must" ?

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Originally posted by Village Idiot:
Wow...how terribly sad and injust. It used to be that shit like this only happened in Utah...

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"Homosexuality is illegal, those charged with love-making are given a choice of four deathstyles: being hanged, stoned, halved by a sword, or dropped from the highest perch. According to Article 152, if two men not related by blood are discovered naked under one cover without good reason, both will be punished at a judge's discretion. Gay teens (Article 144) are also punished at a judge's discretion. Rubbing one's penis between the thighs without penetration (tafheed) shall be punished by 100 lashes for each offender. This act, known to the English-speaking world as frottage,' is punishable by death if the 'offender' is a non-Muslim. If frottage is thrice repeated and penalty-lashes have failed to stop such repetitions, upon the fourth 'offense' both men will be put to death. According to Article 156, a person who repents and confesses his gay behavior prior to his identification by four witnesses, may be pardoned. Even kissing 'with lust' (Article 155) is forbidden. This bizarre law works to eliminate old Persian male-bonding customs, including common kissing and holding hands in public." And Outrage, in its release about the gay teens' execution, noted that, "according to Iranian human rights campaigners, over 4000 lesbians and gay men have been executed since the Ayatollahs seized power in 1979. Last August, a 16-year-old girl was hanged for 'acts incompatible with chastity.'"

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Editted to add:

Ambassador SEYED MOUHAMMAD ALI MOOSAVI, Embassy of Iran

245 METCALFE ST., OTTAWA ONTARIO.K2P 2K2 CANADA
COUNTRY AREA CODE :001 613
TEL :2354726-2334726
CONSULAR TEL :2334726
FAX :2335712

[ 21 July 2005: Message edited by: Tape_342 ]

And

We are witnessing one of the greatest betrayals by the left since so-called left-wingers backed the Hitler-Stalin pact and opposed the war against Nazi fascism. Today, the pseudo-left reveals its shameless hypocrisy and its wholesale abandonment of humanitarian values. While it deplores the 7/7 terrorist attack on London, only last year it welcomed to the UK the Muslim cleric, Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who endorses the suicide bombing of innocent civilians. These same right-wing leftists back the so-called 'resistance' in Iraq.

Peter Tatchell raises an alarm.

I think he's right. The fascism of the mullahs must be confronted and destroyed. What is the best way to go about it?

[ 21 July 2005: Message edited by: argentia ]

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Originally posted by Gir Draxon:

Shit like this has been happening in the Middle East since before the USA even existed.

The barbarism you see in cases like this is the result of hundreds of years of being ruled by religious fundamentalists. Utah hasn't existed long enough to even be compared, but they should damn well learn the lesson from what happened to Islamic culture back in the European middle ages.

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"Religious fundamentalists" were in Europe at that time. In contrast the Islamic governments looked "secular". And if we are drawing linneage back - Utah finds it in Europe, probably with the same who were killing homosexuals there too.

The rise of "religious fundamentalism" in the Middle East in the form it currently takes is a rather significant change from what it would have been at various times in the middle ages. And while it may be current culture to think of these people as one large continium of horrid "fundamentalism" I think an objective approach would be more helpful, namely that the over bearing nature of top religious officials over the complete lives of the people in its current form is something radically different in the Islamic world.

Above that, I think calling these people "fundamentalists" is extremely damaging. Muslims by definition are fundamentalists to their religion. The vast majority of muslims I know would call themselves fundamentalists. The same word has significantly different meanings. But the confusion it causes, by using a western defintion of "fundamentalism", we are helping extreme-militant versions of Islam in their claim as being the most "fundamental".

All I know about Sharia is what I've read in articles about the Nigerian rape/adultery cases and the Mukhtaran Mai case in Pakistan, so I'd like to be enlightened by someone who actually knows something about it. But for what it's worth, my understanding from those articles is that the OutRage article misstates Sharia law. It's not so much that being a rape victim is punishable by death, but rather that, if the rape victim fails to prove rape in accordance with the evidentiary standards set out in sharia, then s/he is guilty of adultery (or, in man-on-man situations, homosexuality) and subject to punishment, which may be death. Obviously there is a high risk that being tagged as a rape victim might lead to execution under such laws, but it's not as direct as the OutRage article suggests.

It's also my understanding that Sharia evidentiary standards are less less onerous for men than for women, i.e. men's word is accepted in court without corroboration, whereas women's isn't. That would make it easier for male than female rape victims to establish their "innocence" and escape the death penalty.

[ 21 July 2005: Message edited by: puzzlic ]

[ 23 July 2005: Message edited by: babblerwannabe ]

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Originally posted by EFA:
Please warn us in the thread title if you're going to post a picture like that. I literally throw up when I look at something like that.

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Unfortunately, this is only one of many throughout history: the Crusades, the Inquisition, the French Revolution, the English Civil War, Nazi Germany and on and on.

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Originally posted by A longsuffering conservative:
...evil is ultimately doomed...

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Originally posted by Sven:
This is why, I believe, the clerics who run Iran are Islamo-Fascists.

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You are saying that they are creating a corporatist state, centralized through the government? I am not entirely clear on what you mean, because the state in Iran is not an all-powerful centralized tool of a single party, but one that is set of against several different Islamist movements each led by a seperate Immam, whom have varying opinions on the interpretation of the Qu'ran. They advice the state though a series of commitees. That is my understanding of it.

I am not sure facist is the correct political term for it, Islamic-oligarchist might be more accurate. It is certainly regressive, but I don't think it is the centralized dictatorship of the kind Hitler was able to command in Germany.

Here is what I found at Wikipedia

A quick look through it immediatly shows some differences between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the traditional facist European modes:

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The constitution stipulates that this national religious leader is to be chosen from the clerical establishment on the basis of his qualifications and the high esteem in which he is held by Iran's Muslim population. The exact process involves an Assembly of Experts who has the right to chose the leader.

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Niether Hitler, nor Franco nor Mussolini were selected from any bodies representative at all. They chose themselves.

Facism

[ 24 July 2005: Message edited by: Cueball ]

The nature of the executions though left me completely feeling powerless and enraged so I sent an email to the Iranian Embassy in London (in Rome here, the Iranian Embassy does not have an email but will be getting a post card from me soon).

Here's the letter (one must be slighly diplomatic):

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Greetings.
I have long understood your country's history and the effects of foreign interference in your country's political processes from decades prior. You had at least one person who was albeit not supportive of your laws and form of government, but at least comprehensive of why it has come into being.

As I am not Iranian and being that your country is an Islamic republic, I am not one to comment on your affairs to you directly.

But I am now forced to write you for my peace of mind. Executing those young boys for homosexual sex on July 19 2005 (I really don't care about your opinion regarding the topic - they were only young boys) has made me completely indifferent and indignant in your regards. Your government's actions were vile, reprehensible and disgusting.

My heart goes to those boys and the others you have killed for the same or even lesser crimes. I am so upset, I should be using stronger language to express how I feel.

May those responsible for taking those boys' lives AND those who condone it receive just retribution.

Shame.

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[ 24 July 2005: Message edited by: RomanNYer ]

[ 24 July 2005: Message edited by: RomanNYer ]

[ 24 July 2005: Message edited by: Tape_342 ]

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Does every post have to express the correct amount of moral outrage? Or are we allowed to discuss the actual political realities in a rational way, in order to better comprehend the problems in an effort to come up with solutions?

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What political realities? The government of Iran is EVIL period and its too bad that the US and UK etc...didn't leave the relatively secularist government of Saddam Hussein in power in Iraq. They shoudl have attacked Iran instead and struck up these murderous ayatollahs and imams by the heels outside gas stations and let the local gay population desecrate their bodies!

What can be done to stop the Holocaust of gays and lesbians in Iran from continuing? This incident is probably just the tip of the iceberg.

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Originally posted by Cueball:
Does every post have to express the correct amount of moral outrage?

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You are right, of course, Cueball. My initial reaction was outrage because I was married to someone who was tortured by those assholes. I know that there are all sorts of complicated political causes and effects behind the theocracy there, and that western leadership is largely to blame for what's happening there - but those Iranian leaders are also responsible. I am just as angry at our leaders for helping them keep their stranglehold on the country as I am at the Iranian leaders themselves for committing such atrocities.

But nowadays, the Muslim world has become a sacred cow to some elements on the loony left and suddenly a woman wrapped in veils has become a symbol much like how a woman in a conical hat in a rice paddy was a symbol during the Vietnam War. Its just so inconvenient isn't it for these Iranians to go around murdering gays - just when we are trying to make them out to be innocent victims and martyrs of US imperialism - why do they have to make it more difficult for us.

and so we have people like Cueball probably sitting back wearing pince nez glasses and forming his thumb and forefinger into a circle while he pednatically lectures us on why we have no right to express outrage over the murder of gays in Iran because we don't understand the complex socio-political context behind it...balh blah blah...

I spent all day thinking about those two. Images are powerful. I empathize all day with those who suffer by our (US) hand or by other unjust means.

A constructive suggestion as to what to do in this case: write or support outside humanitarian and exiled Iranian opposition associations...but ask our respective governments that any change or revolution in Iran take place from within. We cannot interfere, as much as I would love to deal with those responsible for those boys' death, as well as Zahra Kazemi's and the countless nameless victims of this insanity.

Meddling in the internal politics of another country brings about chaos and instability. The goverment elect afterwards will never have legitimacy and internal strife will prevail. History tells us so.

But sometimes I wish I could just shut off.

Feel free to write:
[email protected]

[ 24 July 2005: Message edited by: RomanNYer ]

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and so we have people like Cueball probably sitting back wearing pince nez glasses and forming his thumb and forefinger into a circle while he pednatically lectures us on why we have no right to express outrage over the murder of gays in Iran because we don't understand the complex socio-political context behind it...balh blah blah...

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That's just terribly unfair. I'm outraged at the execution of gay people in Iran, of course. You can bet your ass Cueball's wanting to look at ways to stop this sort of thing from happening. He even posted saying this. Trying to understand a situation is not excusing it (the comments of some idiots writing for the New York Times notwithstanding), it is the first step to to a response that helps the victims.

Outrage is the right response. But after the outrage, if we really want to help and not just to stroke our own egos, it's useful to take a moment, listen to what gay people and human rights activists in countries like Iran are saying, and think about how we can help. Support to Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi's campaign to end violence against children and child execution is one way, perhaps. Maybe we need to find ways to help gay Iranians now in hiding to escape -- in which case ending all travel links, for instance, would not be a good tactic.

I think in the case of Iran it's probably gone far enough that we should be imposing sanctions bnecuase the regime there is pretty much murdering at will, but that's only going to be of help if it's done in solidarity with Iranians who are fighting to change things.

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Originally posted by Stockholm:

and so we have people like Cueball probably sitting back wearing pince nez glasses and forming his thumb and forefinger into a circle while he pednatically lectures us on why we have no right to express outrage over the murder of gays in Iran because we don't understand the complex socio-political context behind it...balh blah blah...

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I never said you don't have the right to express outrage. Were I to make such a suggestion I would be insinuating that you should not post at all, given that the only thing you ever do is get outraged by the acts of Muslims. Your singular fixation in this regard almost comes across as bigotry itself. But of course that is not the case.

Frankly, I really am not outraged by this at all. I am tired of outrage. I have been outraged for years. None of this makes any sense to me. It just seems like more senseless killing of innocent people for stupid reasons. I suppose I could waste time being outraged, at every incident of human cruelty, but I juts don't have the energy.

But in facing the problem it is a lot more complex, and I certainly wish it weren't, but it is and we have to understand the hows and whys.

But it seems to me that what we should do is to listen to Iranians directly affected who are involved in advocacy, and see what kind of response they want from the west, and then our job would be to push for that kind of response from our end.

For instance, take RAWA in Afghanistan. We progressives were all horrified by what was happening to women in Afghanistan by the Taliban long before Dubya could even point to the damn country on a map. And yet, when Dubya and his butchers went in there and turned Afghanistan into rubble, trying to ride on the claim that he was going to make life better for women there, what was the only Afghani feminist organization with any international presence saying? Why, RAWA was saying they didn't want their country to be bombed!

So, by all means, if Iranian gays and lesbians and women and oppressed torture victims living in Iran want Dubya to level Iran to the ground through bombing campaigns, then let's get behind that.

If, as is more likely, however, they want us to do things like putting diplomatic pressure on their government, or they want us to stop propping up extremists in their country, or they want our corporations to keep their grubby hands off their oil, or if they want us to help them by funding their progressive organizations, or if they want us to (heaven forbid!) open our borders so that people suffering from gender and sexual orientation oppression can freely leave and get asylum in western countries without going through a maze of red tape, then let's get behind that instead.

Why not start here if you want to see how you can show solidarity to gay and lesbian Iranians.

[ 24 July 2005: Message edited by: Michelle ]

"Dear Ambassador,

I am outraged at the brutality and disregard for human rights and human life in Iran. As a person who has been campaigning against imperialist military actions of the US in the Middle East, I find it difficult to defend a regime as brutal as yours, as outlined in http://www.outrage.org.uk/pressrelease.asp?ID=302 and other media. It is my hope - and I will make my voice known to as many governments as possible - that the nations of the world will break off diplomatic and trade relations with your criminal regime, and bring about the collapse of the fanatically religious government structure. Enough is enough! The actions of your government prove that there are way too many crazy people in charge of running the affairs of countries, and oppressing humanity.

When your time comes to fall from power, I sincerely wish that you may have to face the same lack of compassion as you dish out.

In outrage,

[ 26 July 2005: Message edited by: Red Albertan ]

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(London) International indignation is rising over the hanging of two gay teens last week by the Iranian government. 

Mahmoud Asgari, 16, and Ayaz Marhoni, 18, were publicly executed in the northern city of Mashhad. They said before their executions that they were not aware that homosexual acts were punishable by death.

Calls for Iran to be publicly rebuked for its treatment of gays has resounded from Washington to Moscow.

Russian gay leaders have called on President Vladimir Putin to condemn executions. 

"The Russian Federation can not close the eyes to the middle aged barbarity and huge human rights violations," said the letter to Putin, signed by Nikolai Alekseev the head of LGBT rights Web site GayRussia.ru and by Evgeniaya Debryanskaya the leader of Gayly.ru, a site for lesbians.

The letter calls on Putin to stop diplomatic and trade relations with the ³barbarian regime of Islamic extremists².

Russia is one of the biggest economic partners of Iran and consequently has may ways to pressure the regime.

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In Sweden, Foreign Ministry spokesman Per Saland said the government was "looking very seriously" at the hangings, following a formal complaint by the Swedish Federation for Lesbian, Gay and Transgender Rights.

"We are against the death penalty and we particularly react when it comes to the execution of minors, pregnant women and the mentally

disabled," Saland said.

The Federation for Lesbian, Gay and Transgender Rights' chair, Soren Andersson, called on the Swedish government not to deport gay and

lesbian asylum seekers back to Iran.

"Sweden has turned gay and lesbian refugees back to Iran and they should know that these people could be killed," he said.

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As well, there are British and American voices speaking out (granted, neither country has much influence in Iran right now, though.) And even some of their own people are speaking up...

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In Tehran, Nobel Peace laureate Shirin Ebadi condemned the execution and discounted the government's assertion that the two - an 18 year old and a youth 16 had raped younger boys in the northeastern part of the country.

Ebadi, who runs the Center for the Protection of Human Rights in Tehran, said that the executions violated the International Convention on the

Rights of the Child, of which Iran is a signatory.

"My calls for a law clearly banning execution of under-18s has fallen on deaf ears so far but I will not give up the fight," Ebadi told The

Associated Press.

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I realize this guy only has a limited impact in his own country, too, but [a thousand pardons to Ron Webb ] FUCK!, we've gotta start somewhere!!

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Originally posted by Hephaestion:
I realize this guy only has a limited impact in his own country, too, but [a thousand pardons to Ron Webb ] FUCK!, we've gotta start somewhere!!

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(For background please see http://direland.typepad.com/direland/2005/07/iran_executes_2.html )
Two kids died in Iran last week. There is nothing remarkable in this statement in itself. Kids die in Iran, and elsewhere, every week. These two were teenagers, 16 and (barely) 18. None of the stories I have read about their deaths report their names. Just initials. There is no clear picture of their faces, obscured as they are by blindfolds or bars. These two nameless and almost faceless boys have been dying for 14 months. They were beaten, tortured, and finally sentenced to be hanged in public with the full approval of the legal system of a sovereign nation and the support of the religious law of one of the planet’s major faiths.

These two kids were gay. That’s all, and that is enough. There really is no more to it than that. After the story was noticed by a few people outside of Iran, the government in Tehran issued a statement that the two had molested a 13 year old boy. Journalists, the statement read, should look no further than this prepared statement for the truth. They were corrupt, and they deserved what they got. This 13 year old was absent from the first stories that hit the net, and is not mentioned by the Iranian blogger who covered the story on his site. A pathetic attempt, it seems, to justify the Islamic Republic’s actions after the fact. The official statement also failed to note that under Islamic religious law the 13 year old, if he did exist and even if he was the victim of a sexual assault, would have been executed too.

I am 41 years old, and I have consumed a large chunk of news every day for most of those years. I see horrible stories every time I do. My work brings me into contact with plenty of horror before lunch each day. This has resulted in a fairly thick skin. “It’s a hard life wherever you go”, Nancy Griffith said. It isn’t easy for a news story about a hard life to move me much beyond cerebral disdain, a disdain that is, honestly, easily forgotten when I turn the page in the paper or surf on to the next website.

Not today, though. This story won’t leave me alone. It has haunted me all day, and it has been a busy day, with lots of things to think about. It might have been easy enough to forget it. I haven’t seen it anywhere in the mainstream press. I mentioned it to a few people at work today. They were appropriately outraged, but none of them had heard anything about it. It has been covered extensively on a gay news site I read each day, but pretty much ignored everywhere else. The fact that the mainstream press doesn’t appear to be aware of this story, or care enough about it to cover it, only gives me on more aspect of horror to mull over.

The pictures in the story linked above are not likely to be neutralized by something on the sports page or the business section anyway. If you haven’t looked at them, do it now. Go ahead. I’ll wait. If you didn’t really want to see them, I understand. I first read the story without really seeing them, too. It wasn’t easy, but I managed it. I made myself go back and look at them carefully. One of boys sobbing in the back of a police van as he is carried off to die, his face partially blocked by wire. One of them being guided to the gallows, blindfolded now, surrounded by sickeningly businesslike men, government functionaries just doing their jobs. Both of them standing together, the nooses around their necks, seconds from death. Coming upon the scene of a terrible accident must be like this. It’s indecent to gawk, you are supposed to just drive on, but there it is. You see, and you never forget it.

I saw these pictures over and over again today, whether I wanted to or not. I hope you will to, not because I want to ruin your day but because these deaths scream out for witnesses. The cold eyes staring back at them from the crowd cannot be allowed to be the only ones who can bear witness. I will stand up and bear witness. You will too now, whether you want to or not. We won’t turn away, and we won’t forget.

I thought a lot about two other teenaged boys today too. I would rather not think about them today, actually. I like thinking about them, and I would rather save them from any contact with this ugliness, even if it only happens in my own mind. You don’t get to choose the day you come upon the car wreck though. One of them is my cousin, a 17 year old just coming out. “Well, I finally told everyone my deep dark secret.” he wrote on his blog, a sigh of relief palpable through the words on the screen. Writer Paul Monette said that once you leave behind the shame of a dark secret closet, nothing will ever hurt like that again, no matter how hard you live or how bad you die. I feel so proud of him, and every time I have thought about him today, which was often, I couldn’t help smiling. This seems almost blasphemous. I know. Like I said, I would really rather not think about this today, but you don’t always get to choose when you will be a witness to joy either.

The other is the 16 year old son of a high school friend of mine. He is my friend as well, I guess, although I would be very proud to be able to say he was my brother or my son. He recently found himself at a fundamentalist Bible camp. Part of the program was devoted to the evils of homosexuality in general and same-sex marriage in particular. He is straight, and at 16, lost in hostile territory, he could easily have been forgiven for deciding this was not his fight. He did not decide this, and told the camp staff politely but firmly that their “love the sinner, hate the sin” doge was condescending and would find few takers, and that their prayers for me an the other gay people he knows were unnecessary and unwelcome.

Two kids died in Iran last week. I can’t stop thinking about them, and this breaks my heart. In my pre-humanist days, I would have taken some comfort in thoughts of divine justice, but whatever God there is turned his face away from Iran last week. The only comfort I can find is that, even as their names and lives were stolen from them, these two boys found a name and a people, people who will not turn away. I hope they felt some pride in this, in spite of all their terror. I doubt it, but I hope so.

Two kids were full of life last week. I can’t stop thinking about them either, and that heals my heart a bit. My cousin claimed a name, a pride, and a self-respect that are his now. He will have to give them up if they are to be lost. No one can steal them from him. My friend displayed courage and goodness which, though they are remarkable, aren’t surprising. I am not surprised at all. I love them both, and I won’t turn away from them either.

It’s the end of the day. Darkness and hate are strong. They won a round in Iran last week. They are not going to roll over and die, and no one is gong to beat them for us. I find myself thinking about a verse from a hymn. I used to be a preacher, part of me perhaps still is, so I guess that isn’t surprising.

“When tyrants tremble in their fear,
and hear their death knell ringing,
When friends rejoice both far and near,
how can I keep from singing?
In prison cell and dungeon vile,
our thoughts to them are winging,
When friends by shame are undefiled,
how can I keep from singing?

Just over half a century ago, a madman with god-aspirations slaughtered 6 million people. 6 million people who didn't pick up and fight the madman. 6 million people who were picked off 'one-by-one', condemned to die because of one of the most evil ideologies ever to arise on the face of this planet.

Today, more than half a century later, we are still dealing with stone-age primitives who have given their gods different names, but are still as primitive thinkers as early man. Refusing to let reason prevail, they hang on to imagination and fantasy. Whatever god it may be, let the 'god' that is greatest prove himself! If their god is truly so powerful, then why does he - always male it seems - need their help in executing his evil desires? Because he is nothing but a figleaf for the evil that is in their own hearts, nothing more.

If he is so powerful, let them stand aside, as I mock him and challenge him to slay me by his OWN power, and without the hand of those who believe in what does not exist. But in that they raise their fists, and lust to murder in his name, they only prove his non-existance and the weakness of their imaginations.

The gays of Iran (and in other countries threatening death for homosexual orientation) will not be safe and will not be able to hide from the evil men in black. They must leave or they must fight for their liberty.

I would like to see many come to Canada as refugees, but according to canadian rules that is not easily possible, because there are no direct flights... and that means refusal of refugee status, because they are required to apply in the first 'safe' country they travel to.

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I have to say that right now if I had my finger on the nuke button, Teheran would be up in smoke within 12 hours.

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That was easy. Just like that, you've turned into a Republican.

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Originally posted by DrConway:
You tell me you wouldn't be mad as hell about this if you were gay.

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I am gay. I am mad as hell. I don't want the Iranian people to die. But I want those responsible to get what they deserve, and I don't just mean the judge and the executioners. I'd buy a bullet for each one of them.

First of all, you really can't get much more barbaric than this. I think we all agree on that. This is a human rights outrage of the first order.

And it is heartening to see the international pressure brought to bear on Iran, although if I never read babble I would have never learned of this incident in the mainstream US media.

When the WMD rationale for the invasion of Iraq fell apart, the Bush administration deftly shifted to ridding the Iraqi people of the murderous tyrant Saddam Hussein.

Since on other threads in this board, there have been serious discussions that the US is preparing to invade Iran at some future prevarication.

It is not out of the realm of possibility that the first time most USians see that awful photo on the top of this thread will be trotted out to justify such an invasion (unless its Dick Cheney's nuclear plan).

As far as our liberation of Iraq, even rightwinger Kathleen Parker warns about the new constitution enshrining sharia law in Iraq which would set the rights of Iraqi women back to the middle ages. We said we would liberate these people from oppression.

There's nothing more I would like to see than a flying commando unit dive into Tehran and take out the bastards that commit such atrocities and allow the democratic reformists to take power.

It is my hope that somehow, international pressure allied with forces inside Iran put a stop to these atrocities.

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Originally posted by Américain Égalitaire:
It is not out of the realm of possibility that the first time most USians see that awful photo on the top of this thread will be trotted out to justify such an invasion (unless its Dick Cheney's nuclear plan).

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That point was brought up on another thread, as well, and I gotta tell ya: I really don't think the US is not going to use execution of gay people as a pretext for war. Too many Americans would see those hangings as right and proper punishment.

They call such people the 'Republican base.'

[ 27 July 2005: Message edited by: Tape_342 ]

You're probably right and that's sad on so many levels. However, I also wouldn't put it past this administration to try to re-frame the context of the photo to serve their own ends.

After all, as was pointed out in a letter to the editor in the morning Des Moines Register, where was the outrage of the Christian Right when female US interrogrators were using sexual tactics against Muslim detainees? Where were the outraged cries over the debasement of USian womanhood?

Oh, its ok, it was in the service of the highest calling - war against "the other."

[ 27 July 2005: Message edited by: Américain Égalitaire ]

More disturbing photos, courtesy of Lathe's link above...

Here, the boys are being unloaded at the gallows, while here they are being interviewed on tape. In the last photo, if you look closely, you can see the younger boy holding his head and sobbing.

And again, courtesy of Lathe's link, these are some of the responses to the story:

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Right on!!!!! Fagotts shoud be executed!!! Only instead of hanging, they should have burned them at the stake!!! Fags spread disease and are mentally deranged perverts!! I adds a new meaning to the pharase, "Fag Bash!!!!" Right on, Iran!!!!!!LOL!!!!

Die Faggots!!!!!!!

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They should have tortured them more and castrated them, THEN burned the faggots in question!

Have you noticed that faggots will attack the Catholic Church for opposing thier sodomite perversions, but the cowardly sissies won't say a thing to or about Islam!?! That's because the faggots know what the Moslems will do back! Yes, faggots have a lot of courage!

Iran, you did good! Keep killing those faggots!! Faggots are maggots!

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"Faggots are maggots," it's not even mildly clever. Where do they breed the morons?

[ 27 July 2005: Message edited by: Cueball ]

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But nowadays, the Muslim world has become a sacred cow to some elements on the loony left and suddenly a woman wrapped in veils has become a symbol much like how a woman in a conical hat in a rice paddy was a symbol during the Vietnam War. Its just so inconvenient isn't it for these Iranians to go around murdering gays - just when we are trying to make them out to be innocent victims and martyrs of US imperialism - why do they have to make it more difficult for us.

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Because of the stupidity of the invasion of Iraq -- a crime not so terrible to people like Stockholm because the vast majority of those dead are Muslim -- we now have a once secular nation embracing Islam as the basis of its laws and moving closer to Iran as a political and cultural ally.

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Originally posted by Cueball:
Where do they breed the morons?

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With more than 38 homosexuals killed in Jamaica since 1980 and hundreds of alleged homosexuals viciously beaten, driven from their homes and jobs, J-FLAG has been lobbying for a constitutional amendment that would grant them equal protection under the law.

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But they didn't because he was a sell-out social democrat.

Double:

[ 31 July 2005: Message edited by: Cueball ]

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Originally posted by Red Albertan:

Just over half a century ago, a madman with god-aspirations slaughtered 6 million people. 6 million people who didn't pick up and fight the madman. 6 million people who were picked off 'one-by-one', condemned to die because of one of the most evil ideologies ever to arise on the face of this planet.

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It is even worse than that.

Hitler killed some 11 million people. 6 million people of the Judaic faith is the usual number cited. He, his compatriots and vile ideology also murdered some 5 million other humans --homosexual men and women, Roma (Gypsy's), "communists", physically and or mentally challenged people, political dissidents -- anyone deemed an "unfit" Aryan.

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That point was brought up on another thread, as well, and I gotta tell ya: I really don't think the US is not going to use execution of gay people as a pretext for war. Too many Americans would see those hangings as right and proper punishment.

They call such people the 'Republican base.'

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I think this is a somewhat narrow view of the pro-war crowd. Yeah, you've got the GOP base, which doesn't need any pretext beyond "kill the ragheads" to go to war. But you've also got your "military humanism" types, your Christopher Hitchens and Andrew Sullivans, plus their followers in the general public. I could definitely see those types using gay rights(among other liberal causes) as a pretext for invading Iran.

Many leftists, I think, tend to stereotype the entire pro-war crowd as just a bunch of NASCAR loving rednecks. While there's obviously some truth in that, I don't think that's the entire story. I participate in other political message boards, and I can tell you that on those sites the "liberal" pro-war arguments about liberating women and whatnot get at least as much play as does the "kill 'em all and let god sort it out" style of debate.

What to do, it is really hard to know. It would really help if the people pushing for a galaxy-wide police force was not the USA.

[ 31 July 2005: Message edited by: Cueball ]

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True, but the Democrats might use this kind of a thing as a case for sanctions, which will be part of a larger overall program inteneded to isolate Iran and soften it up for the next Republican adminstration, so that they can invade.

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That could certainly be how the dynamic plays itself out, yes.

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It would really help if the people pushing for a galaxy-wide police force was not the USA.

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It's the weapons of mass destruction!
Its Saddam is worst than Hitler!
Its a flagrant snubbing of UN sanctions! Someone has to uphold the honour of the UN!
No, wait, its bringing freedom and liberty to the Iraqi people!
No, wait, its fighting them there so we won't have to fight them here!
No wait, do you like gassing up your SUV at $2 a gallon? Then shut the hell up and support our war!

I've just had it with extremism. Up to here!! (picture me with my hand over my head). Since the Right declares war on everything (war on drugs, war on terror, war on masturbation, etc.), I say we declare war on extremism.

Anne cameron's post about justification for war with Iran reminded me of a conversation I had a couple of days ago...I don't want us to invade Iran, but I was speaking with an Iranian friend who would LOVE to see the US invade Iran and get rid of the nasties who run the country. But, this same person has in the past told me that the US government is corrupt and wrecked Iran in the past. I didn't really know what to say.

[ 31 July 2005: Message edited by: Michelle ]

I don't mean to suggest in any way that I'M in favour of Dubya invading Iran. Shit, no! I was trying to suggest that the way "facts" get edited, twisted, revamped, altered and generally screwed around, Dubya would use the picture of two obviously young, good looking, terrified children seconds away from being hanged as his proof that Iran is slaughtering it's own children, and he would overlook the entire homosexuality aspect of the dreadful crime.

I don't want Dubya to invade Iran.
I don't want Dubya to invade any country.
I want Dubya to go back to Texas, slip in a cow patty on his ranch, fall to the ground, hit his head on a rock , fracture his skull, develop a haemotoma of the left frontal lobe, lose the last of his feeble ability to speak and spend the rest of his life wearing diapers, drooling, and being taken care of by a team of septic breathed rough handed caregivers who don't use deodorant.

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But, this same person has in the past told me that the US government is corrupt and wrecked Iran in the past. I didn't really know what to say.

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Does anyone have any tips about leaving hateful messages on the Iranian Embassy's voice-mail? I called them up when Zarah Kazemi was murdered, but I think I was too polite.

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Here in Korea, I saw a bunch of RAELIANS protesting the hangings, with a big picture of the execution(the same one you see here).

I dunno, there's just seems to be something really po-mo about that.

[ 01 August 2005: Message edited by: voice of the damned ]

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I dunno, there's just seems to be something really po-mo about that.

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Originally posted by voice of the damned:
[QB]

Here in Korea, I saw a bunch of RAELIANS protesting the hangings, with a big picture of the execution(the same one you see here).

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