Submit your comments on this article | |
Syria-Lebanon-Iran | |
Iran executes gay teenager | |
2016-08-07 | |
Hassan Afshar, 19, was hanged in Arak Prison in Iran's Markazi Province on July 18, after he was convicted of "forced male-to-male anal intercourse" (‘lavat-e be onf’) in early 2015, the NGO said in a statement Tuesday. Stefan Schaden, a LGBT rights activist and spokesman for the European 'STOP THE BOMB' campaign, told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday, “Consensual homosexual conduct remains illegal under Iran’s Sharia law and is punished with public flogging or even execution. While the Islamic State throws gays from rooftops, the Islamic Republic [of Iran] hangs them.” Amnesty said the Iranian authorities received a complaint accusing Afshar and two other adolescents of forcing a teenage boy to have sex. Afshar, who was arrested in December, 2014, said that the same-sex relations were consensual and the accuser had freely engaged in prior homosexual relations. “Iran has proved that its sickening enthusiasm for putting juveniles to death, in contravention of international law, knows no bounds," said Magdalena Mughrabi, Deputy Middle East and North Africa Programme Director at Amnesty International. She added that Hassan Afshar was a 17-year-old high school student when he was arrested. "He had no access to a lawyer and the judiciary rushed through the investigation and prosecution, convicting and sentencing him to death within two months of his arrest as though they could not execute him quickly enough,” Mughrabi stressed. | |
Posted by:Steve White |