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 Washington, DC (FPride.org)
September 24, 2007 --
Iranian President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad noted that
“In Iran, we don’t have
homosexuals” in his September
24, 2007 address at Columbia
University before going on to
ask
"Why should they get
(homosexuals) sympathy?” and
"Don't you have capital
punishment in the United
States?"
Hardly the words of a man
seeking peace and serenity as he
so desperately attempted to
portray himself as doing in
Monday’s address, it is none the
less extremely unsettling to
then hear him continue to rattle
off comments such as
"In Iran we don't have
homosexuals like you do in your
country. We do not have this
phenomenon. I don't know who's
told you that we have it."
With Ahmadinejad’s comments
noted, let’s begin by first
noting that there are
homosexuals everywhere!
However, for journalistic
purposes, we will examine the
facts as portrayed in the
International Lesbian and Gay
Association’s (ILGA) “State of
Homophobia” April 2007 report
which documents “State Sponsored
Homophobia” throughout the
world. The mere fact that Iran
appears not only in the table of
contents of this report, but
also has a good page and a half
devoted to anti-gay measures,
clearly outlines that there are
homosexuals in Iran or these
laws would never have been added
to the Islamic Penal Code of
Iran (last updated in 1991) from
which this report extracts its
information.
Now that we have established
that there are in fact
homosexuals in Iran regardless
of what Ahmadinejad may claim,
let’s examine Ahmadinejad’s
other comment that “In Iran, we
don’t have homosexuals.” Well,
by examining ILGA’s “State of
Homophobia” report, it is not
hard to understand why
Ahmadinejad would make such a
statement. For example, Article
110 of Iran’s Penal Code states
that “Punishment for sodomy is
killing; the Sharia judge
decides on how to carry out the
killing.” This in itself makes
Iran a very LGBT unfriendly
country and also backs up
Ahmadinejad’s statement that
Iran does not have homosexuals
as both he and his government
have an active policy of
eradicating homosexuals
one-by-one as new intelligence
comes in. It is as such, not
hard then to understand why most
homosexuals in Iran are very
much underground because of
this.
Additionally, it is extremely
important to note that
homosexuality is not a mere
phenomena (as noted by
Ahmadinejad), not something that
can be eradicated no matter how
much of a population segment one
may choose to destroy. The fact
that this man choose to stand on
a stage and state that more
investigation needs to be done
into the holocaust, which has
already been documented well
enough, shows the true character
of a fanatic who subscribes to a
policy of quietly eradicating a
population segment he does not
agree with; a population segment
that is comprised equally of
both men and women who all have
everyday lives, thoughts,
feelings and opinions.
ILGA’s State of Homophobia April
2007 report can be viewed in its
entirty from:
http://www.ilga.org/statehomophobia/State_sponsored_homophobia_ILGA_07.pdf
-FPride |