[lbo-talk] "There Currently Is No Active Policy of Prosecution of Charges of Homosexuality in Iran"

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

<blockquote>[lbo-talk] plea from gay Iranian
Joel Wendland joelrw at hotmail.com
Sun Jul 9 08:13:38 PDT 2006

Yoshie wrote:

>I heard a lot of stories about vicious
>oppression of gay men by Saddam Hussein in the then still more or less
>secular republic.  We don't hear much about Saddam Hussein's
>oppression any more because now the story that needs to be sold is a
>pretext for "doing something" about Iran:
>Doug Ireland, "Iran Exports Anti-Gay Pogrom to Iraq," 31 May 2006:
><http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/2659/>.

Arsham Parsi, the author of the original appeal, tells me he is opposed to
military intervention of any kind in Iran. He has denounced westerners who
might use criticism to justify an attack on Iran. His goal is to raise
awareness and solidarity.

Lock stock and barrel defenses of Iran becuase it is under threat of attack
isn't useful.

Joel</blockquote>

Joel, I'm aware that you wrote an article about Arsham Parsi
<http://www.politicalaffairs.net/article/articleview/3752/1/196/>, but
have you fact-checked his claim that he "had to escape from my
homeland as a death warrant was issued by the Islamic government"
("Arsham Parsi's Speech Text in Toronto Gala 2006," Homan, 13 June
2006) and the June 19 protest organizers' claim that the Iranian
government is "killing gays"?  Given the recent Ward Churchill
controversy, the Jewish dress code hoax, the Ayaan Hirsi Ali
controversy, and so on, is it not a good idea for left-wing
publications, too, to fact-check their sources as much as possible?

Here's my take on the matter, based on the findings of the Committee
against Torture at the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner
for Human Rights:
"There Currently Is No Active Policy of Prosecution of Charges of
Homosexuality in Iran":
<http://montages.blogspot.com/2006/07/there-currently-is-no-active-policy-of.html>.

Also, I'll put this down here, since this list has a public archive,
though I've already sent this to you:

<blockquote>Health workers pass out condoms to prostitutes. Government
clinics in every region offer free HIV testing, counseling and
treatment. A state-backed magazine just began a monthly column that
profiles HIV-positive Iranians, and last year the postal service
unveiled a stamp emblazoned with a red ribbon for AIDS awareness. This
year the government will devote an estimated $30 million to the
program.

One of Iran's most acclaimed advances comes from its notoriously
secretive network of prisons, where hundreds of drug-addicted inmates
sometimes share the same makeshift syringe to inject heroin smuggled
in by guards or visiting relatives. In a startling acknowledgment of
sex and drugs even in its most closely guarded quarters, the Tehran
administration has made condoms and needles available in detention
centers across the country.

"Iran now has one of the best prison programs for HIV in not just the
region, but in the world," said Dr. Hamid Setayesh, the coordinator
for the U.N. AIDS office in Tehran. "They're passing out condoms and
syringes in prisons. This is unbelievable. In the whole world, there
aren't more than six or seven countries doing that."   (Hannah Allam,
"Iran's AIDS-Prevention Program Among World's Most Progressive,"
Knight Ridder, 14 April 2006,
<http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0414-03.htm>)</blockquote>

If the Iranian government were really into executing gay men for being
gay (based on identity) or all men for having homosexual sex (based on
practice), I'd think that it would be executing those prisoners first
of all, rather than passing out condoms to them.

I'm posting these things here for your information, as well as for the
benefit of people who are actually interested in making efforts to
seek all available facts before reaching a conclusion.

Now, I'm signing off again.
-- 
Yoshie
<http://montages.blogspot.com/>
<http://mrzine.org>
<http://monthlyreview.org/>