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/>