Iran Hangs Teenager for Gay Sex
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Amnesty International reported this week that Hassan Afshar, 19, was executed in an Iranian prison after being convicted of “lavat-e be onf” (forced male to male anal intercourse) which Amnesty said was almost certainly consensual.
‘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,” said Amnesty.
“In a cruel stroke of irony, officials did not inform Hassan Afshar of his death sentence for around seven months while he was held in a juvenile detention facility because they did not want to cause him distress – and yet astonishingly were still prepared to execute him.”
“With this execution, Iranian authorities have demonstrated once again their callous disregard for human rights.”
Amnesty said Hassna was convicted because of ‘the existence of laws in Iran that criminalize consensual male to male sexual intercourse with the death penalty, (which mean) that if the intercourse in this case had been deemed consensual, the teenager who accused Hassan Afshar of rape would himself have been sentenced to death.”
“Male individuals who engage in same-sex anal intercourse face different punishments under Iranian criminal law depending on whether they are the “active” or “passive” partners and whether their conduct is characterized as consensual or non-consensual,” Amnesty explained.
“If the conduct is deemed consensual, the “passive” partner of same-sex anal conduct shall be sentenced to the death penalty. The “active” partner, however, is sentenced to death only if he is married, or if he is not a Muslim and the “passive” partner is a Muslim.”
