Skip to main content

Punishable by death: Iranian gays run from homeland

As Hassan walked -- well, more like sashayed -- through the market in this southern Turkish city, the population on the sidewalk -- elderly women in dark veils, men behind stalls selling Turkish pears, children in woolly striped sweaters -- all gawked.

"Yes, look! Look all you want," Hassan said with a flourish, opening his arms in a benevolent gesture, as if their stares were rooted in adulation and not curiosity bordering on disgust. A portly, middle-aged woman narrowed her eyes and curled her lip at him.

"What?" said the 34-year-old Iranian refugee. "Is this the 1st time she's seen a man wearing makeup? Maybe she should take notes. She could use a few beauty tips."

Behind him, Farzan giggled. The slight 25-year-old, sporting a shoulder sack that would be labeled a purse even in the male-bag capitals of Tokyo and Paris, offered up a quick tale in his feminine lilt.

"The other day I was buying some eggs, and the man would not even take the money from my hand," he recounted. "He looked at me and said, 'Put the money on the table,' and spat on the floor. He gave me no change."

"You should have thrown the eggs in his face," lectured Hassan, anger flashing in his eyes, their color hazel by the grace of contact lenses. "We're out of Iran now, and you will not take that kind of treatment anymore. Not in Turkey, not anywhere. You stand up for yourself. One life being less than human was enough."

Freedom is relative. But for Hassan, mother hen to a gaggle of gay Iranians fleeing a nation where their sexuality is punishable by death, relatively secular Turkey is one step closer to a life less shackled.

More than 300 gays have fled Iran since the rise of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who infamously proclaimed in 2007, to guffaws from his audience at Columbia University, that there were no such things as gays in Iran. Most have crossed the border into Turkey, joining 2,000 Iranian refugees -- largely political dissidents and religious outcasts -- facing waits of two to three years as the United Nations processes their applications for asylum. Those who agreed to be interviewed asked that their last names be withheld for fear of reprisals against their families.

Turkey grants all refugees sanctuary only until the United Nations can find them homes in the United States, Canada, Western Europe or Australia. To avoid a critical mass in any one Turkish city, the refugees are dispersed to 2 dozen locations. The list does not include more progressive Istanbul but rather smaller metropolises, such as Isparta, that remain influenced by Islam in the same way Christianity influences the Bible Belt.

In a nation where the party that won the Turkish elections in 2002 has since sought to improve ties with Tehran, the refugees' movements are strictly limited. They can't work or engage in political activity, and must check in at police stations at least twice a week.

Human rights groups say the number of gays taking flight has jumped in recent months as some came out of the shadows for a fleeting moment around the time of last June's tainted elections, trying to join the anti-government campaigns that ultimately sparked a brutal crackdown.

It marked the first time, gay activists say, that a reviled underclass in Iran poked its face to the surface. It stayed there just long enough to get slapped.

"The bravery that has come out of the gay community in Iran since the elections has been inspiring, but the government has not taken it lightly," said Saghi Ghahraman, an Iranian exile who helps operate a Canadian-based organization providing guidance to gays trying to escape Iran. "They have come down harshly and violently. They've made it more difficult than ever to be gay in Iran."

On the outskirts of Isparta, in southern Turkey, the door opened to the living room of a basement apartment. Taymuoury emerged in one of the black gowns worn by conservative Islamic women. He repeatedly bowed, praising Allah with fast-rolling trills off his tongue. Then, comically, salaciously, he opened his garment to reveal a blood-red bra, grabbing his stuffed chest to bursts of laughter from the gay Iranians in the room.

Muslim drag

For Farzan, as with the 10 other gay Iranians assigned to Isparta as they await passage, such moments of humor are a release from grim lives. On any given afternoon, they'll put on an impromptu drag show, donning, for instance, belly dancer outfits made from cheap tablecloths. They slather on cosmetics brought from Iran by the one true transvestite among them: Farhad, 26, the self-proclaimed "Queen of Isfahan," who spirited a trunk of women's clothes and 200 shades of lipstick over the border.

Most say they have been subject to gay bashing in Isparta; one neighbor tossed a rock through the window of the squalid apartment where Hassan lives with five other gay Iranians, and Turks shout gay epithets when they venture outdoors. Hassan said a shopkeeper and his son punched and kicked him, then urinated on him.

They now stay inside as much as possible, their lives in some ways more secret here than in Iran, a nation harboring a complex relationship with homosexuality.

Sex between two men in Iran is punishable by death after the 1st offense; sex between 2 women carries a penalty of 100 lashes, with the death penalty applicable on the 4th violation. In 2005 2 gay teenagers, Mahmoud Asgari and Ayaz Marhoni, were famously hanged in the city of Mashhad. Yet the government offers financial assistance for sex-change operations -- the idea being, apparently, that if they change sexes, their desires would no longer violate religious law.

Still, the refugees describe a certain don't-ask, don't-tell policy in everyday life. At his front-desk job at a Tehran hotel, Hassan wore light foundation and was open about his sexuality. A few coworkers teased him. " 'Hey, lady,' they would sometimes call when they needed me," said Hassan, who speaks fluent English. But for the most part, he said, he was accepted.

He and others were part of an underground scene at cafes, parks and private homes. In Tehran, where Hassan and Farzan lived until last year, dozens of gay men would gather on Thursdays at Laleh Park.

After Ahmadinejad came to power in 2005, however, the campaign against gays intensified, according to international gay organizations. In Isfahan, authorities raided gay parties; photos on the Internet showed revelers badly bruised following their arrests. Three refugees said they were raped in prison. Both Hassan and Farzan said they received 10 to 25 lashes on repeated occasions.

The pressure, the men here say, led them to hang their hopes on last year's elections, believing a change in leadership might restore more tolerance.

Last April, Farzan was among those in a budding gay rights movement, linking up via social networking sites, posting messages supporting Ahmadinejad's opponents and spreading the word about rallies organized by anti-government dissidents and student groups.

When those groups took to the streets to protest Ahmadinejad's claim of victory a month later, Farzan and other gays joined in. During protests in Tehran, some identified themselves as gay by wearing thumb rings or toting rainbow flags, a symbol of the gay movement in the West.

"For a moment, it felt so powerful," Farzan said through an interpreter. "We were marching in the streets. There were not that many of us, maybe 150 in a crowd of thousands. But we were gay, and we were together, and we were calling for freedom."

Gay refugees in other cities, such as Shiraz, said student groups welcomed their participation. But in Tehran, gays and lesbians were discouraged from protests, Farzan said: "They did not want us to stain the reputation of the anti-government movement by joining in."

Ultimately, Farzan said, their brief movement was broken up by the government crackdown in response to the protests. Gays and lesbians were targeted, with dozens arrested. Several cafes where gays gathered were shut down. Worse, he and others here said, the government began tracing profiles on gay social networking sites, informing their families and employers of their "crimes against religion."

In November, Farzan was expelled from dental school. He went home to his family in another town, only to find they had received a call from security agents. His parents kicked him out.

He contacted Hassan, his friend who had fled to Turkey months earlier. As Hassan has done with a number of gay refugees, he offered to help put Farzan in contact with U.N. officials, and secure housing for him in Isparta as he waited for asylum. In December, Farzan boarded a bus to the Turkish border with his life savings of $800.

"I have no idea how I'm going to make it here for 2 or 3 years on that," Farzan said. "But I keep telling myself that this is for the best, and I'll find a way. I once thought things could change in Iran, but now I know they won't. I did the only thing I could -- I got out."

Source: Washington Post, April 3, 2010


CBC Report (in English): "Out in Iran - Inside Iran"s Secret Gay World"


Out in Iran - Inside Iran"s Secret Gay World
posted by GayClic.

Comments

Most viewed (Last 7 days)

U.S. | Four executions are scheduled in four states over four days this week

Over the next four days, four inmates in four different states are scheduled to be put to death – a cluster that, while not abnormal, comes amid a national uptick in executions while President Donald Trump calls for the death penalty’s expansion. A cluster of executions is “not that unusual,” according to Robert Dunham, director of the Death Penalty Policy Project. “But it’s become increasingly rare as use of the death penalty has diminished.” Indeed, the number of executions each year remains far lower than its peak in 1999, when nearly 100 people were put to death nationwide. That figure steadily decreased until the Covid-19 pandemic, when it reached historic lows, Dunham said.

Oklahoma judge stays execution of man set to die Thursday

Hanson was transferred to Oklahoma custody in March by federal officials following through on President Donald Trump’s sweeping executive order to more actively support the death penalty. OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — An Oklahoma judge granted a temporary stay of execution Monday to a man whose transfer to death row was expedited by the Trump administration and who was scheduled to receive a lethal injection this week. John Fitzgerald Hanson, 61, was set to die Thursday for killing a Tulsa woman in 1999. Hanson’s lawyers have argued that he did not receive a fair clemency hearing last month before the state’s five-member Pardon and Parole Board. They claim board member Sean Malloy was biased because he worked for the Tulsa County District Attorney’s Office when Hanson was being prosecuted.

Japan | Steady-handed prison guard remembers faces of condemned he executed

His hands never trembled, not even as he slipped the noose around the necks of several condemned men. But now, years later, their faces return to him -- uninvited, every day. Currently in his 70s, a Japanese man who worked as a prison guard for many years at a detention center in eastern Japan, remains anonymous for privacy reasons. One morning in the 1990s, he was informed he was to be that day's "noose handler," assisted by four other prison officers and several staff in the task of hanging death row inmates. "I knew this was a road I'd have to go down eventually if I worked at a detention center," the man said in an interview with Kyodo News. "You don't have any power to veto the decision."

Utah | Judge says Ralph Menzies does have dementia, but is competent enough to be executed

A Utah judge says death row inmate Ralph Menzies is mentally competent enough to be executed by firing squad.  In a ruling issued Friday evening, 3rd District Judge Matthew Bates wrote that Menzies does have dementia, but it’s not enough to prevent him from understanding why he’s being punished.  Menzies’ attorneys say they plan to appeal the decision to the Utah Supreme Court.  The ruling caps of a monthslong competency hearing that began in November, where attorneys for Menzies argued the 67-year-old’s brain is so damaged he can’t form a “rational understanding” of why the state is pursuing the death penalty. Attorneys for the state, meanwhile, argued that Menzies does show signs of cognitive decline but he’s still competent. 

Texas | Man ordered final death row meal so controversial that no one gets one anymore

As well as listing off five people we wouldn't mind getting stuck in a lift with if it ever came to it, we've all debated what we would have for our last ever meal on Earth. These imaginary scenarios help us kill a bit of time during long journeys, or can reignite the conversation if it gets a bit stale. But for death row inmates, fantasising about their final feast isn't just a fun and fictitious pastime - it's something they actually have to decide on before they face their fate. Unless they are locked up in Texas, that is, as the US state no longer offers prisoners this privilege thanks to the actions of one convict 14 years ago.

Alabama executes Gregory Hunt

Alabama executes a man by nitrogen gas for the beating death of a woman in 1988  An Alabama man convicted of killing a woman in 1988 was put to death Tuesday evening in the nation’s 6th execution by nitrogen gas.  Strapped to a gurney with a blue-rimmed mask covering his entire face, Hunt gave no final words but appeared to give a thumbs-up sign and a peace sign with his fingers. The gas began flowing sometime after 5:55 p.m., but it was not clear exactly when. At 5:57 p.m. Hunt briefly shook, gasped and raised his head off the gurney. He let out a moan at about 5:59 p.m. and raised his feet. 

Oklahoma executes John Hanson

McALESTER, Okla. (AP) — Oklahoma executed a man Thursday whose transfer to state custody was expedited by the Trump administration. John Fitzgerald Hanson, 61, received a three-drug lethal injection at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester and was pronounced dead at 10:11 a.m., prison officials said. Hanson was sentenced to die after he was convicted of carjacking, kidnapping and killing a Tulsa woman in 1999. “Peace to everyone,” Hanson said while strapped to a gurney inside the prison’s death chamber.

Florida executes Anthony Wainwright

Florida executes man convicted in rape, murder of woman 3 decades ago  The U.S. Supreme Court rejected last-ditch appeals to spare convicted killer Anthony Wainwright and his execution was carried out as planned Tuesday evening at Florida State Prison.  Wainwright, 54, was executed at 6 p.m. by lethal injection for the 1994 murder of Carmen Gayheart, who was kidnapped from a Lake City supermarket parking lot, raped and killed.  This execution marked the 6th inmate put to death by lethal injection in Florida this year. 

Indonesia | 3 British nationals face death penalty for allegedly smuggling 1 kg of cocaine into tourist island of Bali

Three British nationals accused of smuggling over two pounds of cocaine into Indonesia were charged Tuesday in a court on the tourist island of Bali. They face the death penalty under the country's strict drug laws. Convicted drug smugglers in Indonesia are sometimes executed by firing squad. Jonathan Christopher Collyer, 28, and Lisa Ellen Stocker, 29, were arrested on Feb. 1 after customs officers halted them at the X-ray machine after finding suspicious items in their luggage disguised as food packages, said prosecutor I Made Dipa Umbara.

Oscar Franklin Smith, Tennessee death row inmate, declines to select execution method

Oscar Franklin Smith, a Tennessee death row inmate scheduled for execution on May 22, will die by lethal injection if the process moves forward. Smith, who was asked to choose between lethal injection and the electric chair, declined to pick, his attorney Kelley Henry, a supervisory assistant federal public defender, said. When an inmate does not choose, the method defaults to lethal injection. It's not the first time Smith has been given this grim decision and declined. That decision to not choose ultimately saved his life for three more years.