Two Gay Men Hanged In Iran After Being Jailed For 'Sodomy'

Two gay men have been hanged in Iran after spending six years on death row on charges of sodomy.

Mehrdad Karimpour and Farid Mohammadi were both hanged in a prison in the northwestern city of Maragheh, around 310 miles away from Tehran, having been sentenced to death for 'forced sexual intercourse between two men'.

Iran is considered one of the most restrictive countries in the world for LGBTQ+ rights, with the country's penal code outlining that that ‘livat’ – defined under Article 233 as 'penetrative anal intercourse between men' – is punishable with the death penalty.

As per the Human Dignity Trust, Article 236 also provides that ‘tafkhiz’ – defined under Article 235 as 'putting a male sex organ between the thighs/buttocks of another man' – is punishable with 100 lashes, or the death penalty if the active party is non-Muslim and the passive party is Muslim. For women, it's punishable with 100 lashes.

Same-sex intimacy between men and between women other than ‘liwat’ or ‘tafkhiz’, such as 'kissing or touching as a result of lust', is also punishable with anywhere between 31-74 lashes.

Their deaths have been met with outrage online, with journalist Karmel Melamed writing, 'The Ayatollah regime in Iran just executed two gay men for the crime of sodomy in Iran. This is Mehrdad Karimpour and Farid Mohammadi who were executed by hanging. Where's the outrage from @StateDept @SecBlinken @glaad & other LGBT groups in US to this horrific crime?!'

Peter Tatchell, an LGBTQ+ campaigner, told The Jerusalem Post, 'Iran is one of a dozen Muslim-majority countries and regions that enforce Sharia law and impose the death penalty for homosexuality. The execution of these men follows a long-standing regime policy of the state-sanctioned murder of gay men, often on disputed charges after unfair trials that have been condemned by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. 

'The international community must impose Magnitsky sanctions on the regime officials, judges and prison staff who authorised these executions – and on those responsible for the many other human rights cases of abuse in Iran, including the hanging of peaceful Kurdish, Baluch and Ahwazi Arab activists on fake terrorism charges.'

It is believed that between 4,000 and 6,000 gay men and women have been executed in Iran since the 1979 Revolution. Back in 2014, President of the Islamic Republic of Iran Ebrahim Raisi described same-sex relations as 'nothing but savagery'.

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