Iranian and Gay: Interview wh Comedian Mehran Khaghani – Persianque: Iranian Magaze

Contents:

• GAY IRANIAN MAN ALLEGEDLY KILLED BY FAY DAYS BEFORE SEEKG ASYLUM
• GAY IRANIAN, 20, 'BEHEAD BY HIS BROTHER AND S AFTER THEY DISVERED HIS SEXUALY'
• IRAN PURPORTEDLY EXECUT 2 GAY MEN OVER SODOMY CHARG
• IRANIAN, GAY & SEEKG ASYLUM
• GAY IRANIAN MAN AD ALLEGED 'HONOR KILLG,' RIGHTS GROUP SAYS
• IRANIAN GAY MAN, 20, MURRED AND BEHEAD BY HIS FAY
• WHAT 'S LIKE TO BE GAY IRAN
• Y, THERE ARE GAY PEOPLE IRAN
• GAY IRAN: NO PLACE TO CALL HOME
• IRANIAN AND GAY: INTERVIEW WH COMEDIAN MEHRAN KHAGHANI
• ALIREZA FAZELI MONFARED WANTED TO LIVE AS A EE GAY MAN THE WT. HIS FAY IRAN BEHEAD HIM DAYS BEFORE HIS DREAM ME TE, SAY ACTIVISTS.
• IRAN EXECUT GAY TEENAGER VLATN OF TERNATNAL LAW
• HOW ARE IRANIAN GAY MEN COPG WH SYSTEMATIC SUPPRSN UNR ISLAMIC LAW? A QUALATIVE STUDY

GAY IRANIAN MAN ALLEGEDLY KILLED BY FAY DAYS BEFORE SEEKG ASYLUM

The Islamic Republic of Iran publicly hanged a 31-year-old Iranian man after he was found guilty of charg related to vlatns of Iran’s anti-gay laws, acrdg to the state-ntrolled Iranian Stunts’ News unintified man was hanged on January 10 the southwtern cy of Kazeroon based on crimal vlatns of “lavat-e be onf” – sexual terurse between two men, as well as kidnappg charg, acrdg to ISNA. “Iran is not only the most dangero threat to Israel’s secury, is also a champn the state murr of actual or perceived homosexuals, ” said Volker Beck, a German Party Green Party polician and a lecturer at the Center for Studi Relig Scienc (CERES) at the Ruhr Universy Bochum. ” The statement about cizens of Kazeroon uld not be penntly 2016, The Jesalem Post reported Iran’s regime had executed a gay adolcent that year – the first nfirmed executn of someone nvicted as a juvenile the Islamic Afshar, 19, was hanged Arak Prison Iran’s Markazi Provce on July 18, 2016, after he was nvicted of “forced male-to-male anal terurse” early 2011, Iran’s regime executed three Iranian men after beg found guilty of charg related to M.

"Of urse the motive of such murrs by fay members is to fend the 'honor' of the tribe or fay, but we should never fet the social stigma and hatred nstantly reproduced by the social and legal nstcts agast LGBTQ members, " she this area of the world face enormo dangers for beg openly gay. We are still aaid of the regime makg a database of gay and transgenr people and puttg them unr prsure whenever they want, " Shadi Am, an LGBTQ activist based Germany, told ABC ia of receivg an exemptn rd is leavg many gay and trans Iranians worried they'd be brand and vulnerable to harassment and discrimatn.

"People hold banners prottg agast discrimatn and persecutn agast homosexuals Iran, July 28, 2007, ont of the Eiffel tower Meda/AFP via Getty Imag, File Mahdi, a 36-year-old Iranian gay man who did not want to e his full name over safety ncerns, told ABC News that hearg the news of Monfared's murr broke his heart. Alireza had applied for an exceptn om the pulsory Iranian ary service for beg gay so that he uld leave the untry and move to Turkey to live wh his partner Aghil Abyat'Alireza's killg as a rult of his sexual orientatn beg stated on his ary service [exemptn] rd has once aga provid proof for our warng several years ago about the risks ed by the ary service exemptn procs for gay Iranian men and unrl the need for legislatn to prevent the safety risks, ' the NGO 6 Rang said a statement. “Wtern untri are puttg prsure on pennt untri by attackg the fay foundatn, promotg the ugly phenomenon of homosexualy, the spread of extremism and terrorism, and the e of human rights as a tool, for which the velopment of cultural teractns and cultural operatn between Iran and Uganda will be very effective nontg the plots of the enemi of the two natns, ” said Raisi.

GAY IRANIAN, 20, 'BEHEAD BY HIS BROTHER AND S AFTER THEY DISVERED HIS SEXUALY'

Ali Fazeli Monfared, a 20-year-old gay Iranian man, was allegedly killed an “honor killg” by some of his male fay members after they found out he was gay, acrdg to an LGBTQ rights group Iran and Monfared, who was known as Alireza by iends and fay, lived a cy southwt Iran. He had applied for an exemptn om pulsory ary service so he uld leave the untry and move to Turkey to live wh his close iend, Aghil Bayat, acrdg to 6Rang, the Iranian Lbian and Transgenr homosexual nduct is crimalized Iran, part of the ary exemptn law allows gay and transgenr people to receive a medil exemptn om service for their inty. If Fazeli Monfared’s alleged killers had ught him havg sex wh a man, then they might receive lser punishments for his is one of an timated 11 untri where same-sex sexual acts are punishable by ath, acrdg to the Internatnal Lbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Associatn, and one of almost 70 untri where is crimalized, acrdg to Human Rights Watch, an ternatnal human rights group based New York.

"The are moral prcipl regardg the behavr of people general, ” he said at the time, acrdg to German broadster Dtsche are no statistics or rerds of the number of anti-LGBTQ “honor killgs” — which are perpetrated by relativ who feel the LGBTQ person has brought “dishonor” to the fay — that happen Iran or other untri that crimalize homosexualy, Tara Sepehri Far, who vtigat human rights ab Iran and Kuwa for Human Rights Watch, told NBC said Fazeli Monfared’s se highlights the importance of the role of the fay LGBTQ people’s liv when the state crimaliz who they are.

“Exposg that to the very same thori who, theory, have the thory to arrt and prosecute you is very risky, ” she said other untri should prsure Iran to remove the law crimalizg homosexualy and the ath penalty “bee this is the reason why the fai, they allow themselv to have the right to vlate their children. This 20-year-old betiful soul om Iran was btally killed by his brother & s for beg gay as part of an honour 's LGBTQ muny is btalised both by the regime & by bigotry certa fai#علیرضا_فاضلی_منفرد — Masih Alejad ?️ (@AlejadMasih) May 8, 2021. “Alireza’s killg as a rult of his sexual orientatn beg stated on his ary service [exemptn] rd has once aga provid proof for our warng several years ago about the risks ed by the ary service exemptn procs for gay Iranian men and unrl the need for legislatn to prevent the safety risks, ” the anizatn said a statement.

IRAN PURPORTEDLY EXECUT 2 GAY MEN OVER SODOMY CHARG

And while their experienc are reprentative for some of Iran's homosexuals, they are hugely different om those of the people who choose to stay the untry, or don't have the opportuny to om lower class and ral areas, where stigmatizatn is often most severe, rarely have the abily to move out of the hoe before marriage, let alone leave the untry.

"The Iranian thori ually turn a bld eye to the gay muny's pas, but much like the telligence servic the former Soviet Unn, Iranian telligence is believed to pile large fil on many cizens, which they n e to build a legal se agast people who might be ught engagg polil activi. Seven months later, they rented an apartment wtern Tehran; they both still live at home and when Naeem here, he tells his parents he is gog out of town wh challenge of fdg a steady partner weighs heavily on Iranian gays; many speak of prsn, lonels and paranoia as almost permanent mental stat.

While the new centrist ernment unr Print Hassan Rouhani matas a siar rea as s precsor, foreign-based media outlets like BBC Persian, Rad Zaman and Voice of Ameri e non-rogatory language about homosexuals, and is slowly tricklg down to reformist outlets si the untry, and to young Iranians, says spe s often venomo rhetoric, the Iranian regime silently accepts that gays do exist, and tak a few pragmatic steps to acunt for that Quran, the foundatn of Iranian law, explicly bans homosexualy. Through onle activism, publishg poetry, lerature and artwork onle, and engagg wh global gay culture through televisn and the ter, gay Iranians are g of age, spe the myriad of rtrictns they still face Iranian society and at the hands of the state. Unr the current circumstanc, Iranian youth, whether gay or straight, face many different obstacl, some of which have to do wh the regime (social rtrictns and iologil and polil prsure or the enomic suatn), and some to do wh public culture (a lack of acceptance of different liftyl and closed, tradnal thkg).

IRANIAN, GAY & SEEKG ASYLUM

Homosexuals who live small towns, more sular environments, and those who e om lower social levels and don’t have sufficient avenu for accsg rmatn and fdg others wh siar characteristics, or fdg a more accurate unrstandg about themselv, face other problems.

There are those like [Islamic philosopher Abdolkarim] Soroh, who haven’t yet thought about homosexualy; there are those like the [progrsive theologian-cleric Mohsen] Kadivar who, if we nsir him an tellectual, support Islamic punishment agast homosexualy, and others like Akbar Ganji, Ram Jahanbegloo, Arash Naraghi, and others who fend the rights of homosexuals. Discrimatn between the active and the passive partners, opposg transsexuals, misogyny, ternalized homophobia, a tradnal and biased view towards two people’s relatnship, lack of sufficient emotnal matury, and over-emotnalism are some of the thgs that n more or ls be seen among homosexuals.

From the dawn of Persian poetry the nth century all through to the twentieth century, not only was homosexualy ndoned Persian poetry, but fact homoeroticism formed almost the only amatory subject of Persian ghazals (short son-like lyrics) and the ma topic of much of Persian love poetry. The social acceptance of homoeroticism, spe of relig prohibn, was such that ʿOnṣor-al-Maʿāli Kay-Kāv, a prce of Ṭabartān, his well-known mirror for prc, monly known as Qāb-nāma, wrten as a pendium of advice for his son Gilānšāh, not only approv of male homosexualy, but suggts the bt way of practicg , even though he is by all acunts a man of piety, bound by the dictat of relign.

GAY IRANIAN MAN AD ALLEGED 'HONOR KILLG,' RIGHTS GROUP SAYS

” The romanc classil Persian lerature based on Parthian and Middle Persian origals such as Faḵr-al-D Gāni’s Vis o Rām, ʿAyyuqi’s Waraqa o Golšāh, ʿOnsori’s Vāmeq o ʿAḏrā, Neẓāmi’s Ḵosrow o Šir and Haft Peykar, and possibly Attar’s Ḵosrow-nāma all treat of heterosexual love wh no ht of homosexualy. There is a possibily that Greek loni northeastern Persia durg the Hellenistic perd had a share removg or rcg the stigma of homosexual love and makg socially acceptable, whereas southern Persia, a bastn of Zoroastrianism, and where a good al of Zoroastrian wrgs origated, the suatn was different.

IRANIAN GAY MAN, 20, MURRED AND BEHEAD BY HIS FAY

That emotnal ti should velop between Sufi mentors (pirs) and their young discipl the Sufi hospic (ḵānaqāhs) is only natural, given the wispread tenncy toward homoeroticism and s social acceptance on the one hand, and the excln of women om ḵānaqāhs, on the other. In spe of the transparency of homoerotic love the lyril prelus of the qasidas the 10th-12th centuri, the ghazals and robāʿis of the ʿErāqi school, notably Saʿdi and Hafez, and later the poems of the Safavid school and Indian style, as many ocsnal poems (qatáaʿāt), is surprisg that among historians of Persian lerature, om Hermann Ethé (q. 1946) had been published; and his diatrib agast major figur of Persian lerature (wh the exceptn of Ferdowsi) went hand hand wh his homophobia and gave rise to vehement attacks on poets, Sufis, homosexuals, and morn advot of classil Persian poetry, cludg Moḥammad-ʿAli Fo-ḡi, ʿAli Aṣḡar Ḥekmat, Qāsem Ḡani (qq.

Recently, however, Šamisā, a lerary scholar, has dited a volume to the subject: Šāhed-bāzi dar adabiyāt-e fārsi (Homosexual love Persian lerature, 2002) which he discs var aspects of the subject and which he has assiduoly brought together ample exampl om Persian poetry and prose. The neglect of, or rather, the omissn of and silence about, the subject has been apparently due to a number of , cludg general currents of homophobia both the Wt and morn Persia, aggravated perhaps by the translatn and discsn of acunts of earlier European travelers and wrers on Persia and the Middle East, who had emphasized the strong element of homoeroticism the East. It is possible, though, that wh the emergence of important gay and lbian wrers and poets and their translatn to Persian, addn to the spread of more liberal attus toward homosexualy the Wt, exemplified by the drive towards gay marriag the U.

WHAT 'S LIKE TO BE GAY IRAN

BERLIN -- Iran’s regime executed a gay adolcent July - the first nfirmed executn of someone nvicted as a juvenile the Islamic Republic 2016 - Amnty Internatnal reported this Afshar, 19, was hanged Arak Prison Iran's Markazi Provce on July 18, after he was nvicted of "forced male-to-male anal terurse" (‘lavat-e be onf’) early 2015, the NGO said a statement Tuday.

Stefan Schan, a LGBT rights activist and spokman for the European 'STOP THE BOMB' mpaign, told The Jesalem Post on Thursday, “Consensual homosexual nduct remas illegal unr Iran’s Sharia law and is punished wh public floggg or even executn. Volker Beck, a gay German Green Party MP and ternatnal activist to stop the persecutn of LGBTs, told the Post, “Iran is a signatory to a UN treaty that do not pletely ban the ath penalty but lims pal punishment to severe crim and outlaws the executn of juvenil.

Y, THERE ARE GAY PEOPLE IRAN

LGBT dividuals Iran have been sufferg om systematic supprsn and discrimatn for s and, orr for them to survive, like any other mori and isolated groups, they have formed a unique some may nsir homosexualy to be a relatively new Wtern phenomenon, a brief look at the history of same-sex relatnships Iran reveals that is, fact, prevalent throughout Iran’s historil culture. Dpe this long history of homosexualy Iran, many of the untry’s current homosexuals, particularly the younger generatn, tend to intify more wh a morn perspective rather than a historil or even cultural one (Mahdavi 2012; Yagarfard and Bahramabadian 2014). However, a signifint number of those who unrgo the surgery do so not bee they are transgenr but bee they are gay, lbian or bisexual and see sex change surgery as the only optn for them to “erase the ‘sta’ of homosexualy and bee ‘legal’ unr Iranian law” (Human Rights Watch 2010, p.

While a major factor this issue is how the Iranian thori’ policy and law have created an environment of social isolatn, is further pound by profsnal practners and psychologists Iran and their attempts at ‘treatg’ the sexual ‘viancy’ of homosexuals and lbians (see Am 2015).

Then through snowball samplg 57 gay men were ntacted through email and only 38 people replied to the ial email, then rm nsent were sent to 38 prospective participants that of them only 29 showed tert to participate the study, the rt dropped out due to the sensivy of the subject, fear of discloser, fear of alg wh strs durg the terview, not knowg the terviewer and lack of tst and not feelg fortable to do the terview trough vio ll.

GAY IRAN: NO PLACE TO CALL HOME

Ined, some of the ma reasons given by participants for agreeg to participate the current rearch were that, through this rearch, the thori might hear their voice sayg “we exist”; they were fightg stigmatisatn and discrimatn; and they were raisg awarens society about gay men Iran. Thirdly, sex helps them to nnect to other gay men and engage social workg as a pg strategy for social isolatn and narratns of the participants’ sex experienc were very varied; for stance, two participants mentned that bee they had their own home, they uld have sex 3–4 tim a week. There is a school of thought which suggts that the practice of engagg risky sexual behavur serv as a symbolic act of rebelln by gay mal, albe one that may be rried out subnscly or even jt as part of the accepted gay culture (Crossley 2004).

IRANIAN AND GAY: INTERVIEW WH COMEDIAN MEHRAN KHAGHANI

Psychologilly, the act of engagg risky sexual practic may provi some members of the gay muny wh a fulfillg sense of prottg and rebellg agast the domant social valu which they feel opprs their eedom and pennce (Crossley 2004) addn, two participants mentned that they even stood the street, pecially the eveng and at nights, to get picked up by rs. There are many reports of gay dividuals standg the well-known “pick-up pots” who have been beaten to ath by strangers or even by the moraly police or the Basij (UK Home Office 2016) most mon risk takg act intified was “gatherg public and unrground get-togethers or parti”. In spe of the legal and health-related risks associated wh alhol and dg e Iran, gay men are still misg the substanc as part of their pg mechanism for alg wh the strs and anxiety ed by their social isolatn, discrimatn and systematic has been observed that many members of the gay populatn e alhol and dgs to overe the pa of rejectn, isolatn, and discrimatn (e.

ALIREZA FAZELI MONFARED WANTED TO LIVE AS A EE GAY MAN THE WT. HIS FAY IRAN BEHEAD HIM DAYS BEFORE HIS DREAM ME TE, SAY ACTIVISTS.

Eleven participants mentned that they found challengg believg Islam and beg gay simultaneoly; five participants also mentned that they had left their relign and they now nsired themselv as Iran is an Islamic untry and relig tn is mandatory for everyone at school om a very early age, hypothetilly might have some level of impact on an dividual’s sexual behavurs general.

IRAN EXECUT GAY TEENAGER VLATN OF TERNATNAL LAW

(2007) reported how they adopted var methods of gnive behavur therapy (CBT) such as vert aversn (aversn therapy, g electro shock and vom-ducg dgs) to succsfully “treat” three homosexual and two transsexual “patients”, who exhibed heterosexual behavur after receivg the therapy. In such an environment of persecutn and neglect, many non-state actors rry out acts of homophobic vlence wh impuny (UK Home Office 2016) of the three who had married mentned that, even though they were married, they had relatnships wh other men secret.

HOW ARE IRANIAN GAY MEN COPG WH SYSTEMATIC SUPPRSN UNR ISLAMIC LAW? A QUALATIVE STUDY

The suatn is ma worse by the Turkish placement policy of ncentratg homosexual refuge small and often highly nservative ci (Saastamoen 2017) Network and Fay of ChoiceAll of the participants mentned that they eher ed to e social media and/or datg apps or were still g them. The ma reasons for g social media acrdg to the participants were nnectg to other gay dividuals, feelg that they were a safe place, makg nversatn about homosexualy Iran and LGBTQ rights, sex and fdg a sex partner, lookg for a more ser relatnship, chattg wh others which helped them regardg their isolatn and lonels, and also accsg rmatn (see also Karimi 2016). There is no doubt that gay dividuals Iran experience ‘mory strs’, fed as a state rultg om “…culturally sanctned, tegorilly ascribed ferr stat, social prejudice and discrimatn, the impact of the environmental forc on psychologil well-beg, and nsequent readjtment or adaptatn” (Brooks 1981, p.