Iranian Official Promotg Piety Dismissed After Alleged Gay Sex Tape Emerg - Iran

Contents:

• Y, THERE ARE GAY PEOPLE IRAN
• 1 OUT OF 3 YOUNG IRANIAN MEN "GAY"?
• IRANIAN OFFICIAL PROMOTG PIETY DISMISSED AFTER ALLEGED GAY SEX TAPE EMERG
• WHAT 'S LIKE TO BE GAY IRAN
• GAY IRAN: NO PLACE TO CALL HOME
• GAY IRANIAN, 20, 'BEHEAD BY HIS BROTHER AND S AFTER THEY DISVERED HIS SEXUALY'
• GAY IRANIAN MAN ALLEGEDLY KILLED BY FAY DAYS BEFORE SEEKG ASYLUM
• GAY IRANIAN MAN AD ALLEGED 'HONOR KILLG,' RIGHTS GROUP SAYS
• IRANIAN GAY MAN, 20, MURRED AND BEHEAD BY HIS FAY

Y, THERE ARE GAY PEOPLE IRAN

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. We spoke to him about what life is like the days for gay, lbian, bisexual and transgenred Iranians, and whether is even possible to live a fulfilled, secure life as a gay person a untry such as Iran:. 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).

There will always be teractns among -workers, people on the street and the bazaar, and gathergs that will have trac of homophobia them, and which will create an unwanted distance between a homosexual and his environment.

Wh all the media attentn around this subject (pecially onle, satelle televisn programs, and foreign films and seri), homosexuals make peace wh themselv rather quickly and relatively easily, but there are problems, too.

1 OUT OF 3 YOUNG IRANIAN MEN "GAY"?

One major problem is the tradnal and relig upbrgg of the society, and the patriarchal state propaganda that alienat homosexuals and acceptance of homosexualy to take a lot of time and energy.

IRANIAN OFFICIAL PROMOTG PIETY DISMISSED AFTER ALLEGED GAY SEX TAPE EMERG

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. In alg wh myself, I have fully accepted my homosexualy, but alg wh the outsi world, wh people and the society, I am always led to circumstanc where I am willgly or unwillgly remd of my homosexualy.

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.

Sometim the tense prsure the homosexual experienc over time ph him on a path where he may lack sufficient strength and patience to ntually evaluate himself and to ratnally manage his relatnships. There is no official dissematn of rmatn for homosexuals and the only way to reach awarens about such issu is dog personal rearch, talkg to other homosexuals, and ocsnally gettg profsnal unselg. At the same time there is more social acceptance and rpect for other mori the untri and most of them there are varyg gre of legal mechanisms for support of homosexuals and observatn of their rights.

WHAT 'S LIKE TO BE GAY IRAN

It is not necsary for all of to talk or take actn about the rights of Baha’is or homosexuals; but if someone has somethg to say or wish to take a step, we should all support him or her. 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. In later tim, when polil and social circumstanc changed and slav were not as readily available as durg the ontier wars, boys different walks of life bee the targets of homoerotic love.

Novic workg unr master craftsmen, errand boys (šāgerds) shops, and youths workg at different tras were now mostly the targets of homoerotic love poems, although ls equently qasidas than ghazals, quatras, and ocsnal piec (qetʿas).

GAY IRAN: NO PLACE TO CALL HOME

The ḵaṭṭ is scribed varly as green (ḵaṭṭ-e sabz), st-lored (ḵaṭṭ-e zangāri), mk-lored (ḵaṭṭ-e moš-k), buddg ḵaṭṭ (ḵaṭṭ-e now-damida), etc., but most often upled wh ḵāl (bety spot) on acunt of their homonymy. In many poems the poet-lover scrib himself as a fatherly figure to the beloved, and ed a homosexual may take a tame to his home and re for his well-beg and tn (actg as a ‘sugar daddy’). Not only Mlim boys were the subject of homoerotic sir, but so were boys om mory groups, more particularly Zoroastrians boys (mōḡ-bača) servg taverns and Christian on (tarsā-bača), sometim belongg to nvents; for example:.

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. The public acceptance of homoerotic love Persian lerature, more particularly Khorasan and Transoxiana durg the 10th-12th centuri, spe of strong relig prohibn both pre-Islamic and Islamic Persia, however, requir an explanatn. ” 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.

Nor n any trace of homosexual love be found the entire Šāh-nāma, which clus several romanc such as Zāl o Rudāba, Rostam o Tahma, Bižan o Maniža, and the fatuatn of Sudāba for Siāvaš.

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

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. 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.

GAY IRANIAN MAN ALLEGEDLY KILLED BY FAY DAYS BEFORE SEEKG ASYLUM

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. Recently, however, the growg refal of gays and lbians to accept a clanste existence and the rultant visibily of gay culture has led some wrers the Wt to pay attentn also to the wispread currency of perasty the Middle East.

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

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. But today PLoS Medice me out wh a paper wh a rult which suggts that the anecdot of relatively wispread homosexual behavr the Middle East are not totally unfound or unreprentative (the journalist Hugh Pope has dited that Middle Eastern men have sometim assumed he would naturally be open to sexual proposns bee he was a Wterner.

The lm uld be misleadgA foreign fluence operatn to ce vlence Israel is reemerggIran's moraly police return to streets a new mpaign to impose Islamic drsHomosexualy is illegal Iran, which is nsired one of the most reprsive plac the world for lbian, gay, bisexual and transgenr people. Sexual teractn between two women is punishable by vast majory of media reports about homosexualy Iran are based on acunts of torment and opprsn om gays and lbians who have fled the untry. 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.

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

| (VOCATIV/SUNE ENGEL RASMUSSEN)"The number one threat to gays and lbians Iran is the fay, " agre Hosse Alizah of the Internatnal Gay & Lbian Human Rights Commissn (IGLHRC), and himself an Iranian.

"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.