Iranian Youth to be Hanged for 'Gay Assault'--Even After Plaintiff Admitted Charges Were False

A teenager in Iran faces death by hanging for a "gay assault" that his accuser now says the youth did not, in fact, commit. Moreover, the provincial court that has pronounced the death sentence has refused to follow orders by the Iranian Supreme Court to re-open the case.

A July 12 posting at PlanetIran.com reported that in 2008 four young Iranian men were accused by a fifth of sexual assault. The four were then detained and subjected to torture, with the authorities telling the teenagers that if they would select one from among their number to face charges, the other three would be freed.

One among the four, Ebrahim Hamidi, signed a confession, the article said, in order to end torture sessions that included beatings administered as he hung by his legs. He was then sentenced to death by hanging--a sentence that was not reversed even when the accuser came forward to say that the charges were false and that the plaintiff had been pressured into making the accusation by his family.

The Planet Iran story condemned sexual assault in general, and the "criminalization of homosexuality" along with it. "In our opinion, criminalization of homosexuality is the foundation for cruelty not only to the homosexual members but to any member of the society accused falsely of sexual harassment," the article stated.

British GLBT rights activist Peter Tatchell of OutRage! issued a press release denouncing the impending execution. "He now has no legal representation," noted the release. "His lawyer, Mohammad Mostafaei, has been forced into hiding after a warrant for his arrest was issued. The Iranian authorities are furious over Mostafaei's highly publicized efforts to stop the stoning to death of Sakineh Ashtiani on charges of adultery" in a separate case.

"Ebrahim's case shows the flaws and failings of the Iranian legal system," Tatchell declared. "It is further evidence that innocent people are sentenced on false charges of homosexuality." Tatchell called for a global response on Ebrahim's behalf. "An international campaign can help stop Ebrahim's execution, just as a similar global campaign has, so far, halted the stoning to death of Sakineh Ashtiani," said Tatchell.

Dan Littauer, editor of the publication Gay Middle East, issued a July 14 "briefing" that recounted the history of the case, "Hamidi was originally sentenced to death two years ago, at the age of 16, for an alleged attempted sexual assault on a male," the brief, which Littauer wrote together with journalist Joshua Hunt, said.

"Following a fight in the countryside outside the Iranian city of Tabriz, with members of a family against which his own family had been feuding for some time, Hamidi was picked up with three friends by the police," the brief continued. "The four were told that one of the men from the other family with whom the four were fighting had accused them of an attempted sexual assault. The 'testimony' the accuser gave to support this claim was that during the fight his own trousers were 20cm below his waistline, implying that the four attempted to strip him naked and assault him." The brief went on to recount that Ebrahim "was sentenced to die despite the fact that two of the five judges at the hearing on 21 June this year ruled that none of the four accused were guilty of the sexual assault allegations."

A July 4 Eurasia Review story on the case noted that homosexuality is punishable by death in Iran.