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Bonus interview: an Iranian homosexual in exile
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In Iran, homosexuals risk the death penalty. Human rights ngos estimate that several hundred of them have been executed since the islamic revolution of 1979.
We spoke to one of those who has recently taken refuge in Turkey, after he and his boyfriend were threatened by the authorities. His identity is not disclosed, for security reasons.
interview:
“We had started our life together, we were sharing a flat. We had been living together for four or five years. And then one day someone at his workplace denounced our relationship .
He had pictures of us on his laptop. One of his colleagues saw them, and told the company’s security office, linked to the intelligence services at the Ministry of Interior.
He was a civil servant, and he was under harsh interrogation for that. They wanted to send him to court, it was very serious for them. With everything that was happening n the country, our situation was more and more difficult. We decided to leave.
A lot of our friends were arrested during parties, and imprisoned. some got very long sentences. Or they were whipped, several times, or tortured. Everyone knows about that. There was a famous case, during a big party in Ispahan. Friends were arrested, the regime wanted to kill them. Thanks to the support and pressure of international organisations, the regime finally had to set them free, though they were in prison for some time, and tortured.
After me and my boyfriend left, he had to go back to Iran only one week later, because something serious happened. The security forces had gone to his parents’ place, to interrogate them. They arrested his father. And his mother had a stroke. So they put pressure on my boyfriend, and told him that if he didn’t come back, his family would suffer the consequences. He had to go back to Iran, and i haven’t had any news from him for the past 3 or four months.
I don’t know what happened to him. I ask everyone I can, and nobody answers me clearly. I can’t call his family, because very time I tried, either they hang up, or the line is cut off as soon as I say hello.
I don’t know what is going on. I tried through facebook, to contact our common friends. They all tell me they are afraid to go and ask for information about him, so I don’t know aht to do. I don’t have any news. My greatest concern is to know what has happened to him.
We came here to go and ask for asylum at the UNHCR, to go to a third country where we could live, a bit more freely. We weren’t asking for much. Just to go to a country where even if people find out about our tendency, though we don’t publicise it, at least we won’t be afraid to be persecuted or even killed, or have to leave the country because we are homosexual, or wait for someone to come and get us, arrest us, all these things that happen in Iran.
I hope that one day in Iran we will have freedom. And that everyone will be able to lead a comfortable and peaceful life. That everyone, homosexuals, like me, will no longer have problems and will be able to live freely. I hope that some day people will accept me as I am without prejudice, whether I’m homosexual, bisexual, or heterosexual. And that people will accept me as someone who wants to lead a decent life, and can be useful to our society.”
More about: Gay rights, Iran, Iran elections 2013, Political refugees, Turkey
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NGOs find loopholes in Foreign Agents’ Law, officials urge corrections
One possible option is to register an ordinary commercial company that would receive funds from abroad and employ NGO staff as workers to pay their salaries, Kommersant daily wrote quoting the head of a Russian NGO who spoke on the condition of total anonymity. The source noted that about 15 Russian groups had already switched to this method. Another possible way, suggested by the daily itself, is to set up an endowment that would properly register as a foreign agent and receive foreign funding which would then be transferred to one or several Russian groups, allowing them to skip the registration as they are formally sponsored by a Russian company. The third way has been outlined in a recent report by the Civil Initiatives Committee, an influential expert group chaired by former finance minister Aleksey Kudrin, which said that under growing pressure Russian NGOs could re-register in neighboring states. Some Russian officials already called for changes in the recently approved law, saying that the flaws of the original bill are being exposed as it is applied. Mikhail Fedotov, chairman of the Presidential Council on Human Rights, said that the practice was only showing one thing – that the law had been poorly written and that it was in need of corrections. Fedotov added that the council had already prepared several suggestions on corrections, but he did not go into detail. Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich has said that the law needs changes and called for activists to draft their amendments. But Dvorkovich added that the law is in force and must be observed by all members of the community until it is altered in the desired way. Russia introduced the so-called Foreign Agents Law in November last year. It requires all NGOs engaged in political activities and receiving funding from abroad to register as “foreign agents”. Failure to do so is punishable by a fine and may bring about an extensive inspection by prosecutors and the Justice Ministry. These two departments launched a major nationwide program in March this year in order to check how the fresh law is being applied. The inspections caused protests from NGOs, rights activists and the international community, which claimed they were a form of government pressure on independent critics. Russian officials, including the president, have repeatedly stated that the law is not banning any NGOs and simply requires disclosure of the sources of their income. Such transparency would give Russian citizens and voters some clues about possible motives of the groups’ political actions, the officials added. Currently no organization is registered as a foreign agent in Russia. … Read More
LGBT community takes legal steps against main sponsor of ‘sex propaganda bill’
The news was announced by Nikolay Alekseyev, one of the leaders of Russian LGBT community, in an interview with the popular daily Izvestia. Alekseyev gave no details on who submitted the complaint or when it was done. “Mizulina should be jailed for infringing minorities’ rights and inciting hatred for those who have non-traditional orientation. Millions of people suffer because of her actions,” Alekseyev told the newspaper. Yelena Mizulina chairs the Lower House Committee for Children, Women and Family. She is one of the main sponsors of the controversial bill and has repeatedly defended it in the mass media. “Our bill has a very particular objective – to put a barrier between children and illegal information. People are not annoyed by gays, they are annoyed by unsolicited and emphatic promotion, by propaganda,” Mizulina told the press. The State Duma last week passed the bill, introducing heavy fines for propaganda of non-traditional sex relations to minors. Initially the bill banned gay propaganda, but the formula was changed before the final reading after gay activists and human rights campaigners repeatedly noted that direct mentioning of gays was discriminatory. However, the current draft stretches the definition of propaganda as far as “promoting the distorted understanding of social equality of traditional and non-traditional sex relations.” Some Russian mass media and public figures have already noted that this can only be understood as a ban on tolerance. The bill is yet to be approved by the Upper House and signed by the president to come into force. LGBT activists held protests against the bill on all days of hearings (and on the days when the hearings were scheduled, but postponed) and every time these protests ended in clashes with the bill’s supporters and in eventual detentions. However, the number of protesters and their opponents never exceeded a few dozen. As the ban on non-traditional sex propaganda was passed by the Duma it received critical comments from German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who said through her government representative that the bill contradicted the European Convention on Human Rights. The official said that German cabinet still hoped that the bill banning the propaganda of non-traditional sex would be canceled. The head of Russian parliamentary committee for international relations, Aleksey Pushkov, promised there would be no reaction to the German Chancellor’s call. “This call will not be heard. An acute conflict of values is looming” Pushkov tweeted. … Read More
