In October 2011, the Iranian Queer Organization joined by the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) submitted a report to the 103rd Session of the Human Rights Committee. Both organizations (Local and International) reported the following violations of the International Laws by Iran’s government:
- The Penal Code of the Islamic Republic of Iran (“the Penal Code”) criminalizes all homosexual acts and actively punishes certain homosexual acts with death.
- The Penal Code fails to adequately differentiate between consensual and non-consensual sex and in some instances wrongly convicts victims and refuses rapists.
- Iranian authorities at the highest levels have repeatedly issued homophobic statements that amount to incitement to discrimination and violence.
- Lesbians live at the dangerous intersection of homophobia and patriarchy, which almost certainly results in decreased freedom of expression and increased risk of non-consensual sex and domestic violence.
- Transgender people may be penalized under laws criminalizing sodomy and laws policing dress codes and additionally may be denied the right to choose their self-expression.
- Individuals perceived to have committed homosexual acts are subjected to arbitrary arrest, torture in state custody, and denial of the right to a fair trial.
- Individuals concerned with LGBT rights violations -- including human rights defenders, family members, and journalists – have been threatened with arrest and intimidated by police and security forces.
- Censorship of LGBT-related information is rife and includes wiretapping, shutting websites, and threat of arrest.
- The rights of individuals suspected of being LGBT to assembly and association are curtailed, with public events being virtually non-existent, private events being raided and resulting in arrests, and even state intervention to prohibit online assembly.
In November 2011, the UN Human Rights Committee responded with a strong statement and I quote:
“The UN Human Rights Committee has sent a powerful message to the government of Iran that its treatment of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people constitutes systematic human rights violations that amount to failure to uphold its treaty obligations.”
The entire response could be read here, in this link: UN Human Rights Committee Concluding Observations
Today, January 11 2012, Mahmud Ahmadinejad had arrived to Cuba invited by Raul Castro and was awarded by the Doctorate Honoris Cause in Politics Science of the University of Havana, in one of the most shameful moves made by Cuba’s government and with benevolent licence of Mariela Castro Espin, the director of Cuba’s National Center for Sex Education (CENESEX).
What Mariela Castro Espin thinks about this visit and that award nobody knows. The CENESEX has Facebook, website, Mariela Castro herself has a blog hosted in United States (where is the embargo here?... with no comments allowed), and she also has a Twitter account, but neither a word not a statement has been done: SILENCE.
There are some questions, though, I think Mariela Castro must answer and I had sent to her Twitter account, here they are:
@CastroEspinM How do you explain to the intl LGBT community that A'jad (a stoning executor of LGBT's victims) is visiting #Cuba ?
@CastroEspinM A'jad is killing gays and lesbians in #Iran Isn't it a crime? Isn't it intolerance? #Cuba
@CastroEspinM You had spoken about tolerance, so How comes could your own father receive a public executioner of gays in #Iran as A’jad is? #Cuba
The hypocrisy and double standards in Cuba’s officials, and specially, in the head of the National Center for Sex Education had climbed up to the highest level of cynicism. You cannot receive with the highest honours, and give the highest award in the most important University in Cuba to a person who is, in first place, the most important responsible for the death of hundreds of gays and lesbians in Iran and you are unable to say a word of condemnation or protest.
That’s mean you are not capable to fit the role you are in charge. So, Today should be the day Mariela Castro must resign and express public regret for her father welcoming to Ahmadinejad... or shut up forever.
You choose, missus...