UN challenge to criminalisation

UN challenge to criminalisation

Iran has been taken to task by the United Nations Human Rights Committee (UNHRC) for the way it treats LGBT people.

The UNHCR was “concerned that members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community face harassment, persecution, cruel punishment and even the death penalty [in Iran],” its November 3 report said.

“It is also concerned that these persons face discrimination on the basis of their sexual orientation, including with respect to access to employment, housing, education and health care, as well as social exclusion within the community.”

“The State party should repeal or amend all legislation which provides for or could result in the discrimination, prosecution and punishment of people because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. It should ensure that anyone held solely on account of freely and mutually agreed sexual activities or sexual orientation should be released immediately and unconditionally.

“The State party should also take all necessary legislative, administrative and other measures to eliminate and prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, including with respect to access to employment, housing, education and health care, and to ensure that individuals of different sexual orientation or gender identity are protected from violence and social exclusion within the community.”

This was the first time Iran, which imposes the death penalty for homosexuality, has been criticised by a UN body for its treatment of LGBT people.

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One response to “UN challenge to criminalisation”

  1. In 2007, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, speaking to an audience at Columbia University, stated that homosexuality does not exist in Iran.

    According to monitoring carried out by Iran Human Rights (IHR), Iran carried out at least 546 executions in2010. Iran Human Rights has recorded 390 executions from the beginning of the year 2011 up to July. At least four child offenders have been hanged in the first six months of 2011.

    In 2010, at least 19 people were hanged in public. In 2011, public executions increased with at least 36 people being executed in public as of June 20.

    Iran is one of eighteen countries that look explicitly to Sharia law as the foundation of their judicial system. Public executions by hanging, beheading, firing squad and stoning-to-death are the methods used to enforce Sharia law. Hanging is often carried out in public and combined with supplementary punishments such as flogging prior to execution.

    Public executions remain a sordid public spectacle. The condemned are ritually humiliated by being paraded in public and insulted before being executed. Iran Human Rights (IHR) reports that tens of thousands have died hideously, customarily executed in public stadiums or street corners to the sound of public cheers.

    Hanging in Iran is often carried out by crane or low platforms to draw out the pain of death. The noose is made from heavy rope or steel wire and is placed around the neck in such a fashion as to crush the larynx causing extreme pain and prolonging the death of the condemned. In July 2011, Tadano (a Japanese producer of cranes) declared it would no longer have dealings with the Iranian government following numerous photos of their cranes being used to carry out public executions.

    Crimes punishable by death under strict Islamic and Sharia laws include adultery, apostasy, blasphemy, drug-trafficking (soft and hard drugs), prostitution, homosexuality, sorcery, zina (sexual intercourse between partners not married to each other), individuals converting or preaching Christianity or Judaism, insulting Allah, corruption on Earth (can mean anything), conspiring against the government, and plotting to overthrow the Islamic regime.

    However, the death penalty is not the only punishment dictated by the Iranian implementation of Sharia law and Islamic law. There is also legal torture, limb amputation, flogging and other cruel inhuman and degrading punishments. Other punishments include decapitation of human limbs such as cutting off the hand at the wrist for stealing and 40-80 lashes for drinking alcohol or gambling. These brutal punishments are not isolated incidents.

    Sadly, and for reasons unknown, the Australian media very rarely reports these barbaric punishments taking place on a daily basis.