July 26, 2005

A legitimate reason to start bombing Iran?

I'm not holding my breath that the international community will get behind any effort to attack Iran because of a couple of teenagers being hanged for being queer. It's not the first time - did I hear there have been 4,000 executions for homosexuality in Iran since 1979? - and looking at a barbaric penal code like that of the Islamic Republic it's no wonder. To protest: Iranian embassy in NZ website.
But I can't shake off the feeling that the likes of Brian Tamaki or any Christian fundamentalist would love a similar penal code established here too, so you won't hear much indignation from that quarter (let alone the White House - they're too busy trying to suppress any sodomy movies coming out of Abu Ghraib).
This is what I wrote to the embassy:
Dear Sir,
I wish to respectfully notify my outrage over the recent (and by all reports not uncommon) execution of two gay teenagers by your Government.
There is absolutely no reason, philosophically, culturally or socially, to justify the killing of people who happen to have expressed their love for each other. Would they have gotten a lighter sentence if they had murdered someone instead – or had organised a bombing of innocent bystanders?
It makes it very difficult for anyone to embrace multiculturalism or have respect for a political and legal system that has such utterly barbaric sentences for non-crimes, let alone have any respect for a religious belief that condones and sustains such system.
Yours sincerely,
There is a net petition on this issue here.
UPDATE: This is what I got back from the Iranian Embassy in reply to my letter:
Dear Hans,
I appreciate your concern, but according to our information, they have not been gay, but they have been rapists and had caused alot [sic] of hardship for the people of their town including the rape of a 13 year old boy. They were both over 18 years old and they were put on trial and as wished by the parents of the 13 year old raped boy, were found guilty and the verdict was announced and carried out according to the law of the country.
Never mind that both were executed for being gay rather than for rape.

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