Terrifying new pictures showing the effects of police lashings last
month on an Iranian gay couple have been released by an Iranian LGBT
organisation.
Speaking to GayNZ.com by phone, Arsham Parsi of the Iranian Queer
Organisation (IRQO) said the pictures (shown on the link below this
article) were taken three weeks after the ‘lashing’ punishment was
inflicted on the two men by Iranian authorities.
The gay couple – ‘Farnam’, 23, (left) and ‘Farsad’, 26, escaped from
Iran to Turkey last Saturday. They were arrested when police broke into
their home in Tehran.
Farsad’s life as an out gay man was discovered by police intelligence
who found his ‘weblog’ stories and pictures on the internet.
Farsad and Farnam were charged with both “organising immoral parties”
and with the crime of ‘tafhkiz’, which can be translated as intercrural
sex or interfemural sex. He was sentenced to weeks of detention before
being lashed by police.
“Farsad called me after his punishment. He couldn’t speak. He was in so
much pain,” Parsi explains.
“Farsad asked me 'why they did this, just because of who we are, for
being gay?
“The police told them, ‘The 80 lashes are just for your immoral parties.
For your tafkhiz you will get a lot more.’”
Fearful of imprisonment and more torture on the tafkhiz charge, the
couple fled Iran days before their trial.
Farsad and Farnam are among five new refugees in Turkey fleeing
persecution in Iran. Two of the others gay, and one of them
transgendered. They arrived on the same train last Saturday, says Parsi.
“One of the guys arrived without a penny. He completely needs support,
and for the moment he is living in one of our safe houses in Turkey,
where we have eight people already living in a tiny two-bedroom house.”
The new photos come a week after eighty members of the Iranian gay
community were arrested by security personnel in Isfahan. IRQO fear that
the arrestees lives are in danger.
Ref: GayNZ.com, IRQO (m)
Related links:
www.irqo.net/IRQO/English/pages/059.htm
www.gaynz.com/news/default.asp?dismode=article&artid=4665
