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An update report about the birthday party in Esfahan Translated by Ramin
Eighty seven young men were arrested and beaten by police at a birthday party in Esfahan around 10:00 pm on May 10th, 2007. The police force while holding shooting camera accompanied by four clergymen first entered the second floor of the home where the family members were gathered and arrested some of them in addition to a child. They were released the day after. Then they went to the third floor where the party guests were gathered, turned off the lights, shot fake gunshots, forced everyone to lie on the ground, began beating them and walked over them. Then the police dragged either head-bags or their blouses over the guests’ heads, forced them to go to the street and pushed them under baton impact into a protected car.
Despite the low capacity of this car (usually b/w 15-20 persons), the police stacked all 87 men in one car. The people who were witnessing the event on the street reported that the clothes of the arrested men were torn and their faces were bleeding. One of the guests jumped out of the 3rd floor window and now needs operation on his two broken legs. Based on the received information, they were transferred to the Esfahan Dastgerd jail and were exposed to severe pressure and torture. The crime of the arrestees is not declared yet and no condemnation is issued so far. This attack is another example of the organized human rights violation and it is following the recent attacks to the women and workers movements which were severely condemned by the human right defending organizations as obvious cases of violating personal rights, privacy and individual freedom.
The news of the attack to the party was sent to the IRQO by the phone calls of some people on the street at the same night and was released upon the confirmation by IRQO. It was further expressed in the news websites of USA, Canada, England, New Zealand, Sweden, the Netherlands, and few other countries. Through our contacts with Human Rights Watch, we were successful to establish the direct contact of the eye witnesses of the event with HRW. On May 11th, HRW provided a declaration draft and referred it to IRQO for the final consideration due to the sensitivity of the condition. The board directors of IRQO investigated the declaration draft through contacts with human rights organizations in Canada and consultancies with Iran and reorganized it considering the current condition.
The reasons for applying changes were discussed with HRW over a phone call and HRW released the procured draft the day after through its Middle East section. On May 17th and for the sake of the international day against homophobia, HRW declared Mahmood Ahmadinejad, the president of Iran as one of the top five homophobic leaders of the world. The other homophobes of that list are as follows: Pope Benedict XVI the world catholic leader, George W Bush the USA president, Roman Girtich the Polish Minister of Education and Deputy Prime Minister: for endangering children, and Bienvenido Abante, Member of the Philippine House of Representatives and Chair of the House Committee on Civil, Political and Human Rights. On May 17th, the Secretariat office of Amnesty International in London in touch with IRQO provided a campaign for the quick release of the prisoners and sent the declaration draft to IRQO. In one of the phone calls with AI, IRQO proposed AI to ask the Iranian Government for reconsideration of the Islamic Punishment Act and the removal of punishment regarding any sexual act with mutual agreement. Based on the phone calls from the family members of the arrestees, all of them are now released some with release bail and some without. The 19 year old man, for whom the birthday party was held, was condemned to pay 150,000,000 Tomans (about 170,000 USD) as the release bail. It was declared to the released men that their court would be held in few months. Some reports say that couples of them had received their citations for dates in late June.
At the same party night, there were other arrestments in Tehran and Shiraz whose files have been sent to IRQO for International follow-ups. Moreover, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in Geneva has procured a letter and submitted to the top officials of the new UN commission for human rights with the hope of consideration of queers’ conditions in different countries including Iran and also the arrestment cases in Tehran, Esfahan, and Shiraz.
The AI agents in different countries including USA have announced many times the AI declaration dated 18th May and requested every one to submit complaint letters to the officials in Islamic Republic of Iran and ask for the release of the remained 17 persons as soon as possible. As the mentioned latter was not updated and for the sake of temporary release of the arrestees and with the aim of prevention of any similar happening, IRQO in accordance with the central office of AI in London has asked the letter not be disclosed. IA updated its declaration few days ago based on the recent news from the party arrestees in Esfahan through IRQO.
-------------------------- IRanian Queer Organization – IRQO Formerly Persian Gay & Lesbian Organization – PGLO W: www.irqo.net T: 001-416-548-4171 F: 001-416-352-7459
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