Things are bad for gays in many countries, but the Islamic countries definitely stand out as the worse. In Iran, The maximum punishment for adultery and gay sex is death, and teenage boys as young as 15 are eligible for the death penalty. Unfortunately, I doubt that the following report from Pink News.Co.UK (http://www.pinknews.co.uk/news/articles/2005-4580.html) will launch a new trend:
Nearly all of the young men arrested at a party in Iran earlier this month under suspicion of being gay have now been released.Eighty-seven young men were originally arrested, and seventeen were held for "homosexual conduct" and drinking alcohol in a crackdown by Iranian police.Amnesty International have said that they are not aware of any evidence that the men attending the party identify themselves as gay or were engaging in same-sex sexual activities. Sixty of the men were released unconditionally, while 26 were released on bail.
Last month PinkNews.co.uk reported how a witness as the time of the arrests, who would only describe herself as Peyman, described how "all my friends were arrested while seven or eight policeman beat them with batons." Arsham Parsi, the executive director of the Iranian Queer Organisation said: "Obviously this crackdown is yet another systematic violation of human rights, along with brutal suppression of womens' movements in Iran and must be strongly protested by all human rights organisations as yet another violation of people's private rights and liberties.
Sadly, human rights are not a priority for Chimperator Bush's administration, which doesn't even want to be bound by the Geneva Conventions rules on treatment of prisoners.
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