IRAN'S PRES SCRUBS GAYS FROM SITE

Personally, I find President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to be a very loathe some individual. Obviously, from this PageOne Q story (http://pageoneq.com/news/2007/Irans_President_scrubs_reference_to_gays_in_speech_fr_0925.html), he does not get it that the media in the rest of the world is not as easily intimidated and controled in his country. His statement that gays do not exist in Iran simply shows him to be a delusional idiot. Nowadays with the Internet, Iran can scrub its official site, but the truth can and will get out. That was a lesson learned by the former Soviet Union and which is being learned by China (Chimperator Bush still has not learned the lesson). Every time a means is found to block the flow of the truth, creative individuals will find a way around it. Here are highlights from the story:

The official website of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has removed a portion of a transcript of his speech yesterday at Columbia University. In the scrubbed section, part of a question and answer period, Ahmadinejad said there are no homosexuals in Iran. In a statement released by the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission the organization noted that the comments had been removed from the Persian language version of the site, but left in the English transcription of the speech. Following an inquiry by PageOneQ made to the Iranian embassy, the entire question and answer period has been removed from the site.

In response to a question on the execution of gays in Iran, Ahmadinejad said there were no homosexuals in his country. "In Iran we don't have homosexuals like in your country," he said. Audience members booed and howled at the guest. "In Iran we do not have this phenomenon, I don't know who has told you that we have it," he added.

According to IGLHRC, no Persian language papers have reported on the remarks. "To date, not a single Persian-language media outlet in Iran - including Iran's official news agency, IRNA, and the semi-independent news agencies, ISNA, Mehrrnews and Farsnews, and the Wednesday morning newspapers - has reported on the President's comments," said IGLHRC's statement.

18 face death sentence for homosexual activities in Nigeria

Iran and Iraq are not the only countries where gays are executed for merely being gay. Nigeria, home of Anglican Archbishop "Homo Hater" Peter Akinola, is another country where the Muslim extremists confuse civil laws with religious laws. Here's a story on this issue (http://www.africasia.com/services/news/newsitem.php?area=africa&item=070809154001.tmxj73bd.php):

Eighteen men have been arrested in northern Nigeria for alleged sodomy, which carries the death sentence under Bauchi state's Islamic sharia law, the official NAN news agency reported Thursday. Judge Malam Tanimu ordered the 18 remanded in prison until a further hearing on August 21 following their arrest on Sunday in a hotel in Bauchi city.

The court on Wednesday heard that the men, who were wearing female clothing, had come to the city from five neighbouring states to celebrate a gay "marriage". Prosecuting police officer Tadius Boboi said the men's actions had contravened the sharia penal code adopted in Bauchi and other states in Muslim northern Nigeria eight years ago following the end of military rule.

With all of Nigeria's huge problems and abject poverty, worrying about homosexuality should be far down the list of issues that the government concerns itself with. Yet further proof of the dangers of mixing religion with the civil laws. Why the international community, including the United Nations, doesn't make pariahs out of such nations for human rights abuses is mind boggling. Oh, I forgot - these are oil producing countries, so they get a free pass.