Brief Intro to Iran’s Gay Blogging Recent History

I Am Gay.  I am Lonely.

It Was Not Always Like This.

On the turn of the 20st century Western culture found its way into Iran. Huge households shrunk to fit smaller group of family-members. That too, later on, gave way to the nuclear family; husband and a wife and their children would be considered “family” and lived under one roof. Thus, gay men, invisible in huge households among the extended families living together, and singled out in the setting of nuclear family, shied away into a secluded lifestyle and remained so until 1979 when a witch-hunt begun to spot, expose, and execute them; large number of homosexual men fled to the West and became refugees.

The last Shah of Iran was relaxed about homosexuality. Homosexuals lived peacefully and fully, as artist, writer, film-director, show-host, and pup-singer; first public appearance of a Gay Rights activist, Saviz Shafaee, took place in Shiraz University when he presented a paper discussing Homosexuals’ Civil Rights in a seminar. The talk wasn’t picked up again until two decades later, by gay bloggers who pioneered on-line activism in order to escape silenced lives, under shadows of Shari’a law[MP1] .

Gay community lived in disguise, hiding their true selves from everyone, parents, siblings, friends, the law and its enforces, at all times, day and night all through their lives. It was easier to confess to one’s parents and friends having been diagnosed with plague then coming out with homosexuality; and it was not safe, too, to confess. That would leave only one solution, to go one-line and have an on-line presence. That could serve in many ways. It was a refuge. And it was a possible tool for civil activism. It was an stage, and it was a rehearsal. And it gave plenty of time to escape, if one’s IP was exposed.

Speaking up on Cyberstage

Homosexual men reacted some 20 years later. Gay men took to dressing up against norms; teased masculinity with their plucked eyebrows; allowed body-language speak of their sexual orientation, and at the same time, denied links between appearance and sexual orientation; some took refuge in chat-rooms, home-pages, and on-line presence.

Blogger  Hamjensgera mentions in a post dated 2008, “long before weblogs were introduced to Iranian society, gay community appeared on-line via html homepages called yahoo clubs, or yahoo groups”. He mentions later the date goes back to 1995. Other bloggers confirm that they’ve seen the first gay-blog around 2001, belonged to man identified himself as Behrooz, who wrote on his first post: I Am Gay; updated a little while later: I Am Lonely.

Still many bloggers remember Epsilon Gay as the first gay-blogger, an inspiration to many who looked for ways to connect and express themselves. Epsilon Gay was interviewed sometimeduring 2005 by Dead Poets Society[i]. In that interview, Epsilon answered questions via email, talked about his feelings, and commented on his own blog.

Thus, 2001 was the beginning of a decade of hard work during which Iran’s lGBT community was formed and grew into a movement with tireless individuals orchestrating the challenge for decriminalization of homosexuality, initiating social justice for the queer community.

Blogs were considered real beings. Their birth and life span, untimely death, and suicide was closely followed and responded to by other gay bloggers.

Forming virtual families on-line

Weblogs of the LGBT community doesn’t serve only as alternative media to for civil activism; it is also used as virtual family-seeing on-line. Clusters of blogs and like-minded bloggers read each other daily and observed the mood in each weblog. If a blogger in their circle post about sorrow, or a recent attack, or shows suicidal hints/self-inflected wounds, they all gather in his comment-box, give advice, tips, and provide support. If a blogger doesn’t up-date for more than two weeks, everyone enquires of his whereabouts; According to the urgency of situation, reaction to the issues takes to the outside of the blogs to follow up. These bloggers presume the role of each other’s family members, each taking a role and acting upon it in their circle. They fill the gap that lack of actual parents/families brings upon the gay community. The strategy has worked fine and effectively, so long.

Home of all LGBT Blogs

During 2005 a Link Honar initiated to gather best of LGBT blog links. Right after, another weblog, calledKhane Honar (House of Art) launched to all links without exception, in blogfa[ii]. It moved to blogspot when it became unsafe to remain with a server within Iran and face removal.[iii]  This weblog served as reference, mentor, and touchstone for events and issues in the LGBT community from 2005 to 2008 until the original team decided to keep a neutral stance. During the course of the last two years, this weblog has recorded over 200 LGBT blog’s removed from the net by direct order of official authorities. Still, over 300 weblogs are actively writing today, more and more responding to general issues of the Iranian society, as a natural path to be involved and included in the main society with their true identity as homosexuals.

Weblogs subject to removal don’t receive warnings. They only see announcements such as this on face of the weblog: This weblog has been closed for one of these reasons: 1- Violating server’s code of rights. 2- By direct order of official authorities. 3- Posting immoral content or content contrary to law of the land. Sometimes, though, bloggers receive letters warning them to stop writing, or stop addressing certain issues. Rarely do they receive emails explaining in detail that they are under scrutiny and must stop all immoral activity on their weblogs[iv]. These emails are sent from police110, or Gerdab, or similar institution, via gmail or yahoo. Although it is known fact that emails sent through any general domain doesn’t directly com from the institution but from factions related to the institution, and that these warnings will not immediately result in interrogation or detention, still bloggers stop writing in their weblogs to prevent eventual arrest. IP is traceable via Iran’s phone company. Users of phone and internet services are tractable via phone-line, through log-storages by order of intelligent service.

Gay Poetry in Weblogs

Up until 2009 leading bloggers were poets promoting gay rights disguised in fine and magnificent poetry. Their poetry was picked up with their permission – after they stopped up-dating their weblogs- and published by Gilgamishan and distributed as E-book on Iranian Queer Library. Today the majority of leading blogs belongs to those with social activism in mind. One of such blogs Pesar (Boy) that started with porn-pictures 2005 or earlier, and switched to the role of big brother of the younger bloggers, advising, commenting, analyzing, and slightly mentoring.  In between these two type of blogs, there are those who aim at teaching matters of relationships, committed and long term relationship, and even sexual encounters to a generation that has no role model in, unlike the young of the main stream who confidently follow tradition and culture-based stages of social life. Gay couples specifically stress on promoting long term and committed relationships. Of course, their whereabouts is never known until they jump over the border into Turkey to seek asylum.

While Transsexuals have been nearly as active as Gay Bloggers, Where are lesbian bloggers? In a list of over 300 weblogs of gay and TS bloggers, only 5 or 6 belongs to lesbians, (do you have any thoughts about this? Where the lesbians and TS are? Would be interesting to develop) maybe mention Maha? What are the connections to the feminist movement? and that too, is only for matters of personal importance.

Transsexuals  own and moderate a vast number of weblogs, mostly about their longing for their real body, their real selves, and their chance to sex-change assignment. As they’re not hunted, as the gay community is, they engage in dealings with law-makers, and medical matters, grants, laws and regulations on name & gender changes in birth-certificates, and they have had their huge victories, and huge disappointments. They have endured life-threatening side effects of unsuccessful sex-change operations, and had been victims of rape and assault by their own doctors/surgeons who treated them. And bound via their weblogs, have strong networks outside the net, and on the net. Their dilemma is not the penal code, which is the Word of God, and un-changeable, rather, it is improvements on the social and welfare system, which is possible, and have been, and has come a long way during the last 30 years.

And lesbians? I wonder whether the strong and prolific women’s movement has had a suffocating effect over the lesbians.  Women’s movement in Iran stresses on such rights as the right to divorce, and the right to child custody, since arranged and enforced marriage is widespread since the 1979, and since marriage has turned, again, into the only social security for women that laws and regulations around it has become women’s most urgent concern. Lesbians, with their dismissal of the whole case, of the importance of such laws, their dislike of “women”ly concerns has alienated both women’s movement and lesbians from each other. Inside Iran, lesbian don’t approach the movement. Thus, being disconnected from the movement, and having misgivings about the women-members of the movement, didn’t allow lesbians a training in social activism. Mostly, lesbians keep to their own isolated circles, and their own “fun” gatherings. Weblogs belonged to lesbians mirror those gatherings, without a word about one aspect of marriage that hits lesbians directly, enforced marriages and honour-killings as a result.  Though the younger generation is walking slowly out of the privet corners and into the public sphere, mostly in diaspora.

Although there are activists outside of Iran, who work towards the LGBT rights, like myself and my colleagues in IRQO, and young civil activists who are busy taking LGBT reports to Human Rights Commission sessions at this moment, or write vigorously in essays and translations, but we all depend on the LGBT community inside of Iran; they are the ones who are working with all their might and face unimaginable horror and come up with new ideas every day and take one more step forward every day. They are the activists, and we are their messengers.

As the recent Iranian LGBT campaign slogan said: We Are Everywhere; the on-line gay activism and TS networking and the lesbian’s room of one’s own  on the net, the LGBT presence in the present social construct in Iran, and the-Iran-in-Diaspora, and our non-LGBT supporters among HRs is widespread enough that we can positively say, alas, Iran and our precious, unique Green Movement is going to earn democracy hand in hand with us, and soon.

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[i]   The weblog was dedicated to archiving all blogs belonged to gays. It was deactivated shortly after it opened, apparently because moderators received tips of tracing by government, but remained on web without update and was removed by order of official authorities on 2009 for violation of moral codes even though there were no posts besides  list of weblogs and type of content.

[ii] Iranian Server

[iii]  Non-Iranian server

[iv] Samples of these letters are kept in IRQO archive.

LGBT in Iran losing most basic human rights to a revolution gone wrong

LGBT community in Iran took its first steps towards earning civil rights some 35 years[1] ago, only, with a revolution gone wrong, not the community was stopped from proceeding, but it lost even its most basic human rights.

Right after the revolution, execution of Gay and Transsexuals began, by the ruling clergies, illegally; it was legalized on 1995 – two decades after the revolution – when Shari’a law, Islam’s Code of Conduct, legally replaced Iran’s penal code.

Article 110 – executions based on sodomy; Article 130 – executions based on lesbianism; Article 220 – granting fathers the right to kill their children, recognizing fathers as blood-owners of their own children, turned State and Society, equally, into executioners of gays, lesbians, bi, and transsexual population, and also the heterosexuals; clergies have used sodomy laws against those prisoners who couldn’t be executed or persecuted otherwise.

Shari’a law is not only responsible for killing of LGBT members of society in Iran, it is also the bases of generations of LGBT’s lack of parenting, education, carrier, housing, and overall security and safety.

The fact that no LGBT Iranian dares to introduce themselves as L.G.B.T by their own voice, face, name is because of the fear-mongering articles of Shari’s sodomy law.

Since the government in Iran doesn’t offer any explanation for hostility against the gay community, and because there are signs of lack[2] of relevant information in the government re homosexuals, I would like to quote a [3]gay blogger’s advise to Mr. AhmadiNejad when he was first elected president of Iran on 2005: I urge you, Sir, as the president of Iran, to employ a team of medical scientists and lawyer to study and investigate homosexuality, come up with a result of the studies, and present it; if they announce homosexuality illness or crime, we oblige; if they say it was not, you, as the state of Iran, oblige, and decriminalize homosexuality and let us live in peace. The task has not been undertaken by the government Iran, curiously.

While Mr. Ahmadi Nejad claims There Are No Homosexuals in Iran, his statesmen and spokespersons claim Homosexuals Are the Force behind Iran’s Green Movement. Question is: Do we not have homosexuals in Iran. Or, we do, and they’re so many and so capable as to be the back-bone of a huge civil movement as Iran’s Green Movement. Question is: what is considered crime, or what is considered crime on the part of homosexuals? Sexual orientation, or doubting patriarchy in the face of a primitive idealogy?

Living as a Queer woman over 50 years, a Queer poet over 20 years, directing a LGBT advocacy organization over 5 years, I have been witness to the horror they community in Iran goes through, everyday, not only by way of murders and executions but in everyday life of Not Living a simple, decent, dignified life human beings deserve in the realm in the Age of Democracy and Human Rights. And I am not talking only about those of our children who are disadvantaged and deprived, but also about gay professors, TS engineers, lesbian and gay specialist medical doctors, gay and lesbian poets, writers, artists, journalists and more, of highly accomplished status, all working inside Iran, who are victims in the hand of a hostile set of laws, and are most vulnerable.

I would like to offer the government of Iran to give account and explanation for violations of LGBT human rights. Or, to replace the primitive penal code of Shari’a law with constitutions based on 21^st century human rights. Or if either is not doable, I would like to suggest that Mr. Ahmadi Nejad, the head of state of Iran, in his trips to the UN, travel to the USA on the back of a camel. After all, we, the LGBT of Iran shouldn’t be only ones treated with the mind-set of the dark-ages of 1400 years back in history.

Saghi Ghahraman

Iranian Queer Organization – IRQO

2011

Attending event in New York protesting Mr. Ahamadi Nejad’s presence and stance in UN

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[1] Saviz Shafaei presented a paper in University of Shiraz, Iran, on Homosexual Rights on 1975.

[2] Ahmadi Nejad claims in Colombia University that there are no homosexuals in Iran.

[3] One gay blogger wrote a lengthy post when Mr. Ahmadi Nejad was elected as president on 2005, for his first term, and urged him to decriminalized homosexuality. His weblog was shut down a short while afterwards. The post is saved in IRQO archive.

…before a generation’s share of life-time is over

Jenny: You’re living in Canada now, how long have you been there?

Saghi: I left Iran on the end of summer 1983, three years after the revolution; spent about 5 years in Turkey waiting for refugee status and visa for Canada; arrived in Canada as refugee on December 1978.

Jenny: Why did you have to leave Iran?

Saghi: I was a political activist, working with a communist party and its women’s branch. On the spring of 1983 there was a crackdown on the party.  All leaders were captured over night. All members were obliged to report themselves and report everyone else they knew would have even remote connection to the party. Having a baby, I would be arrested with my child and as it was the usual in jails, my baby would be tortured in front me so I’d talk and name names. That, I thought, was impossible. I would tell them whatever they wanted me to. I didn’t dare to let any of it happen. I stayed in hiding for 5 months, and decided not to report myself. Through the mountains, borders of Iran and Turkey, I left Iran. I left with my baby and my husband at the time. We crossed five mountains on foot and on horseback and on the following day, we were in a village in Turkey; Still we had to keep hiding for another two months until we were told that it was safe to report ourselves to police in Turkey. We had to lie about the reason of our escape. If police knew I was involved with a communist party, we’d be deported right away. When in Iran, we lived apart, but in Turkey we had to be together all the time, and pretend to be an ordinary husband and wife with a child. It was a harsh 5 years.

Jenny: How old was your son?

Saghi: He was a year and a half. And I remember, my most graphic memory all the time I spent in hiding with him, was that I practiced in my mind to kill us both if I noticed agents had come for us. Agents were very much likely to find us, or, people we were spending time in their homes, could give us out. It was usual at that time; not only it was a religious duty for citizens (even of parents) to report on those who were considered “counterrevolutionary”, members of other political groups would expose  other groups’ members. Chances were high to be exposed, and arrested. I had to deal with it as the reality of those days.

Jenny: When you were in Turkey were you alone or did you have a community you could rely on?

Saghi: There were other Iranians, but I wasn’t close to them. I had to keep my affiliations and my beliefs secret. I also had to keep secrets from my husband. So, as a result, I had to be aware and extra cautious all the time, about everything, and keep everything secret. That meant I could be harassed by other Iranian refugees, or harassed by my husband, or the Turkey’s police, and there was no refuge, even inside the home.

Jenny: What was it like when you first got to Canada? Was it a feeling of freedom?

Saghi: I didn’t think about freedom, it was safety I was after. During the last months of our stay in Turkey I was at the end of my rope. Until we arrived in Toronto airport, I couldn’t believe it was over. I could lose the visa up until we got into the air port. My fear, on those days, were of my husband. I thought he would destroy the visa to keep us in Turkey. Turkey meant danger, hiding, fear, and Canada meant safety.

Jenny: Did you ever have to deal with any difficulties in Iran as a lesbian woman?

Saghi: I was not out, so no one had a clue. Only, I had personally put myself in a situation that was terribly exhausting. I didn’t have to get married, but I did, just because of absolute lack of information. And right after, I lost my chances of getting a divorce because after the revolution women lost their chances to claim a divorce. My efforts, my energy, was spent on keeping away from having a marital relationship. I was emotionally and physically harmed.

It continued all through the years we were in Turkey. When I came to Canada I published my poetry and fiction. My first story that was published talked about rape inside marriage. And that made the whole community roar against it. It was the first time a woman was writing about the issue, and about sexual relationships, and of relationships outside heterosexual norms, criticizing heterosexual encounters, picturing homosexual desire, and all these with explicit phrases and exact names of body parts which have never been mentioned in literature, by a woman.  There was huge commotion in the Iranian community. The result, for me, was a constant war with everyone, challenging not only people, but also traditions, rules, beliefs, habits. That, therefore, became my great cause.

Jenny: Did you first start writing when you got to Canada or did you start when you were younger?

Saghi: I come from a family of poets and writers. My mother wrote poetry. My grandmother wrote poetry. The first novel in contemporary Iran is written by a female cousin of my parents. Two great names in classic-style contemporary poetry are also cousins of my parents. So writing was something we were very familiar with, but what kind of  a writer, and with what price, was what I had to come up with, alone, on my own. I had started writing when I was fifteen, and it was good work. My work was very much approved by mentors, and accomplished. But I started writing very consciously of what it meant to be writing, when arrived in Canada. I can say that I put all I had into it.

Jenny: When did you start the Iranian Queer Organization and why did you want to start it?

Saghi: There was a need for an organized group who’d advocated and pledge for decriminalization of homosexuality objectively. But that was all I knew 5 or 6 years prior to 2006 when we decided to launch the organization. Before that, I had written and talked about homosexuality in poetry readings and panels. I was invited to be guest-editor of an issue of Hooman, the first gay magazine published in the West, on 2001/02, right before Hooman’s organizers dissolved the group. I had initiated to edit Maha, the first LGBT magazine published on-line inside Iran, but they responded that the work had to be conducted inside in Iran without links to the outside, for the sake of security of the team inside. They asked for an interview, instead. And the interview was a success. It was the first interview I had with an LGBT magazine, where questions could be openly and specifically about sexual orientation and my ideas on gender and identity. So these were my initial attempts to work towards organizing scattered efforts for LGBT rights in Iran.  I was aware of the need, and I was convinced that there was the need. But it was only after we started working and I was connected with the community in Iran that I knew the need was much greater than I could even imagine. So, the organization begun rolling, and hasn’t stopped since, and it has renewed itself along the way, and will, again, to adjust to the realistic needs inside Iran and in-line with the picture we get from the community inside. Since then, we’ve tried our best to look for insight and instruction from the activists in Iran who know better then us what would or should the next step be with regards to the work we do, raising awareness.

Jenny: Do you currently have access to people inside Iran who need help or is it more outside?

Saghi: of course, the whole idea is to be connected to the inside community. Without this connection, as LGBT family, we can’t work effectively. You see, those who flee Iran, and arrive in the West, need help. And help is available. Only we should chanal the help to the individual LGBT refugees. But, not everyone can flee Iran. Conditions for the LGBT inside Iran should change. Parents, teachers, classmates, co-workers must learn about the LGBT community and their human and civil rights. This is a task we have undertake together; those of us who live outside and those who live inside.

Jenny: Did it become more challenging after the 2009 elections?

Saghi: A lot more. Security issues have become unbearable. Sending a simple email can cost one’s life and freedom. Making sure every email is safe, and not a risk to the receiver, takes much longer than one can expect. Communications have become risky. But we find ways, and create ways, and keep connected. It is possible, of course, to work without on-line connections.

Jenny: For the people inside, does it feel like a part of it is getting any easier for young homosexuals in the country?

Saghi: When I was in Iran we could live our life without much fear because there were no laws against homosexuality; we weren’t hunted, like they’re now. We’d ذث shy to talk about it, and we’d be confused how to name it, but we weren’t hunted, harassed, as homosexuals in Iran have been during the past 30 years. All the horror started after the revolution, after Sharia law was taken as the basis of the constitution and penal code. Before, when a woman was known to be lesbian inside her own small circle of relatives and friends, the worst that could happen was that people would talk about her, spread rumors, or feel uncomfortable around her, but she could still live her life and have her relationships. What I mean is that the homosexual community lived in torturous hell during the years after the revolution. And slowly learned to fight for their own rights. They learned to be creative, initiative, playful, and find all sorts of ways to survive, but it is still far from easy, far from basic standards of human rights.

Jenny: Looking at the election in 2009 and the reform that’s followed, what do you see as the role of woman inside and outside Iran like yourself?

Saghi: Green movement wouldn’t have happened if women’s movement hadn’t started activities years before. Green movement imitated Iranian women’s movement’s methods of dealing with the law, lobbying with lawmakers, connecting to international virtual support system, and learned from their patience and persistence.  Green movement is the first movement in Iran to rely on nonviolent combat.  The movement is aware that the method will not work immediately, but it’s also aware that the fall of the System is imminent. Iranian women, both as the women’s movement, and as the womenfolk protesting against a rigged election are a strong part of the movement. Women who’ve been living outside, and are activists either with the women’s movement, as HRs, journalists, or ones who belong to an specific minority group’s cause, have created connections between those in Iran and institutions outside. It wasn’t possible without the women’s role, to carry news from inside and place on the UN sessions’ desks, and stand witness to the happenings inside streets of Tehran, or in the jails of Iran. I can say that even in quantity, women who record and report evidence, outnumbers men activists. This has been crucial, and life saving for the movement. I myself have a difficult mission to clarify distinction between LGBT movement and the Green movement and stress on the unity between the LGBT movement and the Green movement. We (in the LGBT movement) have fought to point out that the Green movement MUST include and acknowledge LGBT human and civil rights, and that, hasn’t been easy, and we’ve come a long way. They’ve come a long a way.

Jenny: When you write, what message are you aiming to get out to the world?

Saghi: Now, this is a different issue, question, line of thought. I don’t aim at sending a message, to anyone, to anywhere, when I write, or in my writing. The message comes out after the poem is created. I don’t ever sit down to elaborate on a message. I see images, and interpret the image into words. I edit and edit until it is the exact same thing as the image. Then, the work, in itself, convey a masg, obviously. My poetry breaks boundaries, but after it is written. I don’t aim, before hand, at breaking anything.

 Jenny: Do you have a lot of family still in Iran?

Saghi: Maybe about 1000  relatives inside Iran, but I am not connected with them since I left.

Jenny: What changes do you hope to see in the country in the future?

Saghi: A constitution based on Human Rights. This is the first thing we need and the first thing I hope to happen to my country. I know I live outside, I know I live in a safe country and can share a Canadian outlook of the everyday life, but that is not possible, realy, because a great part of life of the exiled continues living “there”. We are the exiled, and we remain connected with the country we are cut off from, violently. So whatever takes place there, relates to us. We feel it and suffer from it. A country, living in the 21^st century with rules and regulations of 1300 years back in time, is a country imprisoned in the past. this is not a natural state of mind for anyone. Let alone the in-humanness of Shari’a law. What I hope for Iran is to have a set of laws based on Human Rights, and a governing system based on democracy. If we’re given democracy, then, we’ll be able to elevate it with hard work to be as humane as it can get.

Jenny: In 2007, a newspaper was shut down after you did an interview, what happened?

Saghi: The newspaper wanted the interview. I normally didn’t accept interviews with magazines in Iran. I believed an interview with the paper would give them a chance to pretend there was freedom of expression in Iran. But on that time, I took the advice of my friends, and did the interview. I was told that even one sentence from me in such a huge paper in Iran would create huge difference. So I did. The interview was full of hints at gender fluidity and sexual orientation and one’s rights over one’s body, and cultural boundaries taken for granted in spite of nature’s lax rules on gender, all disguised in Language and Literature examples. The newspaper was distributed in the morning and by noon it was removed from the newsstands. The newspaper’s office was attacked. All 300 hundred staff were dismissed. The reporter and managing editor were summoned to court.

But, what actually happened was that for a whole year afterward, everywhere in Iran and Diaspora Iranian community, people, experts, journalists, human rights activists, everyone were talking about homosexuality, homosexuals rights, freedom of expression of homosexual community. People asked what homosexuality mean and what does it mean to be a homosexual. So, we had a bomb exploded. It took us 10 years ahead in our struggles for homosexuals rights. It was huge. Of course I was shunned by the Iranian community at the beginning, but slowly the scope of work was understood, and the need and urgency for that risk, was understood. It was a step we had to take although political/civil activists always advice us, in the LGBT community, to Wait Until We Have Democracy, Then We Will Give You Your Rights, and we say No, Thank You,  It all should come together. Life don’t wait for democracy, so we’ve got to fight for our rights before a generation’s share of life-time is over.

Jenny: You’ve been in Canada quite a while, do you miss some parts of Iran?

Saghi: No, only when I face the reality of distance, when I realize that I can not call one of my friends over for tea. Or, if a friend is arrested  I cannot do things as those who are inside Iran can. Or when a friend is sick, in a hospital it is not possible for me to be there by their side. Then I feel like I am missing something and I have this longing to be close to them, but I don’t miss the country as the country.

Jenny: Are your children doing well in Canada?

Saghi: Yes they are doing well. They are very happy. They’ve grown up here. They are successful. They have very good relationships with me and with their father, which is a great thing because they could have problems with either of us, and for sure with me. My son is 30 years old, my daughter is 25. They are beautiful people, full of life and thriving here.

Jenny: When I say freedom of expression, what comes to mind?

Saghi: I can only tell you what my friends in Iran tell me when we engage in talks of this sort. Of freedom of expression.  My friends belong to various layers of the society. They are living in parks, are homeless, or they are teaching in university; they are doctors, journalists, writers, and all of them, whatever their social standing, they say they have to hide 24 hours from everybody; their parents, brothers and sisters, their friends, their colleagues, everybody. This, the fact that one has to hide inside his/her own skin, is what freedom of expression brings to my mind. We are not that privileged to speak about freedom of expression in the sense that the rest of the society in Iran talks about it. Again we go back to that basic rights that comes before freedom of expression in press; the right to live. This condition is a violation for freedom of expression in its deepest most genuine meaning and this is something that doesn’t let you breathe easily. The closet is not a funny expression, being closeted is not a flat picture. Being in the closet, hiding inside your own skin all through day and night, means you are not living. Your being is strangled; that’s what it means. You are aware of something you cannot speak about it; words roam around inside you; imagine a psychological state of mind. You are not you when you are hiding your mere being. I mean, until, as homosexuals, we are not allowed to utter our name, freedom of expression is not a fancy word to use in speeches and articles.

Jenny: Does writing feel like a refuge or give you a sense of freedom?

Saghi:  I grew up with the idea and identity of a writer all through my life. I’ve never been told when I was a kid, that you’ll grow up to be a doctor, or a teacher. All I heard was that you’ll be writer when you grow up. That was my father’s wish, I guess. And writing was a serious matter in my family. I started writing seriously when I was 15. But only when I arrived in Canada I begun publishing and begun writing as the means to establish my identity as a woman and a queer woman. Writing became my mission; my identity. I had many achievements. I became the voice that breaks boundaries and taboos. The fact that I lived literary what I wrote about, gave my poetry and fiction a very special respect in the same culture that wished to shun me. I don’t take refuge in my writing. It’s not even a sense of freedom. I live my life while writing, and when I write what I live, the two together open up doors for each other. I know I have taken many “first steps” in our culture by the way I conduct writing and by the issues I write about.

Jenny Anglee & Saghi Ghahraman

Aug 2011

A delicious enemy we can`t resist to fight

Ms. Ghahraman, you are an Iranian woman and a Canadian, you are a mother and queer, you are a member of an intellectual community, a migrant and more. What is identity for you?

Identity is the slogan; it is the battle field where I fight all my fights.

At times, also I fight to redefine my identities in order to own them, and not be owned by my identity.

Identity is what makes my fights seem a matter of life and death, confronting all the things opposing me, for example, a traditional community expecting me to oblige to rules and regulations of motherhood, and an advanced community expecting me to oblige to margins of queerness, and so forth; I am what I am, nothing defines me better then How I Live What I Am.

There are lots of stereotypes on women in Iran (for example women as passive or the reduction on a victim status). How do you deal with those images? How do you react to them in your works?

These stereotypes are based on facts of the time and space in which we live in, in Iran. The conditions calling for such stereotypes are challenged by Iranian women.

Women in Iran have a long history fighting the image of the victim, going back to the turn of the 20st century. Today, even though we are caught in the traps of a backward regime, Iranian women are nothing like victims, with all their wounds from an unjust battle, Iranian woman, with their goals and the unbeatable energy to reach these goals, are inspiration to the society at large. Islamic regime, so hostile to the idea of women’s rights, gave us a delicious enemy we can’t resist to fight.  It is true that majority of women lost their livelihood to discriminating laws against women, but I don’t think women in Iran are reduced to mere victims. For thirty years, as much as it tried, the regime couldn’t even keep the veil on women head- they made their head slippery for the mandatory scarf.

These image are not mine, I don’t accept them as my image. I leave it to Iran to fight me if she doesn’t like me and my non-victim image.

Based on my personal experiences, I don’t advocate women’s right in work; I let my poetry and fiction live the women’s right. I believe this is a better way to knock out the image.

You are a poet and a queer activist. In which ways are these two aspects of your life connected?

I show up in my poetry as a whole. My activism also, is not a part-time job. The two are connected because I write with all I believe and I work with all I have.

When I started publishing my work, although my sexual orientation was not announced, critics picked up the difference in my work with the work of other Iranian female poets, and focused on it. By the time I announced in my readings my sexual orientation, I was known as both, poet and queer. I can say that my name as a poet helped me have a stronger hand as an activist. Now, if by my activism you mean my work in Iranian Queer Organization, I must say that my poetry has always been charged by means of challenging norms and boundaries. Connection between my poetry and my activism is the connections between my poetry and it’s context- inseparable. One of colleagues spoke about my poetry once, saying: “Her poetry is hammering down the limitations and boundaries faced by women and men in our (Iranian) culture.” The same hammer was at work when I spoke not as the Poetess but as the Lesbian Poet, to break the silence.

I must add here, that my Canadian citizenship helped me to speak up without paying too high a price, as my gay and lesbian colleagues would, inside Iran. Working and publishing in Canada, and distributing on-line in Iran made it possible to undermine the horrible punishments other queer writers in Iran face when they publish on-line. Today, my name is known the queer poet. But the most prominent gay essayist and poet, Ham-seresht lives and writes anonymously. He is The Activist, and The Poet in our Persian Contemporary Queer Literature.

What is it that you desire to express in your poems? What can your words give to yourself? What do you want to give to others within your poetry?

I don’t know. What I want to say in my poems, is like love-making, you get the orgasm, still you’re done. The yearning remains there. I don’t know what is it that I want to say, I just keep writing. This is how it is, to me.

I love to live with my words.

I think what I want most, is for them to look at the world from this window and see what I see. It might be a kind of connection, or a kind of forewarning, still, I don’t know. I only know that most of the time, there is this violent urge, a wise and all-knowing urge.

When I write, I rewrite until the piece looks exactly like that urge, the image.

In an interview you once said, you want to unveil the female body and sexuality with words. Can you explain more deeply what you mean when you use the term unveiling?   And why is the body so dangerous for the Iranian regime?

Confining woman inside the inner-houses, under Hejab/Veil, or within the walls of chastity, is another version of reducing women and stripping us of our rights. This unveiling thus means taking back what is taken away. In my poetry I spell out the prohibited, the un-moral and the shameful words as if they are the most conventional words. Body parts, when mentioned, are free to proceed with the rules of body and mind, not the rule of law.

Iranian regime is afraid of women’s body for the same reason the body is created. We are born with a body; we are dead when the body dies away. To dominate the person, the body must be dominated. There is no danger in women’s body beside the fact with her body not denied, she is a person demanding her rigtful place in the society. If her body is confined/denied/dismissed inside Hejab/veil, her vote is taken away, making her a non-person, benign being. Keeping women inside Hejab and keeping an eye on the dress code of men, the regime governs our actions and our opinions with less effort.

Since 2006 you are an active member of IRQO as well as editor of the monthly magazine Cheraq. What lead you to the decision to fight in that way for Iranian queers and sexual refugees?   

I am queer so what I do in IRQO is not far from home. I have been known as queer and my poetry was analyzed as the work of a queer poet and I read in public-readings my queer poetry for many years before, along with a group of six we decided to launch IRQO. Before IRQO, I had searched for other assemblies and groups to promote queer ideas, abroad. Working with IRQO though put me in-touch with those of Iranian LGBT community who lived inside Iran and had begun their fight many years ahead of us. I also got a chance to know LGBT refugees in Turkey, and their vulnerable situation in asylum. That was when I decided to leave all other affiliations and work only with and for the queer movement in Iran, and also for the cause of LGBT asylum-seekers. The need of the community inside Iran, and the refugees in transit countries, such as Turkey, is so great we can’t even miss a minute to assist them.

Have you been active before in the queer community – either in Iran or in Canada? And who are the people that receive help by the IRQO?

When I left Iran I was 23 or 24. I was working with a communist party’s women branch. At that time I had only begun to notice my loss after the revolution compared to what I had before the revolution, as a woman. I was raised in an intellectual family setting which didn’t give me much reason to fight for my rights. So women’s rights existed only inside the pamphlets; it was not an everyday reality. Differences between women, and queer women, showed up later on, as I grew older, and away in exile. I had personal challenges as a queer woman, but it wasn’t a part of my work with the party.

Iranian LGBT asylum-seekers and refugees in transit countries, and in Europe and LGBT new-comers in Canada are the ones who contact us and receive assistance in many various ways. We advocate for refugees and asylum-seekers; communicate with UNHCR and Embassies to help expedite the process until they are resettled in a third country; we send financial assistance and donations to the ones in need.

We help operate the on-line library where literary work of the LGBT writers is published as E-book.

IRQO works in accordance with the larger Iranian LGBT community. We watch closely the inside community to align our steps and the pace. Our reason for this is to keep the LGBT in Iran from paying a price for any radical action taken from the outside, insensitive to the inside political atmosphere. In IRQO we look up to the Pioneer Gay Movement mentors as our mentors even though we keep away from any sort of direct connections, for security reasons.

 In which way the queer people in Iran want to be supported by the “outside world”?

There are two areas where the global community can step in to help; first, by way of supporting the LGBT community in their struggle for the human and civil rights; pressuring the Islamic Republic of Iran to stop discriminating against us. Second, which is more practical, and as much urgent, is assisting Iranian LGBT asylum-seekers find refuge in Europe and North America. We have a number of more or less 100 LGBT refugee claimants in transit countries such as Turkey, and Europe. They are in need of legal and financial assistance. Many European governments are of the idea that LGBT community have an easy life in Iran and don’t need to flee their country. In IRQO we have many reports of prosecutions, kidnappings, stabbing to death, rape, and harassing individuals into forced sexual relationships by agents of the government and also by their own family members. Iran’s penal code asks for capital punishment for gay and lesbians. Parents can kill their queer children without any legal punishment, as a form of honour killing. Many members of the Iranian LGBT are victims of government agents and their own family, and they have to no way to protect themselves but to run away. These individual are in dire need of financial assistance. At present we have 30 of our clients in Turkey in need of shelter and food; the number exceeds out budget, and so they are in very critical condition. Their monthly expenses to rent a room and pay for necessities sums up to $200.00 per month.

How strong is the participation of women in the Iranian queer movement?  What is the difference in being identified as a queer man or as a queer woman in exile in your opinion?

Lesbian women, based on the information we have from individuals, weblogs and lesbian groups, begun their activities no more then four or five years ago. Although they gathered in a sort of getaway house parties and gatherings, and also collaborated in the first Homosexual On-line publication, Maha Magazine, but the first official movement started when a lesbian couple launched their on-line, all-lesbian magazine, Hamjens’e Man, which was followed by the all-lesbian Hamjens’e Man’s chat-room, on 2007. Iranian Lesbians from all over Iran, and around the world joined in to discuss crucial issues such how avoid family and societal pressure on them to get married. How to secure jobs, and rent apartments in society were in every step women are expected to be accompanied and supported by male kin. The movement is not as strong and structured as the gay movement, which begun many years before the lesbian movement, a couple of years before the 1979 revolution.

The difference in not as much between being queer man, or queer woman, as it is in being Queer. The Iranian community in Diaspora is not accepting towards queer community. Queer community, it can be said, is shunned by the Iranians in Diaspora. Still, only because gay men are more in their numbers, they managed to have a little bit more community support.

I myself, faced with denial at the beginning, more then hostility. The community and my friends preferred to think I was joking, when I spoke about my feelings for women. They thought this is another of my outrageous ploys.  My close friends, women who were only friends of mine without any romantic connections, asked me to stay away from them in public. They said, if you are too close to us, people might think we are in a relationship with you. So, naturally, in public, I was careful not stay to close to my friends. This didn’t bother me, but I took note. As a result of my life style, my poetry, and my decisions, I learned to walk my path alone, and not feel lonely.

Were there any changes for the queer community in Iran on the tide of the “Green Revolution” last year? Was/is there a special involvement of queer people in the movement?

Queers were involved in campaigns for opposition presidential candidates. Their aim was to elect for the office someone who was less likely to deny their existence, and their rights. Queers were involved in all the demonstrations after the elections results were officially announced. Once right after the elections Mr. Ahmadinejad, Iran’s much despised president said in his first speech after the election date, that the disputers of the elections were nothing but the dust and the dirt of the community and a bunch of misfits and fagots. Four months later, in two various occasions, two of key figures in the government counted the queer community among the groups most active after election’s ongoing protests. Many members of the gay community were harassed by the plain cloths. While most people were shot on the chest, every gay-looking (gays dress differently then other men) young man was shot over the groin. Some gay men cried out in their weblogs: They’re shooting at our genitals… it’s not random, they’re aiming at us.

As a result of many campaign, and widespread on-line activities by the queer community, the young generation of intellectuals and civil activists are very much open and supportive of queer’s human and civil rights.

Where do you get the strength to move and fight on?

This is life. We either live it, or we don’t. And living it comes with all the challenges of walking on and on. I don’t know any other way to live my life. As much as I can’t pretend I am a bird, or a cat, I can’t pretend to be anything but a queer woman who lives in the year 2010 western calendar and 1388 Iranian calendar, concurrently. This, then, calls for the  challenges thrown my way.

Finally, is there anything more you want to give young queer people along the way?

I want to go back a few years in time, to the roots of the term queer, and then I’d like to confide in the young generation, based on my own experiences, that we are what we are, lesbian, gay, transsexual, bi-sexual, heterosexual people – queer are those heterosexists who still don’t get it.

Thanks a lot for your patience

My pleasure

-

http://www.univie.ac.at/unique/unique/index.php/feuilleton/1341-10/03/2205-qa-delicious-enemy-we-cant-resist-to-fight

—

Few questions answered

- One woman I interviewed said lesbians who are jailed have been raped in prison. Is it true?

Raping women in prisons of Iran has been practice even before the Islamic Regime came to power. Documents from the before Islamic Revolution only speaks about raping of women political activists, but the fact is that all women, when in prison, are at the mercy of the jail-keepers, and sexual exploitation of women is wide spread in jail. Since the beginning of the Islamic Republic’s rule, there are news of rape even on pregnant women who were political activists. There are news of buying and selling of women in jails during the past 30 years. I have heard of raping of lesbian women as a form of punishment. Since rape is wide spread in jails, and is used as a form of punishment, even on mail prisoners, this shouldn’t be very strange if it is practiced on lesbians too.

- She said some of those raped and then released committed suicide.

Lesbian in Iran, belonging to different regions and towns, each have heard of incidents that are not registered anywhere, and are not published fact or news. One of my clients heard about this from her friends. As it is, word of mouth is our only source to get news from inside of Iran.

- She said there are cases where lesbians have been stoned to death under the pretext that they were prostitutes.

I’ve heard about a lesbian couple, in Southern Iran, Boushehr, who’ve been stoned to death some 3 years ago, who were accused of prostitution, but the townsfolk know they were lesbians, or as they called them, Monharef.

- Are these three claims true? If yes, how widespread is rape of lesbians in jail? What’s the estimate of lesbians who committed suicide after being raped in jail? Has any lesbian been stoned to death in Iran?

We know nothing for sure. We only hear about these incidents here and there. And normally when someone opens up with these information, they don’t feel comfortable to give their names, and don’t want to be followed up for documenting of the news. I have tried many times, but so far I have not even one person who is the main source of a news and is willing to speak about it in detail and agrees to give her/his name. Everybody wants to remain anonymous.

- What’s the estimate of lesbians and gays in Iran committing suicide for general societal, family and other pressures?

Every gay and lesbian I know have tried at least twice to commit suicide, and their reason is their families and friends harsh and humiliating attitude, coworkers or agents who harass them into sexual favors, or, the dead-end of life they experience in Iran where they don’t have any chance of a normal life.

- How many gays and lesbians do you estimate there are in Iran?

After Ahmadinejad’s famous blurt in Colombia U, I’ve heard an official data was published that showed the number of gays in Iran over 200.000. The number includes only the ones who have registered for military services or for sex-change. (many gays in Iran found sex change the only way to live with their chosen partner).

- How many have been jailed since the Islamic revolution and under what general circumstances?

Baroomand Foundation documented 143 cases of execution on the bases of sodomy since 1979. But, it must be said that homosexuals are executed under other allegations such as drug-dealing and collecting or distributing pornography while dug-dealers and thieve are executed under the pretext of sodomy. There is not much clarity on the number of homosexuals who have been executed. But we have reports of kidnappings of homosexuals by agents, and injuring them to death.

- Apparently if there a witness to a sexual act of a homosexual couple, the punishment is execution. What are the reasons why homosexuals may be jailed and then released?

Under Sharia law in Iran, it is not the law that rules, but the judge. And every judge has his own ways of dealing with so called crimes and punishments. Some judges even send the accused to be examined for sexual encounters, and then release them. It is in some of hand-books (Resaleh) that if an accused is asked how come you have signs of anal sex, he can say that he has self-inserted zucchini for pleasure, and there was not another man involved in the scene. So, there are times that a homosexual man is condemned without any reason because the judge wished to punish him, as the judge can use his own judgment (Ilm’e Ghazi), and sometimes, the judge lets go of the accused. 10 years ago, when the atmosphere was a little relaxed politically, well-to-do members of Gay Life used to pay and buy their sentence, meaning that they could bribe the judge or the under hands and escape not even execution but also floggings. On the other hand, 2 months ago, we sent out a press release about 12 young men who were sentenced to execution while they were under-age. Only the whereabouts of 4 of them is known. They rest of them are somewhere in jails, but no judge is willing to give information on them. We know for sure that one the guys has been already executed without notice to the public.

یک سرگذشت
آقای محمد نیکخو

مشخصات سن — ملیت ايراني مذهب احتمال قوي اسلام وضعیت خانوادگی — تحصیلات — شغل شغل متفرقه مرتبه و موقعیت — مورد حقوقی تاریخ اعدام ۱۷ آبان ۱۳۵۹ محل تبريز, ايران نحوه اعدام نحوه اعدام نا مشخص اتهامات سرقت; طرفداري از گروههاي چريکي مخالف نظام; قیام مسلحانه علیه جمهوری اسلامی; محاربه با خدا، رسول خدا و نايب امام زمان; همجنسگرایی – (شهرزاد، این یه نمونه از پرونده سازی ست چون که تمام جرائمی که در قانون شرع/قانون اساسی شامل مجازات اعدام می شوند رو با هم جمع کردند که حکم اعدام قطعی بشه. اصلن معلوم نیست این فرد همجنسگرا هم بوده یا نه، اما در لیست جرائمش به طور رسمی ذکر شده). ملاحظات خبر اعدام آقای محمد نیکخو و سه نفر دیگر توسط خبرنگار خبرگزاری پارس از تبریز گزارش شد. روزنامه جمهوری اسلامی این گزارش را به چاپ رساند (١٩ آبان ١٣٥٩). در شرایطی که حداقل تضمین های دادرسی رعایت نمی شود و متهمین از یک محاکمه منصفانه محرومند، صحت جرایمی که به آنها نسبت داده می شود مسلم و قطعی نیست. سازمان های بین المللی حقوق بشراشاره به گزارش هایی می کنند دال بر اینکه مقامات جمهوری اسلامی مخالفین سیاسی خود را به اتهام ارتکاب جرائم عمومی محکوم و همراه با محکومین غیر سیاسی دیگر اعدام می نمایند. شمار افرادی که بر اساس اینگونه اتهامات کاذب به اعدام محکوم شده اند معلوم نیست. دستگیری و بازداشت اطلاعی در مورد جزئیات دستگیری و بازداشت این متهم در دست نیست. دادگاه اطلاعی درباره جلسه یا جلسات دادگاه در دست نیست. اتهامات آقای نیکخو، اهل بوکان، به “عمل لواط، سرقت های مکرر، قیام علیه انقلاب اسلامی و همکاری با حزب منحله دمکرات کردستان” متهم بود. مدارک و شواهد در گزارش این اعدام نشانی از مدارک ارائه شده علیه متهم نیست. دفاعیات از دفاعیات متهم اطلاعی در دست نیست. حکم دادگاه انقلاب اسلامی تبریز آقای نیکخو را “محارب با خدا” شناخت و به اعدام محکوم کرد. حکم صادره شب هنگام به اجرا گذاشته شد.

Baroomand Foundation is quoted in a website that 4400 homosexuals have been executed since 1979.

- How many have been executed since the Islamic revolution for being homosexual? How many men and how many women? If you have some numbers or cases, can you give their names, dates of execution, circumstances, and any rich background.

In IRQO, we don’t have any documented data.

- What does the law, constitution or penal code say about punishment or treatment of homosexuals in Iran?

 قانون مجازات اسلامي چاپ اول سال 71

فصل اول‌- تعريف و موجب لواط

ماده 108‌- لواط وطي مذكر است ‌چه بصورت دخول باشد يا تفخيذ‌.

ماده 109‌- فاعل و مفعول لواط هر دو محكوم به حد خواهند شد‌.

ماده 110‌- حد لواط در صورت دخول قتل است و كيفيت نوع آن در اختيار حاكم شرع است‌.

ماده 111‌- لواط در صورتي موجب قتل ميشود كه فاعل و مفعول بالغ و عاقل و مختار باشند‌.

ماده 112‌- هر گاه مرد بالغ و عاقل با نابالغي لواط كند فاعل كشته ميشود و مفعول اگر مكره نباشد تا 74 ضربه شلاق تعزير ميشود‌.

ماده 113‌- هرگاه نابالغي نابالغ ديگر را وطي كند تا 74 ضربه شلاق تعزير ميشوند مگر آنكه يكي از آنها اكراه شده باشد‌.

فصل دوم‌- راههاي ثبوت لواط در دادگاه

ماده 114‌- حد لواط با ‌چهار بار اقرار نزد حاكم شرع نسبت به اقرار‌كننده ثابت ميشود‌.

ماده 115‌- اقرار كمتر از ‌چهار بار موجب حد نيست و اقرار‌كننده تعزير ميشود‌

ماده 116‌- اقرار در صورتي نافذ است كه اقرار‌كننده بالغ‌، عاقل‌، مختار و داراي قصد باشد‌‌.

ماده 117‌- حد لواط با شهادت ‌چهار مرد عادل كه آن را مشاهده كرده باشند ثابت ميشود‌.

ماده 118‌- با شهادت كمتر از ‌چهار مرد عادل لواط ثابت نميشود و شهود به قذف محكوم ميشوند‌.

ماده 119‌- شهادت زنان به تنهايي يا به ضميمه مرد لواط را ثابت نميكند‌

ماده 120‌- حاكم شرع ميتواند طبق علم خود كه از طريق متعارف حاصل شود‌، حكم كند‌.

ماده 121‌- حد تفخيذ و نظاير آن بين دو مرد بدون دخول براي هر يك صد تازيانه است‌.

تبصره‌: در صورتي كه فاعل غير‌مسلمان باشد‌، حد فاعل قتل است‌.

ماده 122‌- اگر تفخيذ و نظاير آن سه بار تكرار و بعد از هر بار حد جاري شود در مرتبه ‌چهارم حد آن قتل است‌.

ماده 123- هرگاه دو مرد که با هم خويشاوندي نسبي نداشته باشند بدون ضرورت در زير يک پوشش بطور برهنه قرار گيرند هردو تا 99 ضربه شلاق تعزير مي شوند.

ماده 124‌- هر‌گاه كسي ديگري را از روي شهوت ببوسد تا شصت ضربه شلاق تعزير ميشود‌.

ماده 125- کسي که مرتکب لواط يا تفخيذ و نظاير آن شده باشد اگر قبل از شهادت شهود توبه کند حد از او ساقط مي شود و اگر بعد از شهادت توبه نمايد حد از او ساقط نمي شود.

ماده 126‌- اگر لواط و تفخيذ و نظاير آن با اقرار شخص ثابت شده باشد و پس از اقرار توبه كند قاضي ميتواند از ولي امر تقاضاي عفو نمايد‌.

 باب سوم‌- مساحقه

ماده 127‌- مساحقه‌، همجنس‌بازي زنان است با اندام تناسلي‌.

ماده 128‌- راههاي ثبوت مساحقه در دادگاه همان راههاي ثبوت لواط است‌.

ماده 129‌- حد مساحقه براي هر يك از طرفين صد تازيانه است‌.

ماده 130‌- حد مساحقه درباره كسي ثابت ميشود كه بالغ‌، مختار و داراي قصد باشد‌.

تبصره‌: در حد مساحقه فرقي بين فاعل و مفعول و هم‌چنين فرقي بين مسلمان و غير‌مسلمان نيست‌.

ماده 131‌- هر‌گاه مساحقه سه بار تكرار شود و بعد از هر بار حد جاري گردد در مرتبه ‌چهارم حد آن قتل است‌.

ماده 132‌- اگر مساحقه‌كننده قبل از شهادت توبه كند حد ساقط ميشود اما توبه بعد از شهادت موجب سقوط حد نيست‌.

ماده 133‌- اگر مساحقه با اقرار شخص ثابت شود و وي پس از اقرار توبه كند قاضي ميتواند از ولي امر تقاضاي عفو كند‌.

ماده 134‌- هر‌گاه دو زن كه با هم خويشاوندي نسبي نداشته باشند بدون ضرورت برهنه زير يك پوشش قرار گيرند به كمتر از صد تازيانه تعزير ميشوند‌. در صورت تكرار اين عمل و تكرار تعزير در مرتبه سوم به هر يك صد تازيانه زده ميشود‌.

قانون مجازات جدید – 1388

باب دوم: حدود

فصل اول: قواعد عمومي

مبحث اول: تعريف و موارد حد

ماده 1-211: حد مجازاتي است كه در شرع مقدس براي جرايم خاص و به ميزان وكيفيت معيني مقرر گرديده و قابل تبديل يا تخفيف و يا تعطيل نمي‌باشد و تفصيل آن به شرح مندرج در اين قانون است.

ماده 2-211: تعقيب رسيدگي و صدور حكم در مواردي كه حد جنبه حق‌اللهي دارد، متوقف به درخواست كسي نيست.

ماده 3-211: جرايمي كه در شرع مقدس براي آنها مجازات حدي تعيين شده است عبارتند از:

1 – زنا و ملحقات آن ( لواط، تفخیذ ومساحقه )

2- قوادي

3 – قذف

4- سب النبي

5 – ارتداد و بدعت گذاری و سحر

6– خوردن مسكر

7 – سرقت

8 – محاربه و افساد في‌الارض

مبحث دوم: شرايط عمومي حد

ماده 1-212: در جرايم مستوجب حد مرتكب در صورتي مسئول است كه علاوه بر شرايط عمومي (بلوغ، عقل، اختيار، آگاهي به موضوع و عدم اضطرار) آگاه به حرمت آن در شرع نيز باشد.

تبصره يك- شرايط خاص ديگري براي برخي ازحدود لازم است كه درجاي خود ذكر خواهد شد.

ماده 2-212: هر گاه مرتكب علم به حرمت فعل موجب حد داشته باشد؛ ولي نسبت به مجازات برآن جاهل باشد، مستوجب حد خواهد بود.

ماده 3-212: هرگاه طفل نابالغ مميز يا شخص ديوانه‌اي كه قابليت تأديب دارد، مرتكب يكي از جرايم موجب حدگردد، با توجه به نوع جرم و شرايط ارتكاب و شخصيت مرتكب به نحو متناسب و با توجه به قوانين و مقررات مربوط تأديب مي‌شود.

مبحث سوم: راه‌هاي اثبات حد

ماده 1-213: راه‌هاي اثبات جرايم موجب حد بينه، اقرار یا قراين و شواهدي است كه موجب علم بين و حسي برای قاضی باشد.

ماده 2-213: تعداد شهود در بينه بر زنا، ‌لواط، مساحقه و تفخيذ چهار نفر مرد عادل است و اقرار نيز در اين موارد چهار بار لازم است و در ساير حدود دو شاهد مرد عادل يا دوبار اقرار كفايت مي‌كند، به‌جز حد محاربه و افسادفي‌الارض كه در اثبات آن يك‌بار اقرار كفايت مي‌كند. شرايط عمومي شاهد و اقرار در اثبات موجب حد معتبر است.

تبصره يك – انكار بعد از اقرار موجب سقوط حد نيست، به‌جز در اقرار به حدي كه مجازات آن قتل يا رجم است و چنانچه اقراركننده در هر مرحله‌اي از اقرار خود برگردد و انكار كند، مجازات قتل يا رجم ساقط مي‌شود وبه جاي آن در زنا و لواط صد ضربه و در غیر آنها تا 74 ضربه شلاق ثابت مي‌گردد؛ مگر اين‌كه قاضي علم بين و حسي به آن داشته باشد.

تبصره دو- شهادت دو مرد و چهار زن عادل براي اثبات زنا كافي است و به كمتر از دو مرد اكتفا نمي‌شود ودر مواردي كه حد زنا قتل يا رجم است، شهادت سه مرد و دو زن عادل كافي است ودرصورتي كه دومرد وچهار زن عادل به آن شهادت دهند، تنها حد شلاق ثابت‌ مي‌شود.

تبصره سه- شهادت و اقرار بايد صريح باشد و شاهد بايد در خصوص شهادت بر زنا يا لواط يا مساحقه يا تفخيذ آن را مشاهده كرده باشد و بدون استناد به مشاهده شهادت او قبول نمي‌شود؛ بلكه در اين صورت و همچنين در صورتي كه شهود به عدد لازم نرسند، شهادت قذف محسوب مي شود و موجب حد است.

تبصره چهار – چنانچه مستند حكم علم حسي قاضي باشد، موظف است در حكم خود قراين و شواهد موجب حصول علم را تصريح نمايد.

ماده 3-213: در جرايم موجب حد هرگاه متهم ادعاي اكراه، اضطرار يا فقدان عقل، بلوغ یا آگاهي را در زمان ارتكاب جرم نمايد، در صورتي كه احتمال صدق گفتار وي داده شود ادعاي مذكور بدون نياز به بينه و سوگند پذيرفته مي‌شود و حد ثابت نخواهد شد؛ مگر آن‌كه خلاف ادعاي وي به يكي از راه‌هاي معتبر ثابت گردد و همچنين اگر ادعا كند كه اقرار او با تهديد و ارعاب يا شكنجه گرفته شده است.

تبصره – موارد احتمال زنای به عنف یا ربایش یا اغفال و اکراه مشمول این ماده نبوده و دادگاه موظف به بررسی و تحقیق است.

ماده 4-213: هرگاه به هر جهتي وقوع جرم موجب حد و يا يكي از شرايط آن مورد شبهه و ترديد قرار گيرد و حجت معتبر بر نفي آن شبهه نباشد، موجب حد ثابت نخواهد شد.

مبحث چهارم: شركت، معاونت و شروع به جرم حدي

ماده 1-214: شركت در جرايم حدي در صورت تحقق و صدق موجب آن حد یا حد دیگری برآن مجازات آن حد را خواهد داشت و در غير اين صورت چنانچه در قانون مجازات ديگري براي آن عمل مقرر شده باشد، به آن مجازات محكوم مي‌شود والا در حکم معاون خواهد بود.

ماده 2-214: معاونت در جرايم حدي اگر مصداق يكي از موجبات همان حد يا حد ديگري باشد، مجازات آن حد را دارد و در غير اين صورت چنانچه در قانون مجازات ديگري براي آن معين شده باشد، به آن مجازات محكوم مي‌‌گردد والا حسب مورد به يكي از مجازات‌‌هاي مقرر براي معاونت در جرم محكوم مي‌شود.

تبصره – شرايط تحقق معاونت در جرم موجب حد همان‌گونه است كه درمقررات کلی معاونت در جرم در این قانون آمده است.

ماده 3-214: شروع به جرم حدي در صورتي كه در قانون مجازات ديگري براي آن معين شده باشد، آن مجازات را دارد ودرغيراين‌صورت به مقررات کلی شروع به جرم در این قانون عمل خواهد شد.

مبحث پنجم: تخفيف، تبديل و سقوط حد

ماده 1-215: دادگاه نمي‌تواند در كيفيت، نوع و ميزان حدود شرعي تغيير يا تخفيف دهد و يا مجازات را تبديل نمايد و تنها از طريق عفو به كيفيت مقرر در قانون قابل تخفيف يا تبديل مي‌باشد.

ماده 2-215: هرگاه مرتكب يكي از جرايم موجب حد پس از صدور حکم ديوانه شود، حد از او ساقط نمي‌شود؛اما در صورت عروض جنون قبل از صدور حكم در حدودی که جنبه حق اللهی دارد تعقيب و محاكمه كيفري تا زمان افاقه معلق مي‌گردد و نسبت به ضرر و زيان و مسئوليت مدني دادگاه مي‌تواند با حضور ولي شرعي مجنون رسيدگي نمايد.

ماده 3-215: اجراي حد شلاق مشروط به حالت سلامت محكوم‌عليه است و در حالت بیماری در صورتي كه در اجراي حد احتمال خطر يا ازدياد بیماری يا عدم امكان درمان برود و نسبت به زنان باردار يا شيرده يا در ايام حيض، نفاس و استحاضه شديد به تأخیر می‌افتد.همچنين شلاق را نبايد در هواي بسيار سرد يا بسيار گرم جاري نمود.

تبصره – در صورتي كه اميد به بهبودی بیمارنباشد يا دادگاه مصلحت بداند كه در حال بيماري حد جلد جاري شود، با يك دسته تركه يا تازيانه كه به تعداد ضربات حد باشد فقط يك بار به او زده مي‌شود.

ماده 4-215: اجراي حدود ديگر (غيراز شلاق) چنانچه سالب حيات باشد بدون شرط اجرا مي‌شود؛ مگر در مورد زن باردار يا شيرده كه پس از تحقق زايمان و تضمين حيات نوزاد اجرا خواهد شد و چنانچه حد سالب حيات نباشد مانند قطع دست يا پا در صورتي اجرا مي‌گردد كه بيم خطر براي حيات محكوم‌عليه يا از بين رفتن عضو ديگري از او نرود. در موردي كه محكوم عليه در شرايطي باشد كه هيچ‌گاه نشود آن حد را بر او اجرا نمود، حد ساقط مي‌شود و دادگاه صادر كننده حكم چنانچه مجازات ديگري براي آن در قانون معين نشده باشد، مي‌تواند مجازات تعزيري شش ماه تا دو سال حبس را به تناسب نوع جرم و خصوصيات مجرم صادر كند.

ماده 5-215: اجرای حد تازیانه به نحو زیر انجام می‌شود:

1- در حد زنا تازیانه به شدت و در سایر حدود به طور متوسط زده می شود.

2- حد مرد در حالی که ایستاده و حد زن در حالی که نشسته است، اجرا می شود.

3- در حد زنا، لواط، تفخیذ و شرب خمر در حالی که مرد پوشاکی جز ساتر عورت ندارد و در حد قذف در حالی که پوشش متعارف به تن دارد، اجرا می شود.

4- حد تازیانه زن در حالی که پوشش متعارف به تن دارد به گونه‌ای که در اثر اجرای حد بدن او نمایان نشود، اجرا می‌گردد.

5- تازیانه به طور متوالی و در یک مجلس به تمام بدن محکوم غیر از سر و صورت و عورت وی زده می شود.

ماده 6-215: در جرايم موجب حد به استثناي جرم قذف هرگاه متهم قبل از اثبات جرم توبه كند و ندامت او براي قاضي احراز شود، مجازات حد از او ساقط مي‌‌گردد.

تبصره – توبه محارب بعد از دستگيري يا تسلط بر او مسقط مجازات نيست.

ماده 7-215: در جرايم موجب حد به استثناي قذف هرگاه توبه و ندامت محكوم‌عليه بعد از اثبات جرم در دادگاه باشد، چنانچه اثبات جرم به وسيله شهادت شهود نباشد قاضي صادر كننده حكم مي‌تواند عفو يا تخفيف يا تبديل آن را توسط رئيس قوه قضاييه از ولي امر مسلمين درخواست نمايد.

ماده 8 -215: گذشت شاكي در حد قذف درهرحال موجب سقوط حد است و در حد سرقت قبل از اثبات در دادگاه موجب سقوط حد مي‌باشد.

مبحث ششم: تعدد و تكرار جرايم حدي و غير حدي

ماده 1-216: تعدد جرايم مختلف در حدود موجب تعدد مجازات مي‌گردد؛ ولي چنانچه جرايم از يك نوع باشد، سبب تعدد مجازات نمي‌شود. در صورت اخير اگر مجازات از يك نوع نباشد مانند آن‌كه بعضي موجب شلاق و بعضي موجب اعدام باشد، به هر دو مجازات محكوم مي‌شود و عموماً مجازات‌ها بايد به ترتيبي اجرا گردد كه هيچ‌كدام از آنها زمينه حد ديگري را از بين نبرد.

تبصره – مجازات حبس حدي يا تبعيد مانع از اجراي حد اعدام نمي‌شود.

ماده 2-216: هرگاه كسي سه بار مرتكب يك نوع جرم مستوجب حد شود و هر بار حد همان جرم بر او جاري گردد (تكرار جرم حدي) در مرتبه چهارم حد وي قتل است.

ماده 3-216: هرگاه كسي مرتكب جرم موجب حد در زمان‌هاي مقدسي مانند ماه رمضان، عيدقربان، عيد فطر، عاشورا يا مكان‌هاي مقدسي مانند مساجد گردد، در صورتي كه عرفاً هتك حرمت آن زمان يا مكان مقدس باشد علاوه بر حد به حداكثر تا 20 ضربه شلاق نيز محكوم مي‌شود.

ماده 4-216: در موارد تعدد جرم موجب حد و جرم موجب تعزير يا مجازات بازدارنده، مجازات نيز متعدد مي‌شود و هر دو اجرا مي‌گردد، جز در مواردي كه مجازات حدي سالب حيات و مجازات تعزير يا بازدارنده حق‌الناس نباشد كه در اين صورت فقط مجازات سلب حيات اجرا مي‌شود؛اما در صورت سقوط حد به عفو و امثال آن مجازات تعزيري يا بازدارنده اجرا خواهد شد. همچنین چنانچه مجازات حدی سالب حیات نباشد و مجازات تعزیری و بازدارنده نیز حق الناس نباشد؛اما به جهت جرمی باشد که مشابه جرم حدی است یا از مقدمات آن باشد مانند سرقت غیر حدی و سرقت حدی یا روابط نامشروع و زنا، در صورت اجرای مجازات حدی مجازات تعزیری و بازدارنده ساقط می شود.

ماده 5-216 : در موارد تعدد جرم موجب حد و جرم موجب قصاص، مجازات نيز متعدد مي‌شود و در صورتي كه هر دو مجازات قابل جمع بوده، هر دو اجرا مي‌گردد؛اما چنانچه مجازات حدي موضوع قصاص را از بين ببرد مانند اعدام و قصاص‌نفس و يا موجب تأخير در اجراي قصاص كه حق‌الناس است، گردد مانند حبس، تبعيد و قصاص نفس اجراي قصاص مقدم است و در صورت عفو يا تبديل به ديه مجازات حدي اجرا مي‌شود.‌

فصل دوم : جرايم و مجازات‌هاي حدي

مبحث اول: زنا و ملحقات آن (لواط، تفخیذ و مساحقه )

زنا

ماده 1-221 : زنا عبارت است از جماع مرد و زنی که علقه زوجيت بين آنها نبوده و از موارد وطی به شبهه نيز نباشد.

تبصره يك- جماع با دخول آلت رجوليت به اندازه ختنه گاه در قبل يا دبر زن محقق می‌شود.

تبصره دو- هر گاه طرفين يا يکی از آنها نابالغ باشد نيز زنا محقق می‌شود؛اما نابالغ مجازات نداشته و تأديب مي‌‌گردد.

ماده 2-221 : وطی به شبهه نسبت به کسی محقق است که به دليل جهل به حکم يا موضوع، جماع را جايز می‌داند.

ماده 3-221 : جماع با ميت زناست؛ مگر جماع زوج با زوجه متوفای خود که زنا نبوده؛ ولی موجب شلاق تا 74 ضربه می‌شود.

ماده 4-221 : هرگاه متهم به زنا مدعی زوجيت يا وطی به شبهه باشد، ادعای وی بدون بينه يا سوگند پذيرفته می‌شود؛ مگر آن‌که خلاف آن با حجت شرعي لازم ثابت شود.

ماده 5-221 : حد زنا در موارد زير قتل است:

1- زنا با محارم نسبی

2- زنا با زن‌ پدر كه‌ موجب‌ قتل‌ زاني‌ است‌.

3- زنای مرد غير مسلمان با زن مسلمان که موجب قتل زانی است.

4- زنای به عنف که با قهر وغلبه زانی صورت می گيرد.

5- زناي زن يا مردي كه واجد شرايط احصان باشد كه حد آن سنگسار است.

تبصره يك- مجازات زانيه در بند(ب) و( ج) حسب مورد تابع ساير احكام مربوط به زناست.

تبصره دو- هرگاه کسی به قصد زنا زنی را بيهوش نموده و يا به وی داروی خواب‌آور بدهد و در حال بيهوشی يا خواب با وی زنا نمايد و همچنين زنا از طريق اغفال دختر نابالغ در حکم زنای به عنف است.

تبصره سه- پيرمرد يا پيرزنی که داراي شرايط احصان باشد، علاوه بر مجازات مذكور به صد ضربه شلاق نيز محكوم مي‌گردد.

تبصره چهار- هرگاه اجراي حد رجم مفسده داشته و باعث وهن نظام شود، با پيشنهاد دادستان مجري حكم و تأييد رئيس قوه قضاييه در صورتي كه موجب حد با بينه شرعي اثبات شده باشد، رجم تبديل به قتل مي‌شود و در غير اين صورت تبديل به صد ضربه شلاق مي‌‌گردد.

ماده 6-221 : احصان در هريك از مرد و زن به نحو زير محقق مي‌شود:

1- احصان مرد عبارت است از آن كه دارای همسر دايمی و بالغ باشد و در حالی که بالغ و عاقل بوده، از طريق قبل با همان همسر در حال بلوغ وی جماع کرده باشد و هر وقت بخواهد امکان جماع از طريق قبل را با وی داشته باشد.

2- احصان زن عبارت است از آن‌كه دارای همسر دايمی و بالغ باشد ودر حالی که بالغ وعاقل بوده، همان شوهر بالغ با او از طريق قبل جماع کرده باشد و امکان جماع از طريق قبل را با وي داشته باشد.

ماده 7-221 : اموری از قبيل مسافرت، حبس، حيض، نفاس و بيماری مانع مقاربت يا بيماری که موجب خطر برای طرف مقابل می‌گردد مانند ايدز و سفليس، زوجين را از احصان خارج می‌کند.

ماده 8-221 : طلاق رجعی قبل از سپری شدن ايام عده، با وجود ساير شرايط مرد و زن را از احصان خارج نمی‌کند؛ ولی طلاق بائن آنها را از احصان خارج می‌ نمايد.

تبصره- طلاق خلعی که تبديل به رجعی شده باشد تا قبل از جماع موجب خروج طرفين از احصان است.

ماده 9-221: در زنا با محارم نسبی و زنای محصنه، چنانچه زانيه بالغ و زانی نابالغ باشد، مجازات زانيه فقط صد ضربه شلاق است.

ماده 10-221: مردی كه همسر دايم دارد، هرگاه قبل از دخول مرتكب زنا شود، حد وی صد ضربه شلاق، تراشيدن سر و تبعيد به مدت يك‌سال قمری است.

ماده 11-221 : حد زنا در ساير موارد صد ضربه شلاق است.

ماده 12-221 : هرگاه مردي زني را مجبور كند كه با او زنا كند، علاوه بر مجازات مقرر در صورتي كه زن باكره باشد، به پرداخت ارش‌البكاره و مهرالمثل محكوم مي‌شود و در غير اين‌صورت فقط به پرداخت مهرالمثل محكوم مي‌گردد.

ماده 13-221: اگر دو طرف يا يک طرف رابطه نامشروع دوجنسی باشد، در صورتي كه احراز شود، يكي از عناوين موجب حد واقع شده (مانند اين كه علم اجمالي پيدا شود يا مساحقه انجام گرفته و يا زنا ) و به مجازات آن حد ( صد ضربه شلاق در مثال ذكرشده) محكوم مي‌شود و در غير اين صورت هر يک به مجازات تعزيري به تناسب جرم و خصوصيات مجرم تا 99 ضربه شلاق محكوم می‌گردند.

ماده 14-221: هرگاه‌ مرد يا زني‌ كمتر از چهار بار اقرار به زنا نمايد، به مجازات تعزيري به تناسب جرم و خصوصيات مجرم تا 74 ضربه شلاق محكوم مي‌شود.

ماده 15-221: مناسب است قاضي اجراي حكم مردم را از زمان اجراي حد زنا آگاه سازد و لازم است عده‌اي از مؤمنان كه از سه نفر كمتر نباشند، در حال اجراي حد زنا حضور يابند.

ماده 16-221: مرد را هنگام سنگ‌سار تا نزديكي كمر و زن را تا نزديكي سينه در گودال دفن مي‌كنند و آنگاه سنگ‌سار مي‌نمايند. بزرگي سنگ نبايد به حدي باشد كه با اصابت يك يا دو عدد شخص كشته شود. همچنين نبايد به اندازه‌اي كوچك باشد كه نام سنگ بر آن صدق نكند.

ماده 17-221: اگر محكوم به سنگ‌سار از گودال فرار كند، در صورتي كه زناي او به اقرار ثابت شده باشد بازگردانده نمي‌شود و مجازات سنگ‌سار از او ساقط می‌گردد و در غير اين صورت برگردانده مي‌شود و مجدداً سنگ‌سار می‌شود.

لواط

ماده 18-221 : لواط عبارت است از دخول آلت رجوليت به اندازه ختنه‌گاه در دبر انسان مذکر؛ هرچند مرده باشد.

ماده 19-221 : حد لواط برای فاعل درصورت عنف يا دارا بودن شرايط احصان قتل است ودر صورت فقدان شرايط احصان صد ضربه تازيانه است و حد لواط برای مفعول در صورتي كه بالغ و عاقل باشد و اكراه نشده باشد، قتل است.

تبصره- شرايط احصان در لواط همان شرايط احصان در زناست.

ماده 20-221 : هرگاه مردی کمتر از چهار بار اقرار به لواط نمايد، به مجازات تعزيري 70ضربه شلاق محكوم می شود.

تفخيذ

ماده 21-221 : تفخيذ عبارت است از ماليدن آلت رجوليت بين ران‌های يا اليتين انسان مذکر هر چند مرده باشد.

تبصره- دخول کمتر از ختنه گاه در حکم تفخيذ است.

ماده 22-221: حد فاعل و مفعول در تفخيذ صد ضربه شلاق ‌است و فرقي ميان محصن و غیر محصن وعنف و غير عنف در مجازات نيست و طرفي كه اكراه شده و يا طفل است، مجازات نمي‌شود.

تبصره- در صورتی که فاعل غير مسلمان و مفعول مسلمان باشد، حد فاعل قتل است.

ماده 23-221: هر گاه‌ دو يا چند مرد از روی‌ شهوت و بدون‌ ضرورت‌ به‌ صورت برهنه‌ زير يك‌پوشش‌ قرار گيرند، به تناسب جرم وشخص مجرم به مجازات تعزيري تا 99 ضربه‌ شلاق محكوم مي‌شوند.

تبصره- هرگاه يکی از طرفين نابالغ یا مکره باشد، حکم مذکور تنها نسبت به فرد بالغ جاری است.

ماده 24-221: همجنس بازی انسان مذکر در غير از لواط و تفخيذ از قبيل تقبيل و ملامسه از روی شهوت موجب تعزير به تناسب جرم وشخص مجرم تا 74 ضربه شلاق است.

ماده 25-221: هرگاه مردی کمتر از چهار بار اقرار به تفخيذ نمايد، به مجازات تعزيري 70ضربه شلاق محكوم می شود.

مساحقه

ماده 26-221 : مساحقه عبارت است از اينكه انسان مؤنث، اندام تناسلی خود را به اندام تناسلی همجنس خود هر چند مرده باشد بمالد.

ماده 27-221 : حد مساحقه، صد ضربه شلاق است.

ماده 28-221 : در حد مساحقه فرقی بين فاعل و مفعول و مسلمان و غيرمسلمان نيست.

ماده 29-221 : همجنس بازی انسان مؤنث در غير از مساحقه از قبيل تقبيل و ملامسه از روی شهوت موجب تعزير به تناسب جرم وشخص مجرم تا 74 ضربه شلاق است.

ماده 30-221 : هر گاه دو يا چند زن از روی شهوت و بدون ضرورت به صورت برهنه زير يك پوشش قرار گيرند، به مجازات تعزيري به تناسب جرم وشخص مجرم تا 99 ضربه شلاق محكوم مي‌شوند و در صورت تكرار تعزير، در مرتبه سوم و بالاتر به يك صد ضربه شلاق به عنوان حد محكوم خواهند شد.

تبصره- هرگاه يکی از طرفين نابالغ يا مكره باشد، حکم مذکور نسبت به نابالغ و مكره جاری نيست.

ماده 31-221 : در صورت عدم قیام ادله اثباتی بر جرايم حدی این فصل و انکار متهم به جز در موارد احتمال ارتکاب با عنف، آزار، ربایش یا اغفال و اکراه هرگونه تحقیق و تفحص و کنکاش جهت کشف امور پنهان و مستور از انظار ممنوع است

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- How many gays and lesbians are in Turkey today?

We have 87 registered at present.

- How many have fled the country over the past few years?

Unless we have access to UNCHR data and data of home offices around the world, there is no way to come up with a number of the ones left Iran claiming status because of homosexuality; even then, we can only know the number of those who claimed, and not exact numbers. But based on my own experiences during the past few (five) years, every year 100 to 150 of the LGBT community flee Iran.

- What are the general pressures on gays and lesbians that are specific to Iran – other than the usual paranoias?

Iran is among the very few countries (Yeman, UAE, Sudan, Somalia, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Mauritania) that execute homosexuals on the bases of their sexual orientation. What is specific in Iran, and is extremely distressing is that in those other countries, the harsh religious laws are in-line with traditions and are accepted as traditions. But Iran is a country where modernity has clashed with enforced religious laws and regulations. Homosexuals in Iran live a dual life; in all other aspects of life they can compete with the western world’s popular trends, fashion, music, but in their most natural identity, their sexual identity, they have to comply with rules belonging to one thousands and three hundred years back. Parents, who are otherwise very understanding and open minded, when it comes to their child’s sexual orientation/gender identity, suddenly become prejudiced and can easily do away with their own flesh and blood. The fact that life is like walking on a blade-edge is the most disturbing for homosexual men and women who, of course, aren’t only hanging in specific hangout places like the Daneshjoo park, but are occupied in many high profile positions such university professors, artists, lawyers, doctors, journalists, and such.

One of the signs that exposes a homosexual to his environment is the fact that they do not wish to marry a person of opposite sex, and when they are passed the age of marriage, they are pressured by their colleagues, employers, parents, and the whole society to either marry or give a reason for refusing it. 3 years ago, one of the ministries in Iran sent a memo to all employees to either marry or resign.

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2009

Interviewed by Helmout Gabel

Could you please describe what are the goals of IRQO?

IRQO is a union of like-minded human rights activists – gay, lesbian and straight – who are committed to attaining and maintaining the civil and human rights of the Iranian LGBT community living in Iran and abroad. In IRQO we are working for decriminalizing homosexuality. Our goal is to have tolerance and understanding of Homosexuality and Tran-sexuality in Iranian culture inside and outside of Iran. The work IRQO does in extended, because of the needs and the circumstances to advocate and support Iranian LGBT refugees in transit and host countries.

Why and when was IRQO founded?

IRQO was founded in 2007. We came together as we realized increasing number of our Iranian LGBT members were being forced to flee Iran due to torture and fear of execution and lack of social justice which deprives them of most basic human and civil rights.. Meanwhile those who chose to stay and live in Iran have been subjected to executions, torture, sex changes and humiliations by their family and the society. The Islamic republic of Iran considers homosexuality illegal and their laws are in total violation of articles 1,2,3,5, 7,9,10, 11,12,13,19, 20, 26, 28, 29, and 30 of Universal Deceleration of Human Rights. IRQO is committed to serve the Iranian LGBT refugee community whose number has increased by 25% as of last year.

What kind of activities are the members of IRQO up to?

We are involved in ALL aspects of Iranian LGBT community whether inside or outside of Iran. We assist our clients who are refugees seeking asylum in Europe, Canada, and the USA; we are involved in promoting as well as archiving our LGBT history through: 1. Blogs, our own and other media blogs such as Radio Zamaneh, Koocheh, etc., 2. IRQO’s publication called Cheraq Magazine, and 3. Establishing of an online LGBT bookstore and library; we work closely with other human rights groups such as Human Rights Reporters of Iran, Iran Human Rights Documentation Center, Human Rights Watch, etc. to globalize our voice and our message; we help promote and educate people about the Iranian LGBT community that exist inside Iran.

How many persons do you estimate concern themselves to be queer in Iran?

There is no data on this issue and only some of the transsexual members of the LGBT community are registered officially with state appointed institutions. There aren’t any way to find out the number of gay and lesbians in Iran as they live extremely low profile and underground. There absolutely no number of bi-sexual as the term is not even defined in Farsi; it is used to define another meaning. But, it is known generally that 7 percent of any population is homosexual. That’s as much as we can say. More then that, we know that during the last decade, the LGBT community in Iran has been considered loud, even though via multiple pseudonyms and only on-line, and only in larger cities, and that is enough to know that We Are Many.

How many have fled?

According to our records in IRQO, in every given year we have about a hundred seeking asylum in Turkey, or other countries such as Malaysia, India, Pakistan, and European and North American countries. In addition to the number of asylum seekers, there is a large number that leave Iran to study in the west, and normally, they plan to go back and reside in Iran.

How many are in similar situations as Matin Yar (a gay refugee in Turkey)?

Almost every LGBT asylum seeker in Turkey is in the similar condition as Matin. But not everyone who has left Iran has experienced jail and execution order, as he did.

Why are these persons under threat in Iran?

According to article 110 of Iran’s Penal code, homosexuality, or sexual encounter between two willing mature men or women is punishable by death. The judge will choose the form of execution. The only difference between men and women homosexual in receiving punishment is the women are executed after the fourth time they are arrested with the same charges. But that’s not all of what homosexuals face in Iran. The tragedy is that families too, are tolerant of the idea of having a homosexual child. Homosexual adolescents learn early in life that they must hide their identity as best as they can, to escape parental punishment and furry. Many times, parents also kill their own children as a form of honour killing, or they kick them out to live out in the street, or, in some cases where parents are more educated,  they leave their children with therapists and in clinics to undergo electroshock in order to “make them straight”. These young men and women are forced to take treatment and take heavy medication for years. Many carry the scars of the shock-therapy, and the pills, for many years afterwards. Parental abuse of their children and their insistence of the changing them into “normal”, we believe, is in most part due to the fear of the penal code that will arrest and execute homosexuals and bring shame to the whole family. We believe that had it not been for the regime’s hostile attitude towards homosexuality, and homosexuals human and civil rights, it would be easy to educate parents and the society in general about the individual right of the LGBT individuals to live and love a partner of the same sex, within the boundaries of the ethics the main stream society practices. Homosexuals and transsexuals are no different of their brothers and sisters with respect to morality and chastity if they are given the chance. In addition to the abuse gays and lesbians and transsexuals experience from the system and society, their immediate family, they have not much chance of pursuing education, acquiring a carrier, and having a home and a family. This means that a homosexual or a transsexual is not allowed to live, they only survive under harsh and hopeless circumstances.

 

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Meanwhile all the best and good continuation

Helmut N. Gabel

Interviewed by Radio 1, Austria

For a short moment we had the impression that new times were broken in, in Iran. The opposition was ruling the streets, protesting against Ahmadinedjad who took power with a doubtful election result and defended it with police force. Censorship and show-trials have let the so-called green movement disappear – really? An exile Iranian contradicts to this statement: the fight of this new movement is forming up to a political movement – more about this we hear in the report of Barbara Ladinser:

Saghi Ghahraman has snow-white hair. The 52-year old poet and human- rights activist is president of the Iranian homosexual association, coming from a community of homosexual civil rights activists who have been active for 20 years already. Saghi lives in exile in Canada, is connected to her native country, and always have had to find a way to challenge censorship which still very strong in her country today. She says spontaneous public protests have become less even though in various cities

Ghahreman: “The most important activity right now is what Mr. Karroubi is doing, day by day he confronts the government with new documents of torture and rape of prisoners – Moussavi fights with a more systematic means and tries to organize the movement with plans of action. Ghahraman says: “So they told people, don’t come into the streets because they are gonna arrest you, we don’t want that.”

Moussavi and Karroubi are strong leader figures for Saghi Ghahraman and they are firmly trying to help and encourage people in their fight against Ahmadinedjad’s regime.

Ghahreman: “People are backing up, but not in the streets. So this is not important at this point how many people are in the streets but that people like Ayatollah Montazeri or Ayatollah Sanei become louder. The aim of the movement is now to find an alliance with the clergy that feels endangered by the power behind Ahmadinedjat – the Guardians of the Revolution that in fact are anti-clerical don’t believe in clergies interference with the governing of the country; Shiite clergies of have major influence in religion and economy in Iran.

GHAHREMAN: “So if Ayatollahs want to stay in power Ayatollahs must fight the Guardians of the Revolution. “ The resistance against the Ahmadinedjad and his backers is much bigger than we realize from outside and is already going through all institutions and many groups of society.  The promising scenario Ghahraman drafts is that more and more interest- groups like bureaucrats, banks, bazareis refuse collaboration to Ahmadinedjad’s Regime and in that way they will topple it during this term of office. In this way it would be reformers turn, politicians who come from the system itself and are going to maintain it, and who are not ready to fight as fast as many groups in the oppositional movement would have liked to.

GHAHREMAN: (laughing) “we are one of those (who want the reformers act quicker and more radical), but we know that if we want to move fast we might fall.”

In her gentle character the patience of many Iranians is found. Step by step, she says like many Iranians, is the only way to fight for change.

qoutes from critics

What happens in Saghi Ghahraman’s poetry is a rare phenomenon, and one can say with the boldest words, that – with respect to the abundance of our feminist literature(Farsi)- it is the extreme divulgence of the feminine language in the shape of poetry.

 Reza FarrokhFall, writer, literary critic, McGill University
April 2000, Sokhan’e Azad, literary quarterly, Montreal

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Today, our young society inside Iran, and abroad, for the unavoidable changes along the way, and in the search of “new definitions” for social relations, needs to explore beyond the traditional norms, and for this, we need women who can speak up, and be bold, and brave; women like Frough (Farokhzad), like Saghi (Ghahraman).

 Shahbaz Nakhaee, essayist, political columnist,
Montréal 1997, Payvand, weekly newsletter, Montreal

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Saghi Ghahraman’s poetry contain a very strong femininity. It might be the first time Iranian literature is witnessing a woman attempting to put to words her feminine wants and desires. This is a tough path she has taken, and one wonders what will happen to her along the way. I can’t say where she would end up. She might end up in isolation, because society has other expectations of her as a woman.

 Shahrnoosh ParsiPoor, novelist, United States
2002, Shahrvand, weekly newsletter, Toronto

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Despite her carefree appearance, Saghi Ghahraman is extremely precise. Her Island, which at the first glance seems to be chosen as a random act, is in fact a metaphor for the isolation and the dead-end doom, the fate of human being. This is her Island, with nothing in the outlook. Her aim in writing poetry is unlike anything other poets have attempted. While others are amazed by the changes in the nature and in the globe, she sets to write poems which are the very means for change. She is obsessed with stirring of the words on paper. Every poem she writes has a twin which is not written, but is implied by the one written. Some of the commotions over inappropriate language/themes of her work is pure injustice to poetry per se.
Her technique in The Whore of Babylon brings to mind the technique Joyce  employed in the Finnegan’s Wake. Words she uses in her poetry seem to be  sitting in the presence of the next word for the first time, ever. Her poems disturb the peace of their readers’ mind, mix together sinful and innocence, dance and death, anger and calm in a manner that, at best, has an smothering effect. Hers is not a kind of poetry that stands witness, but the kind that is uprooting, and destroying(norms/normalities).

 Koushiar Parsi, writer, essayist, Netherlands , Laiden University
2004, Shahrvand, weekly newsletter, Toronto

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Saghi Ghahraman’s 2^nd collection, The Whore is the savior  contains 43 poem in 98 pages. Not only the title of the book, but every one of the poems like thunderbolts, or monsoons, sweeps the reader off her/his feet, and smash them down to the ground in another place, and along the way opens their eye to the breaking down and tearing away of cultural taboos. It’s an ancient pattern that wants women and shame hand in hand. History has witnessed horrific pains inflecting on women under this very pattern. Saghi Ghahraman’s poetry employs pop language, foundations of everyday life, and a precise and meticulous look at the details to explain her stripped individuality; an individuality which oozes with communal pain. Strangely enough she caries this heavy load wrapped in the silk of poetics, on her own shoulders.

 Maliheh TeerehGol, Literary critic, United States
1999, Iranshahr, weekly newsletter, Washington

From Right to The Left and vice versa

Toronto is a region of neighbourhoods, every neighbourhood a different country. During the last decade & a half, wherever I moved I’ve arrived in a different Canada all over again. Thanks to colonialism, & globalization of media, neither the white shadow of main-stream Canada, and nor the bold presence of China Town have been “unfamiliar”.
The cultural shock, though, hit hard with “Writing in English”.

To write in Farsi, I put my pen on the far right of the page and move towards left, whereas to write in English, my hand jerks from its usual direction of landing on the right, and drags herself to the far left, to move then towards right. There is a clash, in the middle of page, every time, when the old habit of “from right” meets the self-imposed skill of “from left”.

I wonder sometimes if it helped had I walked passed the margins, and let myself be led  by the rhythm of spoken word into the patterns of the written. But here I am, still in the middle of two lines inching forward face to face, from right to the left, and vice versa. But the confusing clash doesn’t stop on the lines I write, it involves pages and passages I read, too. And so I can not deny the fact that I’ve become philosophical since I left Iran. Over the years I have – out of habit – opened “English” books and magazines from the right end. And so, many times before I can say ooops, and flip the book over to open it from the other side, I have gone through a page or two of the ending. Thus, I’ve known how the story ends before I get to the beginning. That is the amazing part of living here, and not there.

This dilemma to search for the right destination to write expands in to everyday life as I
gradually slip away from what have been my sense of morally / politically right back then. I stand – and not voluntarily- as far from there, as I am from here.

In the absence of a home, when my body becomes the virtual shelter, when my body is the only thing still in-hand, I stand in the middle of intersecting rights & wrongs. I trace on this body lines which are not right, but are mine. I follow curves and hollows which can’t be wrong, and are mine. I stop right here, in the middle, with me. And then, as if there is nothing left to love, I love my body from every angle.
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2003