The Two Iranian Boys: Lost But Not Forgotten

By John Calendo / Monday, September 10th, 2007
Iranian teenagers executed for homosexuality

“In Iran, we don’t have homosexuals like in your country.”

This jaw-dropping claim was made today by the President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, during a talk he gave at Columbia University in New York. “We don’t have that in our country,” he asserted to a burst of shocked laughter and a smattering of boos and hisses.

“In Iran, we do not have this phenomenon,” he persisted, undeterred. “I do not know who has told you that we have it.”

Perhaps the photo above will refresh your memory, Mr. President.

From the UK Gay News, circa 2005:

Two gay teenagers were publicly executed in Iran on 19 July 2005 for the ‘crime’ of homosexuality. The youths were hanged in Edalat (Justice) Square in the city of Mashhad, in north east Iran. They were sentenced to death by Court No. 19.

Iran enforces Islamic Sharia law, which dictates the death penalty for gay sex.

One youth was aged 18 and the other was a minor under the age of 18. They were only identified by their initials, M.A. and A.M.

They admitted — probably under torture, London-based gay human rights group Outrage! suggests — to having gay sex but claimed in their defense that most young boys had sex with each other and that they were not aware that homosexuality was punishable by death.

Prior to their execution, the teenagers were held in prison for 14 months and severely beaten with 228 lashes.

Yes, as fools go, Ahmadinejad manages to make our own prize of a president look like Stephen Hawking.

Ahmadinejad, of course, is the same man notorious for denying that the extermination of European Jews in Nazi concentration camps is a historical fact, redundantly documented — an assertion the Iranian president cagily backed away from today, perhaps because he was giving a speech in what in private (and perhaps, the man being so brazen, even in public) he may have loathsomely called “Jew York” — a bit of bile still current among some members of our own great land’s lowest common denominator, and a yahooism that, much like the anti-science creationism, is wildly popular in the benighted desert expanses of the Middle East.

Let us take a minute to remember what the President of Iran has forgotten: the two boys who didn’t know that love — or the brief release that passes for love — was a hanging offense, two boys who had their names erased and were reduced to initials — initials that were touchingly mirror images of each other, A.M. and M. A. Let us give them back their names.

Let us remember Mahmoud Asgari (16) and Ayaz Marhoni (18).

More heartbreaking photos here. Not for sensitive viewers!



  • http://nick-nolan.com Nick Nolan

    Thank you for that reminder, John, and for letting us know their names.
    Those poor, poor boys – Ayaz and Mahmoud. What a tragedy.

  • shored

    I don’t know what to say, other than being Muslim I know what it means. Thank you for giving these guys a chance to be rembered by somone.

  • SAM

    these guys aren’t homosexuals, they are child molesters, and they deserved what they got. I think Iran is quite avant gard in this area and bravo to them,,,,from a gay man.

  • ABW

    exactly where did you get the idea that they were child molesters…and where did you get the idea that it is ok to take a life as punishment for any crime… and lastly, it is avant gardE dickhead…

  • Sloppyseconds

    SAM:

    I am so glad you took the time to read the original indictment and were in the know about the truth of what actually occured. It is so nice when folks buy hook, line, and sinker the word of the Iranian government’s procecutor.

    Good little lap dog. Good boy, here, let’s put the noose around your neck too.

    Nobody, not Amnesty International, not anybody believed the vile crud the Iranian procecutor put forth at the trial. Wait, maybe the President of Iran did.

    And to clarify, apparently he said the problem is folks keep talking about the European holocaust and never mention the Palestinian holocaust. But that doesn’t make as sensational a paragraph.

    Yes, this guy is a yahooo. SAM is a gullible homo. I can’t remember how to spell holocaust (I had to look it up, again).

  • Dweeb

    It’s right that those two boys should be remembered. Please don’t forget that in America, that many young black boys were hung, not for their sex acts, but just for being black.

    And I don’t care what you say, George Bush is stupidier than any other world leader and responsible for more deaths of more people, and the man who has taken away the most personal freedoms.

  • SkidMarquez

    This is definitely a problem for a great deal of the Middle East currently but only emerged as a result of European and American colonialism. Check out a book on Iran’s premodern liberality with sexuality, “Women with Mustaches, Men without Beards” (link), which was much more than we can say for Europe or the early Americas.

    He and the general intolerance for queers in Iran is reprehensible. However, there is a problem with the consistent media coverage of his supposed denying the holocaust or wanting to “wipe Isreal of the face of the earth.” Ahmadinejad has been consistently mistranslated / misquoted by mass media outlets in this country perhaps with some ulterior purposes. If you watch any portions of his speech at Columbia pay attention to how he refers to the Jews inside of Iran and the representation they receive in the government.

  • http://www.nightcharm.com Nightcharm

    Dana Milbank of the Washington Post skewers Ahmadinejad’s appearance at a video press conference yesterday, citing the man’s “unreality show” and “cheap sentiment.:

    “Our people are the freest people in the world,” said the man whose government executes dissidents, jails academics and stones people to death.

    “The freest women in the world are women in Iran,” he continued, neglecting to mention that Iranian law treats a woman as half of a man.

    “In our country,” judged the man who shuts down newspapers and imprisons journalists, “freedom is flowing at its highest level.”

    And if you believe that — he has a peaceful civilian nuclear program he wants to sell you.

    Much of officialdom spent yesterday condemning Columbia University for hosting the Iranian leader while he visits the United Nations this week. There were similar protests outside the National Press Building in Washington, where reporters gathered to question Ahmadinejad in a videoconference. “Don’t give him any press!” shouted one woman.

    But that objection misses a crucial point: Without listening to Ahmadinejad, how can the world appreciate how truly nutty he is?

  • Gry

    I look at this photo and wonder if this is the frighteningly prescient conclusion that America’s Authoritarian Movement never quite wants to admit to: you can only stop individuality by imprisoning and/or killing it off.

    The only way to end abortion is to put women in jail and force them to bear children. The only way to ensure that America is united under the “one true god” is to start deporting non-Christians, denying immigrants access to the U.S., and making church attendance not only mandatory for natural-born citizens but a prerequisite for new ones. The only way to make absolutely sure that homosexuality is elimated is to commence executing anyone “guilty” of engaging in it.

    Perversely enough, the Bush Administration and its followers are devoted to spreading democracy in Iraq, while adopting all manner of distinctly un-American rhetoric and Fascist ideology to limit freedom within our borders.

  • riverboy

    The difference, Gry — and it’s an enormous difference — is that in the Muslim Middle East, the stoning of homosexuals is a mainstream view — devout Muslims are probably disgusted by it, but they are not outraged.

    By contrast, in Christian America the killing of homosexuals is advocated by no one — with the exception of an unhinged and sociopathic fringe group, the same sorry misfits who go out and shoot abortion doctors. These people are condemned, sentenced and executed; they are not held up as moral examples.

    All cultures are not equal. Some are more evolved and more humanitarian than others.

  • SkidMarquez

    Which culture riverboy, then whose preeminence in the world is hinged upon a brutal neoimperialist and invasive economic pressure? Let’s not forget that 1.5 million Iraqi children died during the sanctions Clinton our supposed advocate promoted against Saddam’s regime?

  • Gork

    Journalist Afdhere Jama interviewed numerous sources from Mashhad who maintain that Mahmoud Asgari, Ayaz Marhoni, and five other friends were originally accused of committing consensual homosexual acts on each other (Lavaat). One of the accusers is believed to be an older half-brother of Ayaz Marhoni.

    The seven boys were taken into police custody, and then examined by a doctor for signs of rectal scarring. Asgari, Marhoni, and a 13-year-old friend tested positive, while the other boys did not. As punishment, Asgari, Marhoni, and the 13-year-old received lashes administered by law enforcement officers.

    The father of the 13-year-old boy is said to be a senior Revolutionary Guards officer. Mashhad sources interviewed by Jama insist that the father’s position, one which deals largely with suppressing internal dissent, and defending the regime, grants him a very high social and political status. Sources believe this is why the typically unyielding Iranian government had so freely changed the 13-year-old’s account from consensual homosexual sex to rape. It also explains why Marhoni and Asgari, both minors, had received such harsh punishments.

  • http://www.nightcharm.com Nightcharm

    That was a great bit of context, Gork. Thanks!

  • Lunarscribe

    I might be out of line, and my opinion might be unwanted, but here it is anyway. As a Christian or Muslim, we still have the same Old books of the bible; there are ten laws that matter for our salvation. Number five is at the top of my list right now. THOU SHALT NOT KILL. It doesn’t say Thou Shalt Not Kill, unless they that thy kill are Homosexuals. Its protection is afforded to all, not just a select few. IT’S AN INALIENABLE RIGHT!!! If you believe in a Divine Creator then you also believe in the right to life, the right to be free of oppression and hate, the right to find happiness and love. If you are Muslim or in a country that oppression thrives in and are reading this, just remember one thing. “People should not fear their government; government should fear its people.” – V

  • avron

    Wow i had now idea that went on in places like iran it’s so sad when poeple think they have more right to life then other’s. I hope that someday the poeple of iran will look back on that incident and say look what they did to our children or look what they did to our country men. The world is a harsh place but our kids shouldn’t have to suffer for our ignorance.

  • Dweeb

    I would like to address the posting above from Dana Milbank of the Washington Post. I would say that he is just another hack for all those who want to bomb Iran. In the first place, who is to say who should have nuclear weapons. If Iran wants to have a nuclear bomb who is America to object. What makes us so righteous. We create enemies all over the world and then think it is ok to invade any country and make their lives a living hell, so we can fight terrorism far from our shores. Well isn’t that special.

    Does the President of Columbia call out Mr. Bush, does Mr. Milbank call Bush a mad man. Mr. Bush and his lies have caused the death of thousands, bankrupt our country, has illegal prisons, disgusted the world, wire tapped his own people, destroyed the environment, lets the Katrina ravaged south fester, and on, and on. So where is CNN, FOX and all the other networks. They just play ball with the big boys and the truth be damned.

    I can’t see how it serves any purpose to cherry pick complaints about Iran. That is a very different cultural which I am sure the President of Iran is not responsible for. It is obviously repressive compared to where we are at in many regards and it surely has some very positive cultural attributes that we do not.

    It’s important to register complaints about inhumane treatment of anyone in any country, but I don’t see how you can villify the government of Iran in it’s totality because the have a different social system.

    I can’t stand all this hysteria over this man. I think he makes some pretty good points and since he lives next door to Iraq and the permanent US bases installed there (and why should we have permanent bases in Iran?) then his voice should be heard. After all we are talking about invading his country.

    In my opinion my people posting hear need to take a chill pill. If we invade Iran, the consequences will be immense.
    Whether you favored invading Iraq or not you are going to bear the consequences.

  • SAM

    SLOPPYSECONDS OR THE ZIONIST HOMO:

    the reason we are at all interested in Iran is because Israel is tell us to. We should bomb Iran because people over there are brainwahsed by the holocaust stories. Lets wake and tell these anti-democracy fascists zionists to fight their own wars.

  • Monty

    After reading this article and then reading the comments, I’ve been sitting here and I wonder what I can say. Some of these comments are just pathetic. It’s Bush’s fault! It’s the Jew-Zionist-Israeli’s fault! They deserve it! They were child molesters! I can’t believe some of these comments are being said by Gays.

    It’s everybody’s fault but who is truely at fault, The Islamic Republic of Iran. They have no homosexuals because they hang them. They have no prostitutes because they are stoned to death. People caught in adultry: the men claim they were seduced by the evil woman. The woman is stoned to death the men receive a number of lashes and then set free. In Iran, women are treated as second class citizens. Some men treat them like dirt.

    Now, take a look at the photo again and think, ‘They could be my nephews or my cousins.’ Then put your brain in gear before you open your mouth.

  • undergod

    we should have killed that ass hole while he was here. I sharp shooter would have worked out nicely. Not knowing exactly who done it always helps.

  • Gry

    “All cultures are not equal. Some are more evolved and more humanitarian than others.”

    That’s nice to say, but the rhetoric of the all the Falwells and Haggards certainly is accepted by no small amount of people. If you take into account the push for the New American Theocracy, the xenophobia surrounding the supposed rising tide of color invading the U.S., the scapegoating of gays as “decadent” villains, divisive separating of “true” American from “enemies of the state”, overreaching of the Executive branch, widening of Executive power, secret prisons, shadow governments, Blackwater, profiteering, and all manner of Imperialistic/Isolationist foreign policies, the U.S. seems to be losing a great deal of ground when it comes to evolution and humanitarism.

    The U.S. is in danger of mirroring the very enemies it’s condemned.

  • steve

    quote “The U.S. is in danger of mirroring the very enemies it’s condemned.”

    No, your enemies are only mirroring you….

    the US has done nothing other than take from the world, and like a playground bully it has only taken from the weakest, so dont be surprised when the tables turn.

    Absolutely not the fault of the common man, as theres nothing we will ever be able to do, except watch as time and again huge numbers of Innocent people pay the price of corrupted power.

    the best we can do is try to search for the truth amongst all the lies

  • demos

    Shame on Columbia University for inviting such a DICKHEAD Leader of a country which underneath all the bravado of it’s leaders are such nice people – well educated and cultured. The current regime in IRAN are a disgrace to its people and as such, should be forever reminded of the terrible injustices it subjects its people through misaligned theory and interpretations of islam, which are debunked by islamic scholars of reput!

    The picture of the two young guys being hung disgusts me and makes me realise how great it is to live in a free country like Britain where the law of incitement and action in words or force against homosexual people is now outlawed and will soon be part of the UK legal system.

    Lets see how many fucking religious wankers call for gays to be thrown from buildings in Hyde park now… funny isn’t it- they all seem to have gone quiet all of a sudden.

    Big words from little men!!!!

  • Don

    Once again, we don’t have all the facts. I don’t enjoy being manipulated by gossip, however, if this story is true and if it happened the way it has been presented then there is only one thing left for the readers of this story to do, FIGHT INJUSTICE ANYWAY YOU CAN!

    YOU know that as a leading and advanced nation we are not blameless in this, those of use who let our own politician manipulate us into indifference, apathy, and laziness — slaves to our creature comforts. Every time you have not marched or protested– or written letters to your politicians or challanged your own countryman to WAKE UP– those who haven’t brought together your gay brothers and sisters and their families and friends and supporters en mass and together in one voice make firm and strong statements, saying fiercly,NO MORE– WE WILL NOT HAVE THIS ANYMORE!, everytime this does not occur we add to the injustices.

    How can we change the world when we, pathetically, can’t even change things in our own town squares and city halls, and court rooms and polling booths. And earn the respect to be treated as equals here and abroad. WHY DO WE DO NOTHING? As a U.S. Army veteran I experienced what I feel was the most deepest and most crushing predjudice and theft of pride. It wasn’t an outward onslaught– I recieved my honorable discharge and served proudly, but I learned fear and I learned how to bury myself and my feelings and my soul in order to survive. No one gay or straight, Muslim or Jew, Republican or Democrate – no human being should have to suffer such a death and it was a death of spirit.

    Let us remember these two young men and let our anger, despair, disgust and the deep pride we have for Ayaz and Mahmoud be directed into ACTION. ACT don’t sit in the bars and coffee shops and parties and complain while you read the newest edition of Details or Advocate, don’t let another year go by without starting a local chapter of any human rights organization.

    March protest challange..March protest challange I’ll join ya

  • Mike

    Thats just not right! Just hearing something like this makes me upset, now knowing that they were just little kids … It hurts!

  • Ricardo

    NO WORDS!… XXI CENTURY!

  • Jason

    My heart pours out for the two beautiful boys in the story. I am ashamed to think that our country still also has the death penalty. See what company we are in? STOP MURDER NOW!

  • atom511

    It breaks my heart to see that. Think of all the incidents like this where there are *no* photos to serve as a reminder.

  • rendi

    wow big man…….

 
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