Mahmoud Asgari and Ayaz Marhoni
Controversy
Within weeks of the hangings, both reporters and human rights organizations--while continuing to condemn the brutality of the hangings--began to produce more nuanced accounts. Paula Ettelbrick, executive director of the International Gay & Lesbian Human Rights Commission, told the press, “It was not a gay case”[14]
The U.S. periodical The Nation published a lengthy investigation of the story. It criticized the role of Peter Tatchell and Outrage! in spreading the belief the executed youths were gay before it had examined the evidence. The article concluded that, given Peter Tatchell's "recent statements, it seems likely that his ideological disposition caused him to look past or dismiss information that cast doubt on the 'gay teenagers' story." [1]
Faisal Alam, founder of the lesbian and gay Muslim group Al-Fatiha Foundation, published an opinion piece claiming that:
"very few people took the time to research the details of the case or even consult with experts who deal with such news on a daily basis. In fact it was almost a week later that we began to read more accurate accounts of why the teens were executed from international human rights groups including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission – all of whom have contacts in Iran and ways to confirm news of such incidents from independent sources. While no one will ever know why these two young men were executed in Iran, what remains clear is that the hysteria surrounding the executions was enormous and only fed to the growing Islamaphobia and hatred towards Muslims and the Islamic world."[15]
Outrage! and Peter Tatchell continued to defend their initial claim that the two victims were hanged because they were lovers. Outrage! frequently attacked activists who took a different perspective. It accused them of being "apologists" and of giving the "Iranian government the benefit of the doubt."[16] Other gay and human rights groups that had researched the case had condemned the killings as gross rights violations. Nonetheless, Brett Lock of Outrage! wrote that those groups "showed little concern" about human rights violations in Iran:
"OutRage! is appalled that large sections of liberal and left opinion in the West shows little concern regarding the murderous brutality of the clerical fascist regime in Tehran. We deplore the gullibility of many gay, left and human rights groups concerning the abuse of LGBT human rights in Iran. ... They have long swallowed Iran's homophobic propaganda."[17]
Peter Tatchell accused those who disagreed with him over the case of "racism."[18] Outrage cited the case to “urge the international community to treat Iran as a pariah state."[19] Tatchell stated, "There can be no normal relations with an abnormal regime "[20]
Outrage! vigorously defended the National Council of Resistance (NCRI) against charges that it had abused human rights, as well as charges that it represented a "terrorist" organization. Outrage! referred to this as the "US State Department's smear." Peter Tatchell alleged that the NCRI was "heroic" and "is no more a terrorist organisation than the African National Congress in South Africa or the anti-Nazi resistance in occupied Europe during World War Two. While there have been allegations of human rights abuses by the NCRI, these pale into insignificance by comparison to the butchery of the Iranian regime."[21]
Human Rights Watch has called the NCRI the "political wing" of the People's Mojahedin. It has documented how members were "tortured, beaten and held in solitary confinement for years at military camps in Iraq after they criticized the group’s policies and undemocratic practices." Human Rights Watch has stated that "it would be a huge mistake to promote an opposition group that is responsible for serious human rights abuses.”[22]
Both Outrage! and blogger Doug Ireland have claimed secretive sources inside Iran to support their continuing assertion that Mahmoud Asgari and Ayaz Marhoni were hanged solely for being gay. Their source is Somalia-born activist Afdhere Jama, who lives in San Francisco in the U.S. According to Outrage!, Jama has told them that he has spoken to three people from Mashhad who maintain that Mahmoud Asgari, Ayaz Marhoni, and five other friends were originally accused of committing consensual homosexual acts on each other. [23]
Scott Long of Human Rights Watch noted in 2006 that Afdhere Jama's sources "have refused to speak to anyone else, including human rights investigators," and that allegations of a huge crackdown against gay people in Iran based on their evidence are third-hand at best. [24] Long wrote:
-It is impossible to reach a final conclusion about the criminal trial in Mashhad, given the opacity of the Iranian justice system and the authoritarian system in general, media censorship included. -The preponderance of evidence suggested that the youth were tried on allegations of rape, with the suggestion that they were tried for consensual homosexual conduct seemingly based almost entirely on mistranslations and on cursory news reporting magnified by the Western press. -There is no basis for imputing a Westernized "gay" identity to these youths. We have no idea what their behavior was or how they would have identified themselves, given the complexities around identity and sexuality in Iran.
