Iran charges famous Kurdish singer Mohsen Lorestani with being gay, faces execution
TEHRAN, — Iran has alleged that a prominent Kurdish singer is gay and under the Islamic Republic’s anti-homosexual laws he could face the death penalty.
BBC journalist Ali Hamedani tweeted on Sunday that “A famous Iranian singer from the Kurdish province of Kermanshah [Iranian Kurdistan] has been ‘accused’ of being a homosexual and could face execution. Iran executes gay men.”
Volker Beck, a German Green Party politician and LGBTQ activist , told The Jerusalem Post that “It is a perversion of unjust states like Iran and Saudi Arabia that alleged or actual homosexuality is presented as an accusation that can cost you your life. It is time for the international community to outlaw states punishing homosexuals.”
The Kurdistan Human Rights Network tweeted that “Mohsen Lorestani, a Kurdish singer from Kermanshah, has been charged with ‘corruption on earth’ in a public complaint. His lawyer told Kurdistan Human Rights Network, ‘The alleged incidents happened in a private chat.’ If convicted, this charge could result in death sentence.”
Iran News Wire reported that “Well known Iranian Kurdish singer, Mohsen Lorestani was charged with ‘corruption on earth’ by a court in Tehran for posting ‘immoral’ content on social media. ‘Corruption on earth’ can carry the death sentence.”
The Iranian regime’s has hanged a homosexual in January 2019 based on the country’s anti-gay law. The unidentified man was hanged on January 10 in the southwestern city of Kazeroon based on criminal violations of “lavat-e be onf” – sexual intercourse between two men, as well as kidnapping charges, according to ISNA. Iran’s radical sharia law system prescribes the death penalty for gay sex.
According to a 2008 British WikiLeaks dispatch, Iran’s mullah regime has executed “between 4,000 and 6,000 gays and lesbians” since the Islamic Revolution in 1979.
Hassan Afshar, 19, was hanged in Arak Prison in Iran’s Markazi Province on July 18, 2016, after he was convicted of “forced male-to-male anal intercourse” in early 2015.
In 2011, Iran’s regime executed three Iranian men after being found guilty of charges related to homosexuality.
Ever since its emergence in 1979 the Islamic regime imposed discriminatory rules and laws against the Kurds in all social, political and economic fields.
Iran’s Kurdish minority live mainly in the west and north-west of the country. They experience discrimination in the enjoyment of their religious, economic and cultural rights.
Parents are banned from registering their babies with certain Kurdish names, and religious minorities that are mainly or partially Kurdish are targeted by measures designed to stigmatize and isolate them.
Kurds are also discriminated against in their access to employment, adequate housing and political rights, and so suffer entrenched poverty, which has further marginalized them.
Kurdish human rights defenders, community activists, and journalists often face arbitrary arrest and prosecution. Others – including some political activists – suffer torture, grossly unfair trials before Revolutionary Courts and, in some cases, the death penalty.
Kurdish armed nationalist groups including PJAK have been carrying out attacks against Iranian forces in the Kurdistan Province of Iran (Eastern Kurdistan) and other Kurdish-inhabited areas.
Since 2004 the PJAK (Partiya Jiyana Azad a Kurdistane) took up arms to establish a semi-autonomous Kurdish regional entities or Kurdish federal states in Iran, similar to the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in Iraq. The PJAK has more than 3,000 armed militiamen, half the members of PJAK are women.
Estimate to over 12 million Kurds live in Iranian Kurdistan (Rojhelat).
Copyright © 2019, respective author or news agency, Ekurd.net | jpost.com
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