Iran hangs two gay men six years after sodomy charges

The Islamic regime in Iran has executed two gay men, Mehrdad Karimpour and Farid Mohammadi, six years after they were found guilty of homosexuality and sodomy.

The two convicts were hanged on Wednesday in a prison in the northwestern city of Maragheh, 310 miles away from the capital, Tehran, where they had been jailed after being convicted on charges of sodomy.

The two gay lovers were sentenced to death for ‘forced sexual intercourse between two men’ in Iran, where homosexuality is illegal

Their identities were confirmed in a report by the Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), stating that the state-run outlets in Iran had yet to announce the deaths.

LGBTQ+ rights campaigner, Peter Tatchell, said the execution follows ‘a long-standing regime policy of the state-sanctioned murder of gay men, often on disputed charges after unfair trials that have been condemned by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch’.

“The international community must impose Magnitsky sanctions on the regime officials, judges and prison staff who authorized these executions – and on those responsible for the many other human rights cases of abuse in Iran,” Tatchell said.

Read also: Iranian hackers target US military formations, Defence companies

An Iranian-American journalist, Karmel Melamed, in a tweet called for ‘outrage’ from the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

“The Ayatollah regime in Iran just executed two gay men for the crime of sodomy in Iran. This is Mehrdad Karimpour and Farid Mohammadi who were executed by hanging. Where’s the outrage from @StateDept @SecBlinken @glaad & other LGBT groups in U.S. to this horrific crime?”

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