Ahmadinejad: ‘We Don’t Have Homosexuals’ in Iran – Same Country That Executed Two Gay Teens in 2005
Iranian Pres. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad speaking today at Columbia University:
“In Iran, we don’t have homosexuals like in your country. We don’t have that in our country. In Iran, we do not have this phenomenon. I do not know who has told you that we have it.”
Three weeks ago, two Iranian teenagers who had been imprisoned and mercilessly beaten, were finally executed by hanging in Iran for the crime of sex with another male, indeed, apparently it now seems within the context of a committed relationship. At that time, … The young guys, one of whom was under the age of 18 at the time of the execution and both of whom were under 18 at the time of their arrest, underwent more than a year in prison and were subjected to 228 lashes of a whip, before Iran robbed them of their young lives on Tuesday, July 19, 2005.
The teenagers, Mahmoud Asgari and Ayaz Marhoni (yes, these two human beings had names), still call to me from their graves. I can hear their plaintive cries that we shall forget them and their deaths will be for naught.
