From Gay City News
By: KOUROSH SHEMIRANI
10/04/2007
Following the recent trip of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to the US and his remarks at Columbia University where he denied the existence of homosexuals in Iran, the issue of Iranian gays is now in international public view.
Whether this newly gained global visibility marks a step in favor of improving the situation of gays in Iran or leads to a deepening of their plight has as much to do with internal Iranian society as with the actions of the international community. There are dangers and possibilities in this incredible turn of events that Western gay activists have to consider carefully.
No matter what anyone thinks of Iran, its regime, or its president, the fact is that Ahmadinejad's trip was a conscious change in policy by the Iranian government aimed at reaching out to the US and the American people. The Bush administration and the mainstream media have downplayed this fact and have even increased the same rhetoric that they developed before the invasion of Iraq - WMDs, state-sponsored terrorism, etc.
None of us can know what the outcome of these diplomatic maneuvers will be. But now that the issue of gays in Iran has become front and center, there is little doubt that it will work into the propaganda wars of both the Bush and the Ahmadinejad administrations.
In Iran, the president's comments denying the presence of homosexuals have been generally ignored or censored in the mainstream media; however the issue is debated and discussed publicly and on the Internet. It remains to be seen if activists and progressives in Iran will make any inroads in gaining greater public visibility and support as a result of this discussion.
This issue could easily become a major ideological and political test for a regime that rests on the basic notion that Iran is a proud independent nation resisting Western and especially US imperialism. The idea that homosexuality is a Western phenomenon is, of course, the main government line on the issue, and if the movement for gay rights is seen as a Western agenda, or a part of Western imposition on Iran, it will make it that much harder for the many brave gay activists inside Iran to continue their struggle for visibility and acceptance.
In the US, on the other hand, Ahmadinejad's comments regarding gays have been blown up and discussed ad nauseum to the point of becoming one of the primary ways that he is being increasingly discredited and vilified. And here is the danger that we in the West can easily fall into - if this issue is used to further antagonize Iran, it could mean a disaster for the situation of gays in Iran.
The sudden emergence of sympathy, even love, for gays by the likes of Fox News is not just cynical, it is dangerous. If left in the hands of those who couldn't care less about gay rights, the situation of Iranian gays will become a part of American war propaganda that aims to create justifications for military intervention and deepen the idea inside Iran that gays are a dangerous fifth column.
For the many well-meaning gay activists in the US who have been facing great challenges and setbacks here under the Bush administration, the idea that the LGBT community can have influence on public policy - especially foreign policy - seems farfetched. But what we say and how we relate to this moment can have repercussions beyond our own struggling community. I hope this essay will serve as a beginning of a constructive dialogue that helps us think and take proper action regarding the situation of gays and all sexual minorities in Iran.
Kourosh Shemirani lives in New York City and is a member of QIAM, the Queer Iranian Alliance. Contact him at: qiam2006@yahoo.com.
Friday, October 05, 2007
More Work, One Role for Arab Actors
By Ashraf Khalil, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
"What kind of a name is that?" the voice coach asked at the end of the lesson. The name on the check he'd been handed by his student didn't match the young actor's European-sounding stage name.
The actor hesitated. He was fairly new in town and leery of any missteps. "Umm, my grandfather was Middle Eastern," he said.
Breaking the Fast With Family, Friends And Late-Night Fun
Sally Safaa el-Din, 21, right, enjoys an early morning out with friends in Cairo after she and family members broke the daily Ramadan fast with a meal at home after sunset.
(By Nora Younis For The Washington Post)
(By Nora Younis For The Washington Post)
By Ellen Knickmeyer
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, October 5, 2007; A14
CAIRO
The sun slipped behind the high-rises on Haram Street. Drivers hit their gas pedals and their car horns, alternately bullying and joking their way through lanes crowded with fellow Cairenes, all racing to reach home before sunset signaled the end of the day's fast during this holy month of Ramadan.
In one Haram Street apartment, Maii Younis placed pigeons in a skillet to brown, handling the birds carefully to keep their rice stuffing from bursting forth. Her daughter Sally, 21, circuited between kitchen and dining room, laying out the china, talking to her mother and guests, and using the kitchen phone to make plans to go out with friends after the family meal.
In Cairo and other cities all around the Middle East, authorities held torches to ancient cannons to signal, as has been done for centuries, that the sun had set -- and that Muslims who had fasted from dawn to dusk for Ramadan could now begin their evening meal, or iftar.
Sally and Maii switched on a bulky radio by the dining room table. State radio came on live from Cairo's 12th-century Citadel in the heart of the old city.
"Madfaaa al-iftaaaar!" an unseen commandant blared over the radio, announcing the cannon with a windup worthy of the Worldwide Wrestling Federation.
"Edrabbb!" he shouted, the order to fire. BOOM!
The family laughed, excited.
Sally abruptly turned serious. "We have to eat NOW," she said, cradling her empty stomach with both hands.
Normally a chaotic, congested city of 16 million people going about 16 million purposes, Cairo for a few moments moved to a single Ramadan rhythm.
Blue flames flickered and fell simultaneously on gas stoves across the city, as Cairo's wives and mothers warmed food for the iftar table. Cairo's streets were emptied of all but a few tardy travelers.
At intersections, do-gooders thrust packets of dates and cups of water toward those who hadn't been able to make it home in time.
Waiters stood by tables set up on sidewalks and under overpasses, ready to serve free iftar meals to workers and poor families, courtesy of Cairo's wealthy.
Sally's father, car dealer Ahmed Safaa el-Din, and her older brother, Ahmad, glided through the front door just before and just after sunset.
What the family and their guests ate: the pigeons, lamb cutlets, cabbage leaves stuffed with rice and spices, pasta soup with duck broth, cakes with minced meat, rice cooked in milk, boiled greens and salad.
"We eat like this every day," Maii insisted, before dropping her claim under gentle mockery from the diners.
The family normally goes to Ramadan prayers after the meal -- one cleric in Cairo, known as "Turbo-sheik," is famous for getting worshipers in and out in a half-hour. But this night the building's elevator was out of order, making the trip to the mosque too difficult for the parents, Maii said.
Stuffed, the family moved first to its formal living room, with its high-backed, gilded chairs, then eased back to the parents' bedroom, lolling on the bed before the family's only television set, as Maii and Ahmed idly stroked Sally's hair.
They talked of politics and the children's jobs. For Ahmad, 25, a civil engineering degree had brought a job as a cellphone engineer, climbing towers without a safety harness.
Sally's mother spoke of the English training Sally had received, and wistfully of her putting it to use professionally. But Sally was selling five or six cars a month at a Peugeot dealership, in a job she had gotten with her father's help. She was making good money.
Sally's dream job, she said, was to sell BMWs.
They nibbled on sweets, ate rice pudding, then apricot pudding, easing it down with apricot juice and hibiscus essence and tea.
Ahmad, who lives by himself, excused himself early. He went first to his mother and then to his father, formally shaking their hands before leaving.
At 11, Sally changed her T-shirt for a satiny top. She stepped out into a city roaring with Ramadan revelry -- children setting off firecrackers, adults yakking in packed sidewalk cafes.
Midnight found her at a cafe embracing friends, many of them young women accompanied by husbands or brothers. Hands slipped into purses, pulling out cigarettes the young friends hadn't dared smoke at home.
A friend's 14-year-old brother -- his sagging eyelids a reminder that his school day had begun at 7:30 a.m. -- began winning at cards.
By 2, Sally and her friends were moving to another restaurant, fortifying themselves with a heavy meal of ful, or boiled beans, for the next day of fasting.
Sally slipped back into the family home, where her mother sat quietly reading the Koran, then dozing through the Ramadan night.
Before dawn, the cycle began again. A drummer moved down Haram Street, pounding to wake up the people in time for a last meal before sunrise began the day's fast.
"Wake up! Wake up!" he cried, calling out to residents by name as he moved past in the dark.
In her bed, Sally slept on.
Bush Says U.S. Stands with Muslims
Friday October 5, 2007 3:01 AM
By CHRISTINE SIMMONS
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - The United States has a proud history of standing with Muslims and ``mainstream citizens across the broader Middle East,'' President Bush said Thursday during a dinner to mark the end of the daily fast during Ramadan.
Speaking to about 90 attendees during the White House's annual iftar dinner marking the occasion, Bush said the United States has supported Muslims seeking liberty in Iraq, Afghanistan and Lebanon and has stood with Muslims across the world facing hardship. He said violent extremists do not represent Islam.
``They believe that by spreading chaos and violence they can frustrate the desire of Muslims to live in freedom and peace. We say to them, you don't represent Muslims, you do not represent Islam - and you will not succeed,'' Bush told the attendees, who included Muslim leaders and ambassadors, as well as first lady Laura Bush, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, Vice President Dick Cheney and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff.
This is the seventh year Bush has hosted an itfar dinner, this year inviting American Muslim women who have made contributions in fields such as science, education, civil society and the arts and culture, according to the White House.
Lt. Cmdr. Abuhena Saifulislam, the second Muslim chaplain commissioned in the Navy, gave the blessing for dinner, which included roasted kabocha squash soup, spiced rack of lamb and mamoul cookies. The guests dined in the White House's State Dining Room.
``Let us celebrate the millions of Muslims that we are proud to call American citizens,'' Bush told guests. ``And let us honor the many Muslim nations that America is proud to call friends.''
By CHRISTINE SIMMONS
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - The United States has a proud history of standing with Muslims and ``mainstream citizens across the broader Middle East,'' President Bush said Thursday during a dinner to mark the end of the daily fast during Ramadan.
Speaking to about 90 attendees during the White House's annual iftar dinner marking the occasion, Bush said the United States has supported Muslims seeking liberty in Iraq, Afghanistan and Lebanon and has stood with Muslims across the world facing hardship. He said violent extremists do not represent Islam.
``They believe that by spreading chaos and violence they can frustrate the desire of Muslims to live in freedom and peace. We say to them, you don't represent Muslims, you do not represent Islam - and you will not succeed,'' Bush told the attendees, who included Muslim leaders and ambassadors, as well as first lady Laura Bush, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, Vice President Dick Cheney and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff.
This is the seventh year Bush has hosted an itfar dinner, this year inviting American Muslim women who have made contributions in fields such as science, education, civil society and the arts and culture, according to the White House.
Lt. Cmdr. Abuhena Saifulislam, the second Muslim chaplain commissioned in the Navy, gave the blessing for dinner, which included roasted kabocha squash soup, spiced rack of lamb and mamoul cookies. The guests dined in the White House's State Dining Room.
``Let us celebrate the millions of Muslims that we are proud to call American citizens,'' Bush told guests. ``And let us honor the many Muslim nations that America is proud to call friends.''
Bush Hosts Traditional Ramadan Dinner at White House; Remarks by President at White House Iftaar
From Voice of America
Bush Hosts Traditional Ramadan Dinner at White House
By Scott Stearns
Washington
05 October 2007
President Bush welcomed Muslim leaders to the White House Thursday evening for an Iftaar dinner breaking the fast during the holy month of Ramadan. VOA White House Correspondent Scott Stearns has the story.
President Bush (upper left) speaks at Ramadan Iftaar dinner at White House, 4 Oct. 2007
President Bush (upper left) speaks at Ramadan Iftaar dinner at White House, 4 Oct. 2007
The special guests at this year's Iftaar dinner were American Muslim women who have contributed to the nation's science, education, arts, and culture.
Mr. Bush said Ramadan is a time of charity and service to those less fortunate and a time to celebrate Islam's learned and vibrant culture which he says he enriched civilization for centuries. "Ramadan is also a good time for Americans of all faiths to reflect on the values we hold in common including love of family, gratitude to the Almighty, devotion to community, and a commitment to religious liberty," he said.
Today, the president said, the world is at war with violent extremists who seek to stop the advance of freedom in Muslim societies around the world. "They attack holy sites, destroy mosques and minarets, and kill innocent men, women and children including Muslims who do not share their radical views. They believe that by spreading chaos and violence they can frustrate the desire of Muslims to live in freedom and peace. We say to them, 'You do not represent Muslims. You do not represent Islam. And you will not succeed,'" he said.
Mr. Bush says America is standing with mainstream citizens across the Middle East including Iraqis who voted for a democratic future and Lebanese who are reclaiming their freedom and independence.
This was the seventh Iftaar dinner the president and Mrs. Bush hosted at the White House for American Muslim leaders and ambassadors and representatives from Muslim nations.
U.S. Navy Lieutenant Commander Abuhena Saifulislam offered the evening's prayer. "On this day and days to come, by all our differences, by all our aspiration, by fear by sorrow and joy in life and death, teach us and lead us nearer to you. Almighty God, thank you for the fellowship, and please bless the food that we are about to share. We all ask this in your Almighty name and recognize you as our provider and sustainer. Amen," he said.
Saifulisam quoted the Prophet Mohammad as saying that whoever in the month of Ramadan invites a person to break their fast, that person receives the same reward as the person who is fasting. So, "Mr. President", he said, "we have got you covered, man."
---------------------------------------------------------------------
October 04, 2007 08:02 PM Eastern Daylight Time
Remarks by the President at Iftaar Dinner
WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--
State Dining Room
7:16 P.M. EDT
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you all for coming. Please be seated. Ramadan Mubarak. Laura and I are pleased to have you here for our seventh Iftaar dinner. Tonight we celebrate traditions of Islamic faith, which brings hope and comfort to more than a billion people. For Muslims around the world, the holy month of Ramadan is a special time of prayer and fasting. It is a time for charity and service to those less fortunate. It's a time to celebrate Islam's learned and vibrant culture, which has enriched civilization for centuries.
Ramadan is also a good time for Americans of all faiths to reflect on the values we hold in common -- including love of family, gratitude to the Almighty, devotion to community, and a commitment to religious liberty. The freedom of worship is central to the American character. It's the first protection in the Bill of Rights. It holds together the fabric of American society -- supporting every individual's right to practice his or her beliefs without fear.
Today, our world is at war with violent extremists who seek to tear the fabric of our society -- and stop the advance of freedom in Muslim societies around the world. They attack holy sites, destroy mosques and minarets, and kill innocent men, women and children -- including Muslims who do not share their radical views. They believe that by spreading chaos and violence they can frustrate the desire of Muslims to live in freedom and peace. We say to them, you don't represent Muslims, you do not represent Islam -- and you will not succeed.
America is standing with mainstream citizens across the broader Middle East. We stand with nearly 12 million Iraqis who voted for a democratic future for their children. We're standing with Afghan people, as they defend their young democracy against the Taliban and al Qaeda. We're standing with the Lebanese people, who raised the banner of a Cedar Revolution to reclaim their freedom and independence. We're standing with all who seek the blessings of liberty -- and the peace that freedom brings.
Americans have a history of standing with Muslims facing suffering and hardship -- and it's a proud history. Our country defended Muslims in Bosnia and Kosovo after the breakup of Yugoslavia. We supported Kuwait after it was invaded by Saddam Hussein. Americans came to the aid of victims of devastating earthquakes in Pakistan, India, and Iran. Americans responded with urgency and compassion to the wreckage of the tsunami in Indonesia and Sri Lanka and Thailand. We're rallying the world to confront the genocide in Sudan, and deliver humanitarian aid for those in dire need. And we support the establishment of a Palestinian democracy to live side by side with Israel in peace.
As you break your Ramadan fast at this Iftaar dinner, let us renew our faith in the universality of freedom. Let us celebrate the millions of Muslims that we are proud to call American citizens. And let us honor the many Muslim nations that America is proud to call friends.
Laura and I are grateful you're here. Thank you for coming. We wish you a blessed Ramadan. And now I ask the Imam to say the blessing.
END 7:20 P.M. EDT
Thursday, October 04, 2007
Scholar says Muslim world in need of religious reform
WAM
Shaikh Mohammad with Shaikh Saud Bin Saqr Al Qasimi, Crown Prince and Deputy Ruler of Ras Al Khaimah, during the majlis of Shaikh Mohammad in Abu Dhabi.
10/05/2007 01:06 AM | By Samir Salama, Bureau ChiefAbu Dhabi: The Muslim world needs religious reform to overcome the crisis in ties between religion and the state, and between religion and society, a Lebanese scholar said.
Speaking at the majlis of General Shaikh Mohammad Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Abu Dhabi Crown Prince and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces, Dr Radwan Al Sayed, professor of Islamic studies in the Lebanese University, said the conflict between Islam as a religion and the existing political order has never been so intense as it has been over the past three or four decades.
"The political Islam movements, which emerged in the 1950s, revolted against Westernisation or modernisation and now globalisation. They also revolted against the traditional Islamic establishment.
"The revolution against the West and the traditional religious establishment led to the emergence of the Muslim Brotherhood and Hakimiya or the Islamic concept of sovereignty, which means the establishment of an Islamic state as a prerequisite for maintaining Islam," Al Sayed said.
He offered a reading of the current situation of the main political Islam groups.
His principal argument is that there is a conflict over the representation of Islam which is being waged on three fronts - a conflict within Islam itself between the conservatives (generally represented by the religious establishment), the revivalists (who advocate violence as a way of changing the status quo) and the neo-reformists, who work on a new project addressing the role of religion in political order.
A second front has been opened between the State and these groups as to who should have the power to represent Islam and how. And the third dimension to the conflict is the West's intervention in these internal debates about reform and its attempt to impose its own Islam.
Al Sayed, a staunch advocate of the need of Muslims to undergo reforms, does not see an Islamic State as the solution for this crisis "because this solution is based on a false premise that Islam is absent, and has to be revived in our social and political universe."
Holding all parties involved responsible for the crisis, the Lebanese scholar suggested that repression against the Islamic establishment in certain Arab countries under the pretext of setting up a modern state enticed acts of violence.
"Islamists should shun all forms of violence and the State should respect the religious establishment, which should be modernised to respond to the current challenges," he said.
Turkey's Jewish Islamists
From the Washington Post
A Turkish writer's creative -- and popular -- sequel to "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion."
By Mustafa Akyol
Sunday, October 7, 2007; B02
ISTANBUL -- Look in just about any bookstore in Turkey, and you'll see some strange bestsellers. The cover of "The Children of Moses," the first and most popular book in a series of four, shows the country's devoutly Muslim prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in the middle of a six-pointed Star of David. Inside, you'll find a head-spinningly weird argument: that Erdogan and his conservative allies in Turkey's ruling pro-Islamic party are actually crypto-Jews with secret wicked ties to the conspiratorial forces of "global Zionism."
The books are hardly a fringe phenomenon. They're arrayed in chic bookstores along Istiklal Avenue, the funky pedestrian mall that's the heart of secular Istanbul. They're openly displayed alongside Orhan Pamuk novels at Ataturk International Airport. And they're even sold on tiny bookstands on the Princes' Islands, the vacation destinations in the Sea of Marmara that many well-off Turks view the way Manhattanites do the Hamptons. By the publishers' figures, they've sold about 520,000 copies since the books started rolling out this year -- a staggering figure for a nation of about 71 million people.
Of course, paranoid theories about Jewish conspiracies have never lacked for imagination. "International Jewry" has been blamed for destroying both czarist Russia and the Soviet Union, for cooking up both capitalism and communism. But dreaming up a conspiracy theory about a Zionist plot to create an Islamist state? That's a new one.
Continued...
A Turkish writer's creative -- and popular -- sequel to "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion."
By Mustafa Akyol
Sunday, October 7, 2007; B02
ISTANBUL -- Look in just about any bookstore in Turkey, and you'll see some strange bestsellers. The cover of "The Children of Moses," the first and most popular book in a series of four, shows the country's devoutly Muslim prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in the middle of a six-pointed Star of David. Inside, you'll find a head-spinningly weird argument: that Erdogan and his conservative allies in Turkey's ruling pro-Islamic party are actually crypto-Jews with secret wicked ties to the conspiratorial forces of "global Zionism."
The books are hardly a fringe phenomenon. They're arrayed in chic bookstores along Istiklal Avenue, the funky pedestrian mall that's the heart of secular Istanbul. They're openly displayed alongside Orhan Pamuk novels at Ataturk International Airport. And they're even sold on tiny bookstands on the Princes' Islands, the vacation destinations in the Sea of Marmara that many well-off Turks view the way Manhattanites do the Hamptons. By the publishers' figures, they've sold about 520,000 copies since the books started rolling out this year -- a staggering figure for a nation of about 71 million people.
Of course, paranoid theories about Jewish conspiracies have never lacked for imagination. "International Jewry" has been blamed for destroying both czarist Russia and the Soviet Union, for cooking up both capitalism and communism. But dreaming up a conspiracy theory about a Zionist plot to create an Islamist state? That's a new one.
Continued...
Malaysia: Is Religion Being Used Again? by Farish A. Noor
From Malaysia
VIEW: Is religion being used again? —Farish A Noor
VIEW: Is religion being used again? —Farish A Noor
Every single leader who has climbed up the greasy pole of power in Malaysia has done so by playing the race — and now increasingly, religion — card close to his chest
Malaysia-watchers would know by now that the country is divided along the lines of race and religion, and has been increasingly divided thanks to the tendency of Malaysian politicians and social leaders to play the race or religion card whenever it suits them.
Politicians of course are fully aware of the divisive potential of sectarian politics. Why, then, do they constantly fall back on such parochial and primordial sentiments such as racial, cultural and religious loyalty to serve their own limited ends? Weighing the costs of such moves may point us to the simple conclusion that sectarian politicians seldom care about the unity and well-being of the nation as a whole, particularly when that nation happens to be a complex and plural one in the first place. More often than not, the demagogues and chauvinists among us would be more inclined to keep to their own narrow corners...
Continued...
Ang Lee Erotic Thriller Shown in Malaysia; Brokeback Mountain Not Welcome
Ralph Fiennes will star in The Reader, which is filming in Germany
PHOTO: AFP
From the Taipei Times - Reel News
AGENCIES
Friday, Oct 05, 2007, Page 17
Ang Lee's new erotic spy thriller Lust, Caution is doing solid business in Malaysia, its distributor said this week, despite criticism by some viewers after 14 minutes of violent and sexual scenes were trimmed to placate government censors.
The Oscar-winning director supervised an edited version of Lust, Caution that was about 11 minutes shorter than the 157-minute version that is showing in the US, said Anna Ng, Malaysia's general manager for Buena Vista Columbia TriStar.
Malaysia's censorship board cut nearly 3 more minutes and rated the movie 18PL which bars viewers under 18.
Lee "is aware of the censorship,'' Ng said.
"He understands the markets. He respects that different territories have different issues.''
Lust, Caution has grossed US$88,000 from 16 Malaysian screens in seven days, which means that more than 30,000 people have watched it," Ng said.
"It's respectable for this genre,'' Ng said. "We're happy with the response.'' Lee's previous movie, Brokeback Mountain, was not even shown in Malaysia because distributors believed its themes would not clear censors in this Muslim-majority nation.
Malaysian censors have long been strict about themes such as sex and religious or racial issues. But local film makers and audiences have criticized them for disrupting the flow of movies by excessively deleting scenes.
Some Malaysians who watched Lust, Caution expressed frustrations with the cuts.
"Guess none of us will be able to witness everything that's meant to be an integral part of the emotional arc of the characters,'' wrote blogger Edmund Yeo. "I saw many people at local Internet forums asking and praying for an uncensored version of the film for download.''
On the other side of the world, director Stephen Daldry was delighted with a run-down building on Landeskronstrasse, a street in the picturesque east German town of Goerlitz, close to the border with Poland, which he plans to use for his next movie The Reader. The film is an adaptation of Berhard Schlink's best-selling novel of the same name.
Hollywood stars Nicole Kidman and Ralph Fiennes will head the cast in the story about a teenager who has an affair with a woman in her thirties who suddenly vanishes.
Although filming started this week, Kidman is not expected to make an appearance in Goerlitz until December.
When it comes to celebrity magazines, actress Jennifer Aniston is the top cover girl, according to a forbes.com ranking of top-selling faces. The former Friends star was followed by her ex-husband, actor Brad Pitt, the only man to appear in the top 10, who came in second. Actress Scarlett Johansson, Pitt's current partner Angelina Jolie, Reese Witherspoon and Katie Holmes rounded out the top six spots.
Romanian director Cristian Mungiu found international stardom when his second film won the top prize at Cannes this year, but he says reaching a wider audience is more important to him than the glory of awards. Mungiu's 4 months, 3 weeks and 2 days, which is showing at the New York Film Festival, is based on a true story of two students in communist Romania trying to arrange an abortion.
In other news Universal Studios is working on a fourth installment of its hit Fast and Furious series, known for their spectacular car chases, Hollywood Reporter said this week.
Actors Vin Diesel and Paul Walker, who starred in the first movie, are set to resume their roles in the latest film of the series, which has been panned by critics but has won a cult following among fans earning some US$600 million at the box office.
The screenplay for the 4th film is, so far, top secret, but it will be directed by Justin Lin, a 34-year-old Taiwanese-American filmmaker, the magazine reported.
Diesel and Walker both starred in the first Fast and Furious, and Walker appeared again in 2 Fast 2 Furious. The third film Fast and Furious: Tokyo Drift was directed by Lin.
Saudi gay men sentenced to 7000 lashes
From AFP - October 5, 2007
RIYADH - Two men in Saudi Arabia have been sentenced to 7,000 lashes each after being convicted of sodomy and have received their first round of punishment in public, a newspaper said today.
The men, who were not identified, were meted out an unspecified number of lashes in public in the the southwestern city of Al-Bahah on Tuesday evening, the Al-Okaz daily reported.
They were then returned to prison where they are to be held until the full punishment is completed, the newspaper added, without saying how many sessions this would involve.
Homosexual acts are illegal in Saudi Arabia, which metes out strict punishment based on sharia, or Islamic law.
Rape, murder, apostasy, armed robbery and drug trafficking can all carry the death penalty in the kingdom, with public beheading the common form of execution.
AFP
RIYADH - Two men in Saudi Arabia have been sentenced to 7,000 lashes each after being convicted of sodomy and have received their first round of punishment in public, a newspaper said today.
The men, who were not identified, were meted out an unspecified number of lashes in public in the the southwestern city of Al-Bahah on Tuesday evening, the Al-Okaz daily reported.
They were then returned to prison where they are to be held until the full punishment is completed, the newspaper added, without saying how many sessions this would involve.
Homosexual acts are illegal in Saudi Arabia, which metes out strict punishment based on sharia, or Islamic law.
Rape, murder, apostasy, armed robbery and drug trafficking can all carry the death penalty in the kingdom, with public beheading the common form of execution.
AFP
An Open Letter to Rep. Barney Frank - from Lambda Legal
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Tell-a-friend!| |
Wednesday, October 03, 2007
Queer Iranians and Mr. Ahmadinejad in the Press
Queer Iranians and Mr. Ahmadinejad in the Press
By Arsham Parsi
October 1, 2007
Cheraq Magazine, No 33
Translated by Ava
On Monday September 24th, Mr. Ahmadinejad gave a talk at New York's Columbia University. The President of Columbia, under great pressure for having invited Mr. Ahmadinejad, tried to compensate by creating a favourable atmosphere for himself, an atmosphere which did not materialize until the question about homosexuality was raised. A question was asked about the situation of homosexuals in Iran and in response Mr. Ahmadinejad replied: "In our country we don't have homosexuals like in your country. This does not exist in our country. I don't know who has told you that we have this." This response elicited laughter and booing from the crowd in attendance.
Continued in English...
Full article in Farsi...
By Arsham Parsi
October 1, 2007
Cheraq Magazine, No 33
Translated by Ava
On Monday September 24th, Mr. Ahmadinejad gave a talk at New York's Columbia University. The President of Columbia, under great pressure for having invited Mr. Ahmadinejad, tried to compensate by creating a favourable atmosphere for himself, an atmosphere which did not materialize until the question about homosexuality was raised. A question was asked about the situation of homosexuals in Iran and in response Mr. Ahmadinejad replied: "In our country we don't have homosexuals like in your country. This does not exist in our country. I don't know who has told you that we have this." This response elicited laughter and booing from the crowd in attendance.
Continued in English...
Full article in Farsi...
Ramadan shows more West Bankers turn to God
By Wafa Amr
Reuters
Tuesday, October 2, 2007; 8:54 PM
RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) - Five years ago restaurants in Ramallah would stay open all day and serve beer throughout Ramadan. This year virtually all removed alcohol from the menu completely and many closed during the fasting hours.
The change highlights what some see as a trend: faced with a sluggish economy, infighting between rival factions and low hopes for peace with Israel and a state of their own, thousands of Palestinians seem to be turning to God.
The evidence is patchy and anecdotal, and for some there is a hint of coercion. But 24-year-old Huda, who declined to give her last name, said her friends could hardly believe it when, as a liberal young Palestinian woman, she decided to observe the fast.
"I'm not a fanatic but I have some religious feelings inside me and I wanted to try fasting this year," she said. "My friends are astonished at this sudden change."
Not all Palestinians have turned religious -- indeed what many see as the politicization of Islam by the factions, whose warfare in the Gaza Strip gave Hamas control of the enclave in June, is driving some away from mosques.
But university professor Marwan Abu Khalaf, 50, says the number of young men attending the mosque next door to his house has grown steadily.
"I have prayed regularly for the past 10 years and I can say there has been a rise of about 25 percent in the number of young men who come to pray," Abu Khalaf told Reuters.
In traditionally conservative West Bank cities like Hebron, Qalqilya or Tulkarm women have generally worn headscarves. But some say the rise of Hamas in the Gaza Strip and in large West Bank cities like Nablus has prompted more women to wear veils and men to grow beards.
In Ramallah -- the West Bank's economic hub and for years a thriving secular city -- some women are adopting more modest dress. Fewer wear short skirts or sleeveless shirts in central Ramallah while more also don a headscarf and long robes.
"Women who do wear short skirts feel out of place or are harassed by comments from men on the streets," said Eman Hammouri, director of the city's Popular Arts Centre.
DEEPENING FAITH
Both Fatah and Hamas are trying to exploit Palestinians' new-found piety for their own gain. Hamas has used mosques and schools to spread its political views while Fatah has been using Friday prayers in the Gaza Strip to protest against Hamas' rule.
Some Palestinians say militant groups are using religion as an excuse to force their will on people.
Osama Khalaf, owner of Darna, one of Ramallah's best known and most fashionable restaurants, said he stopped serving alcohol during Ramadan for fear of retaliation by secular armed groups using religion as an excuse to throw their weight around.
Khalaf said both Muslim and Christian West Bankers, who make up about 2 percent of Palestinians, were becoming more religious amid tougher living conditions. Crucifixes are worn more widely and church attendance appears up.
"Not only the Muslims are becoming more religious," Khalaf said. "But the Christian minority are also adhering much more strictly to Christianity as a reaction to the more religious environment around them."
INFIGHTING
Last month, a woman wearing the hijab and covering her face with a black veil in a doctor's waiting room shouted at the secretary for watching Arab music videos on television -- many Muslims consider such material to be prohibited by Islam.
"This has never happened before in my clinic," said the doctor, who asked to remain anonymous.
Some analysts said a new sense of despair may have prompted more Palestinians to seek comfort in religion.
Fed up with corruption within the secular Fatah faction that for decades dominated the political scene, Palestinians elected a Hamas government in 2006 parliamentary elections, hoping the Islamist group would rid local politics of sleaze.
Hamas seized control of the more conservative Gaza Strip in June after violent clashes with Fatah, prompting President Mahmoud Abbas to sack the government and appoint a new Fatah-backed administration.
Despite a new U.S.-led drive for peace with Israel, the internal strife and the split between Gaza and the West Bank has for most Palestinians jettisoned hopes for an independent Palestinian state, at least for now.
"In the absence of alternatives, they turn to God for spiritual stability and security," said Mahmoud Habbash, agriculture minister in the West Bank's Fatah-backed government.
(Additional reporting by Wael al-Ahmad in Jenin and Atef Saad in Nablus)
Reuters
Tuesday, October 2, 2007; 8:54 PM
RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) - Five years ago restaurants in Ramallah would stay open all day and serve beer throughout Ramadan. This year virtually all removed alcohol from the menu completely and many closed during the fasting hours.
The change highlights what some see as a trend: faced with a sluggish economy, infighting between rival factions and low hopes for peace with Israel and a state of their own, thousands of Palestinians seem to be turning to God.
The evidence is patchy and anecdotal, and for some there is a hint of coercion. But 24-year-old Huda, who declined to give her last name, said her friends could hardly believe it when, as a liberal young Palestinian woman, she decided to observe the fast.
"I'm not a fanatic but I have some religious feelings inside me and I wanted to try fasting this year," she said. "My friends are astonished at this sudden change."
Not all Palestinians have turned religious -- indeed what many see as the politicization of Islam by the factions, whose warfare in the Gaza Strip gave Hamas control of the enclave in June, is driving some away from mosques.
But university professor Marwan Abu Khalaf, 50, says the number of young men attending the mosque next door to his house has grown steadily.
"I have prayed regularly for the past 10 years and I can say there has been a rise of about 25 percent in the number of young men who come to pray," Abu Khalaf told Reuters.
In traditionally conservative West Bank cities like Hebron, Qalqilya or Tulkarm women have generally worn headscarves. But some say the rise of Hamas in the Gaza Strip and in large West Bank cities like Nablus has prompted more women to wear veils and men to grow beards.
In Ramallah -- the West Bank's economic hub and for years a thriving secular city -- some women are adopting more modest dress. Fewer wear short skirts or sleeveless shirts in central Ramallah while more also don a headscarf and long robes.
"Women who do wear short skirts feel out of place or are harassed by comments from men on the streets," said Eman Hammouri, director of the city's Popular Arts Centre.
DEEPENING FAITH
Both Fatah and Hamas are trying to exploit Palestinians' new-found piety for their own gain. Hamas has used mosques and schools to spread its political views while Fatah has been using Friday prayers in the Gaza Strip to protest against Hamas' rule.
Some Palestinians say militant groups are using religion as an excuse to force their will on people.
Osama Khalaf, owner of Darna, one of Ramallah's best known and most fashionable restaurants, said he stopped serving alcohol during Ramadan for fear of retaliation by secular armed groups using religion as an excuse to throw their weight around.
Khalaf said both Muslim and Christian West Bankers, who make up about 2 percent of Palestinians, were becoming more religious amid tougher living conditions. Crucifixes are worn more widely and church attendance appears up.
"Not only the Muslims are becoming more religious," Khalaf said. "But the Christian minority are also adhering much more strictly to Christianity as a reaction to the more religious environment around them."
INFIGHTING
Last month, a woman wearing the hijab and covering her face with a black veil in a doctor's waiting room shouted at the secretary for watching Arab music videos on television -- many Muslims consider such material to be prohibited by Islam.
"This has never happened before in my clinic," said the doctor, who asked to remain anonymous.
Some analysts said a new sense of despair may have prompted more Palestinians to seek comfort in religion.
Fed up with corruption within the secular Fatah faction that for decades dominated the political scene, Palestinians elected a Hamas government in 2006 parliamentary elections, hoping the Islamist group would rid local politics of sleaze.
Hamas seized control of the more conservative Gaza Strip in June after violent clashes with Fatah, prompting President Mahmoud Abbas to sack the government and appoint a new Fatah-backed administration.
Despite a new U.S.-led drive for peace with Israel, the internal strife and the split between Gaza and the West Bank has for most Palestinians jettisoned hopes for an independent Palestinian state, at least for now.
"In the absence of alternatives, they turn to God for spiritual stability and security," said Mahmoud Habbash, agriculture minister in the West Bank's Fatah-backed government.
(Additional reporting by Wael al-Ahmad in Jenin and Atef Saad in Nablus)
Op-Ed: Iran, Sexuality, and Intercultural Dialogue
From the Columbia Spectator
By OMAR SARWAR
PUBLISHED SEPTEMBER 26, 2007
During his speech on Monday, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad parried many of our direct questions concerning his denial of the Holocaust, his desire to destroy the state of Israel, and his government’s pursuit of nuclear technology. However, he spoke clearly, if rather inaccurately, about the issue of homosexuality: “In Iran, we do not have this phenomenon.” His remarks evoked laughter in the audience. But our amusement pointed to a lack of reflection on whether such a response is underpinned by certain cultural assumptions with which we in the West have yet to fully grapple.
Of course, it is plainly untrue that there are no homosexuals in Iran. Though part of a minority, some Iranians view themselves as queer, have advanced the cause of gay rights, and have consequently had to endure the persecution of their government. The Iranian Queer Organization (IRQO) is one manifestation of the efforts of queer Iranians to promote social justice under the banner of international human and gay rights. What we seem to have neglected are the historical significance and cultural specificity of our use of the terms “homosexual” and “queer” in describing same-sex desire and practice. What does it mean to posit that homosexuality has persisted throughout human history? With respect to Iran, do all or most Iranians who experience same-sex desire consider themselves “gay?” Does a history of sexuality in Persia reveal a “gay” identity as we understand it in modern times, one which is at once defended in the name of privacy and publicly expressed through a variety of symbols, images, and accouterments? Our own Professor Joseph Massad would reply in the negative. In his recent book, Desiring Arabs, Massad argues that civilizational worth and sexual desire have been closely interconnected in Orientalist thought, that the category of the “homosexual” is part of the culturally specific vocabulary of international gay rights organizations (the “Gay International”), and that nationalist and Islamist Arab intellectuals have assimilated distinctly European conceptions of the human since the nineteenth century.
Although Massad concentrates on the interface between Europe and the Arab world, his remains a broad commentary on the manner in which a particular penetrative Western discourse has interlaced sexuality, gay rights, human rights, Orientalist convictions, and social Darwinism in confronting the question of same-sex desire and practice in the non-Western world. He avers that “it is the very discourse of the Gay International, which both produces homosexuals, as well as gays and lesbians, where they do not exist.” For Massad, this discourse is oppressive because it brands those who pursue same-sex practices but resist universalist terminology as “homophobic” and because it rigidifies a heterosexual-homosexual binary, a potent tool for state repression.
I mention Massad’s work to underscore the possibility that many Iranians (and many non-Westerners in general) might conceive of sexuality in non-identitarian, non-universalist terms. These conceptions may take a range of forms, some of which betoken a dialectic between religious revivalism and Western norms, particularly in the context of the history of the modern Middle East. A denial of “homosexuality,” then, may indicate not an irrational refusal to accept the fact of same-sex desire and practice but rather a repudiation of a homogenizing albeit culturally distinct discourse on sexuality. I am not suggesting that Ahmadinejad’s curt answer to the question of the persecution of homosexuals evinces such complex considerations. And I personally do not endorse punishing or killing people for their sexual desires and practices irrespective of the historicity and multiplicity of the language employed to articulate these things. Nonetheless, President Ahmadinejad is not the sole representative or arbiter of the aspirations of the Iranian people, with whom we must engage in constructive dialogue on questions of sexuality. It will not suffice to presuppose that Iranians already conduct their sexuality in identitarian, universalist language or that, if they do not, they can somehow be benevolently (or peremptorily) taught how to do so. It is only by maintaining open lines of communication with the Iranians (and other peoples) that we can begin to understand what we share as human beings and what differentiates us. This will be the least we can do if we claim to be more tolerant and compassionate than the present Iranian government.
The author is a history Ph.D. student in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.
By OMAR SARWAR
PUBLISHED SEPTEMBER 26, 2007
During his speech on Monday, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad parried many of our direct questions concerning his denial of the Holocaust, his desire to destroy the state of Israel, and his government’s pursuit of nuclear technology. However, he spoke clearly, if rather inaccurately, about the issue of homosexuality: “In Iran, we do not have this phenomenon.” His remarks evoked laughter in the audience. But our amusement pointed to a lack of reflection on whether such a response is underpinned by certain cultural assumptions with which we in the West have yet to fully grapple.
Of course, it is plainly untrue that there are no homosexuals in Iran. Though part of a minority, some Iranians view themselves as queer, have advanced the cause of gay rights, and have consequently had to endure the persecution of their government. The Iranian Queer Organization (IRQO) is one manifestation of the efforts of queer Iranians to promote social justice under the banner of international human and gay rights. What we seem to have neglected are the historical significance and cultural specificity of our use of the terms “homosexual” and “queer” in describing same-sex desire and practice. What does it mean to posit that homosexuality has persisted throughout human history? With respect to Iran, do all or most Iranians who experience same-sex desire consider themselves “gay?” Does a history of sexuality in Persia reveal a “gay” identity as we understand it in modern times, one which is at once defended in the name of privacy and publicly expressed through a variety of symbols, images, and accouterments? Our own Professor Joseph Massad would reply in the negative. In his recent book, Desiring Arabs, Massad argues that civilizational worth and sexual desire have been closely interconnected in Orientalist thought, that the category of the “homosexual” is part of the culturally specific vocabulary of international gay rights organizations (the “Gay International”), and that nationalist and Islamist Arab intellectuals have assimilated distinctly European conceptions of the human since the nineteenth century.
Although Massad concentrates on the interface between Europe and the Arab world, his remains a broad commentary on the manner in which a particular penetrative Western discourse has interlaced sexuality, gay rights, human rights, Orientalist convictions, and social Darwinism in confronting the question of same-sex desire and practice in the non-Western world. He avers that “it is the very discourse of the Gay International, which both produces homosexuals, as well as gays and lesbians, where they do not exist.” For Massad, this discourse is oppressive because it brands those who pursue same-sex practices but resist universalist terminology as “homophobic” and because it rigidifies a heterosexual-homosexual binary, a potent tool for state repression.
I mention Massad’s work to underscore the possibility that many Iranians (and many non-Westerners in general) might conceive of sexuality in non-identitarian, non-universalist terms. These conceptions may take a range of forms, some of which betoken a dialectic between religious revivalism and Western norms, particularly in the context of the history of the modern Middle East. A denial of “homosexuality,” then, may indicate not an irrational refusal to accept the fact of same-sex desire and practice but rather a repudiation of a homogenizing albeit culturally distinct discourse on sexuality. I am not suggesting that Ahmadinejad’s curt answer to the question of the persecution of homosexuals evinces such complex considerations. And I personally do not endorse punishing or killing people for their sexual desires and practices irrespective of the historicity and multiplicity of the language employed to articulate these things. Nonetheless, President Ahmadinejad is not the sole representative or arbiter of the aspirations of the Iranian people, with whom we must engage in constructive dialogue on questions of sexuality. It will not suffice to presuppose that Iranians already conduct their sexuality in identitarian, universalist language or that, if they do not, they can somehow be benevolently (or peremptorily) taught how to do so. It is only by maintaining open lines of communication with the Iranians (and other peoples) that we can begin to understand what we share as human beings and what differentiates us. This will be the least we can do if we claim to be more tolerant and compassionate than the present Iranian government.
The author is a history Ph.D. student in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.
NPR Story: Homosexuality in Muslim World Shrouded in Secrecy
Homosexuality in Muslim World Shrouded in Secrecy
Talk about homosexuality and Islam on "Blog of the Nation." Talk of the Nation, October 2, 2007 · In an address to an audience at Columbia University last week, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stated that homosexuality does not exist in Iran. The comment prompted derisive laughter from his audience and put a spotlight on the hostile treatment of gays and lesbians in the Muslim world.
Parvez Sharma, the filmmaker behind the documentary A Jihad for Love, discusses the underground world of homosexuality in Muslim countries. Filmed in 12 countries and nine languages, the documentary profiles men and women who struggle daily against persecution, danger and social isolation.
Tuesday, October 02, 2007
NYTimes.com: In Jews, Indian-Americans See a Role Model in Activism
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Op-Eds: Ahmadinejad’s homosexual-free Iran; Islamic Bigotry: The Slaughter of 4,000 Gays
Ahmadinejad’s homosexual-free Iran
By PAUL SCHNEIDEREIT
IRANIAN President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, I think it’s fair to say, has a slight credibility problem.
During his recent, much-publicized speech at New York’s Columbia University, Ahmadinejad couldn’t have appeared any more foolish, even if he had insisted the moon was made of cheese or that babies came from storks, than when he denied that homosexuality existed in his country.
But is the man merely ignorant, or did his position reflect a subtext of menace?
Certainly, Ahmadinejad is broadly seen as an intellectual featherweight among Iranians. The writer of one Iranian blog, Adventures of Mr. Behi, applies the Persian proverb "This coat is too big for you," (meaning a person isn’t up to the job) to the Iranian president, who has made a number of bizarre statements during his two years in office. Remember the "rim of light" Ahmadinejad claimed surrounded him when he spoke at the UN in 2006? Another Iranian blogger, who authors View from Iran, notes they’ve encountered others in the country who believe no gays exist there, so perhaps Ahmadinejad really believes such nonsense.
Continued...
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Islamic Bigotry: The Slaughter of 4,000 Gays
By Robert Spencer
FrontPageMagazine.com | Tuesday, October 02, 2007
At Columbia University on Monday, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared: “We don’t have homosexuals like in your country. We don’t have that in our country. We don’t have this phenomenon; I don’t know who’s told you we have it.”
Continued...
By PAUL SCHNEIDEREIT
IRANIAN President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, I think it’s fair to say, has a slight credibility problem.
During his recent, much-publicized speech at New York’s Columbia University, Ahmadinejad couldn’t have appeared any more foolish, even if he had insisted the moon was made of cheese or that babies came from storks, than when he denied that homosexuality existed in his country.
But is the man merely ignorant, or did his position reflect a subtext of menace?
Certainly, Ahmadinejad is broadly seen as an intellectual featherweight among Iranians. The writer of one Iranian blog, Adventures of Mr. Behi, applies the Persian proverb "This coat is too big for you," (meaning a person isn’t up to the job) to the Iranian president, who has made a number of bizarre statements during his two years in office. Remember the "rim of light" Ahmadinejad claimed surrounded him when he spoke at the UN in 2006? Another Iranian blogger, who authors View from Iran, notes they’ve encountered others in the country who believe no gays exist there, so perhaps Ahmadinejad really believes such nonsense.
Continued...
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Islamic Bigotry: The Slaughter of 4,000 Gays
By Robert Spencer
FrontPageMagazine.com | Tuesday, October 02, 2007
At Columbia University on Monday, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared: “We don’t have homosexuals like in your country. We don’t have that in our country. We don’t have this phenomenon; I don’t know who’s told you we have it.”
Continued...
Columbia Students and Iranian Academics Respond to Bolinger
Vivian Salama
USA/Middle East
Vivian Salama is an award winning foreign correspondent, producer and blogger. She has reported for various publications from across the Middle East, Sub-Saharan Africa, the Balkans, the United States and most recently, North and South Korea. She has also appeared as a commentator on the BBC, South African Broadcasting Corp., NPR and as a reporter for Voice of America radio. Salama is currently based in her native New York City where she is wrapping up a masters degree at Columbia University, reporting, producing and lecturing at Rutgers University.
Columbia Students and Iranian Academics Respond to Bolinger
Even though Ahmedinejad fever is dying down in the mainstream media, students at Columbia University have not forgotten the blistering introductory remarks their university President Lee Bollinger delivered on Monday.
A petition is now circulating among students that calls on Bollinger to explain and apologize for his "inflammatory" remarks ahead of Iranian President Ahmedinejad’s speech. In the letter, students insist Bollinger "disgraced the spirit of academic exchange and diplomacy that this institution promotes."
They also say the comments limited their ability to benefit from such a rare opportunity, adding "it is particularly distressing that [Bollinger's] inflammatory words were delivered at a time when dialogue with Iran is of the utmost importance in an effort to forestall war."
Criticism of Bollinger's remarks extends to the far reaches of the globe. Regardless of their views towards Ahmedinejad, many have said that Bollinger -- an expert in free speech and the First Amendment -- should not have imposed his personal views (or the views of those against inviting Ahmedinejad) in a forum that claims to promote open academic discourse.
In his introduction Monday afternoon at Columbia's World Leaders Forum, Bollinger slammed the Iranian leader for displaying "all the signs of a petty and cruel dictator." He accused the Islamic Republic of serving as a "state sponsor of terrorism" and a supporter of "well-documented terrorist organizations that continue to strike at peace and democracy in the Middle East."
Since the event, a rebuttal has circulated online from ten Iranian academics demanding that Bollinger answer questions of a similar nature to those he asked Ahmedinejad during his visit. Some of the questions asked by these academics are as follows:
- Why, in 1953, did the US administration overthrow the Iran's national government under Dr Mohammad Mosaddegh and go on to support the Shah's dictatorship?
- Why did the US support the blood-thirsty dictator Saddam Hussein during the 1980-88 Iraqi-imposed war on Iran, considering his reckless use of chemical weapons against Iranian soldiers defending their land and even against his own people?
- Why did the US oppose the plan for a Middle East free of unconventional weapons in the recent session of the International Atomic Energy Agency Board of Governors despite the fact the move won the support of all members other than Israel?
Meanwhile Columbia students, who emphasize that Ahmedinejad is "president of a sovereign nation," insist that regardless of the public's views toward the Iranian leader, the speech delivered by the Unviersity President was "a disservice to [the] academic community."
Partying despite risks -- life for gays in Tehran
From Reuters
Partying despite risks -- life for gays in Tehran
Tue Oct 2, 2007 6:16am EDT
By Fredrik Dahl
TEHRAN (Reuters) - As a young gay male living in Tehran, Babak is a direct challenge to remarks by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in New York last week that there are no homosexuals in the Islamic Republic.
From a relatively well-off background in affluent northern Tehran and sporting an earring and trendy clothes, Babak (not his real name) talked to Reuters about the president's statement and life as a homosexual in Iran.
Homosexual acts are a crime punishable by death under Iran's Islamic sharia law, and the 29-year-old spoke on condition of anonymity and that his work not be mentioned. Instead, a common Iranian first name has been used for this article.
Q: How did you react to Ahmadinejad's statement at Columbia University on September 24?
A: It was too ridiculous for me to get angry or upset about. This kind of thing just makes people laugh. I talked to friends about it. Nobody is angry. They expect that from him. We don't exist for him. At least he attracted international interest about homosexuality in Iran. Now if they do something about homosexuals, people in the world will be more sensitive about it.
Q: What message would you like to give him if you had the chance?
A: I would just want to tell him that he is representing a country. When he says something he must be aware of what is happening in the country ... How is it possible (that there are no homosexuals in a nation with 70 million people) with this huge population?
Q: How is the situation for homosexuals in Iran?
A: It can be good if you have the chance to go out of the country (for holidays), if you have lots of friends. There are lots of private parties. I go to many parties. (But) these days ... the restrictions are more serious. People don't dare to have big parties. The parties are smaller.
Q: So when was the last time you went to a gay party in Tehran?
A: Last Thursday.
Q: Are there many homosexuals here?
A: The gay community is very big in Tehran ... it is getting bigger and bigger. I know about 300-400 people at least. People are more interested to come out and meet each other than before. Fifteen years ago it was so private, just a few friends. A new generation, younger than me, have more courage. They are everywhere, they organize parties, they are not at all conservative. You can see them everywhere. They don't care if they are obvious. They just want to live their life free.
Q: You are not afraid?
A: Not really ... I don't go to places where I don't feel safe. I'm very social and supported by my family. I've had no problems ... except legally we have no rights. I live freely but that is not possible for other people.
Q: Are people arrested because they are homosexuals? Are they sentenced to lashes or death?
A: It happens from time to time. They (the authorities) use some other reason, like rape or sodomy.
Q: Your parents know that you are homosexual. What did they say?
A: Of course they were very worried because of this country.
Q: When did you realize you were gay?
A: When I was 13.
Q: When did you have your first boyfriend?
A: At 15.
Q: Do you have a boyfriend now?
A: No ... I'm just enjoying life.
Q: Have you ever thought about leaving Iran?
A: I can go out of Iran anytime I like.
Partying despite risks -- life for gays in Tehran
Tue Oct 2, 2007 6:16am EDT
By Fredrik Dahl
TEHRAN (Reuters) - As a young gay male living in Tehran, Babak is a direct challenge to remarks by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in New York last week that there are no homosexuals in the Islamic Republic.
From a relatively well-off background in affluent northern Tehran and sporting an earring and trendy clothes, Babak (not his real name) talked to Reuters about the president's statement and life as a homosexual in Iran.
Homosexual acts are a crime punishable by death under Iran's Islamic sharia law, and the 29-year-old spoke on condition of anonymity and that his work not be mentioned. Instead, a common Iranian first name has been used for this article.
Q: How did you react to Ahmadinejad's statement at Columbia University on September 24?
A: It was too ridiculous for me to get angry or upset about. This kind of thing just makes people laugh. I talked to friends about it. Nobody is angry. They expect that from him. We don't exist for him. At least he attracted international interest about homosexuality in Iran. Now if they do something about homosexuals, people in the world will be more sensitive about it.
Q: What message would you like to give him if you had the chance?
A: I would just want to tell him that he is representing a country. When he says something he must be aware of what is happening in the country ... How is it possible (that there are no homosexuals in a nation with 70 million people) with this huge population?
Q: How is the situation for homosexuals in Iran?
A: It can be good if you have the chance to go out of the country (for holidays), if you have lots of friends. There are lots of private parties. I go to many parties. (But) these days ... the restrictions are more serious. People don't dare to have big parties. The parties are smaller.
Q: So when was the last time you went to a gay party in Tehran?
A: Last Thursday.
Q: Are there many homosexuals here?
A: The gay community is very big in Tehran ... it is getting bigger and bigger. I know about 300-400 people at least. People are more interested to come out and meet each other than before. Fifteen years ago it was so private, just a few friends. A new generation, younger than me, have more courage. They are everywhere, they organize parties, they are not at all conservative. You can see them everywhere. They don't care if they are obvious. They just want to live their life free.
Q: You are not afraid?
A: Not really ... I don't go to places where I don't feel safe. I'm very social and supported by my family. I've had no problems ... except legally we have no rights. I live freely but that is not possible for other people.
Q: Are people arrested because they are homosexuals? Are they sentenced to lashes or death?
A: It happens from time to time. They (the authorities) use some other reason, like rape or sodomy.
Q: Your parents know that you are homosexual. What did they say?
A: Of course they were very worried because of this country.
Q: When did you realize you were gay?
A: When I was 13.
Q: When did you have your first boyfriend?
A: At 15.
Q: Do you have a boyfriend now?
A: No ... I'm just enjoying life.
Q: Have you ever thought about leaving Iran?
A: I can go out of Iran anytime I like.
Parvez Sharma & Jihad for Love on CNN
Interview with Parvez Sharma on CNN's Screening Room. See 5:11 minutes into the segment.
The Queerest Denial - Op-Ed from the Wall Street Journal
From the Wall Street Journal
Ahmadinejad says there are no gays in Iran.
BY BRET STEPHENS
Tuesday, October 2, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDT
The Islamic Republic of Iran has been doing a brisk business in harassing, entrapping, lashing, imprisoning and executing homosexuals since nearly the moment it came to power in 1979, with little notice in the West beyond the occasional human-rights report. So when Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made the startling claim at Columbia University last week that "we do not have homosexuals in Iran like you do in your country," it offered what could have been a learning opportunity to those who think Iran is just another misunderstood regime with an equally misunderstood president.
Such wishful thinking. The Democratic Party's presidential hopefuls spent a fair bit of time Wednesday night debating what to do about Iran, without once mentioning Ahmadinejad's peculiar world view. These are the same debaters who in August went before a gay audience to denounce Bush administration policies as "demeaning" and "degrading" toward gays. In the Nation--a magazine that excoriated Ronald Reagan upon his passing for his "inaction and bigotry against gays"--editor Katrina vanden Heuvel has nothing to say about the subject either. Instead, she devotes her latest column to denouncing last week's symbolic Senate vote to designate Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps as a terrorist organization.
In the Guardian, another crusading voice from the left on gay rights, foreign-affairs columnist Martin Woollacott lambastes Columbia's president Lee Bollinger for his "mean-spirited" remarks to the Iranian president, which he takes as an indication that "it is still difficult to suggest that Iran has arguments and interests worth considering on their merits." But again, no mention of Mr. Ahmadinejad's attitude toward gays, much less its "merits." And on "progressive" Web sites like Democratic Underground, there are earnest debates about exactly what Mr. Ahmadinejad meant by the word "like," as if he were merely making an academic cultural comparison rather than denying the existence of an entire category of his own citizens.
Long gone are the days when people spoke of the love that dare not speak its name. We are now living in the era of the hate-that-dare-not-be-spoken-about--lest disingenuous neocons use Mr. Ahmadinejad's unfortunate pronouncements to cut off dialogue and beat the drums for war. But if one side of the political spectrum is not to be trusted to discuss the subject, and the other side simply won't, who will?
For that, turn to a revealing and moving documentary by Indian-born journalist Parvez Sharma called "A Jihad for Love," which he describes as a "discussion about Islam through its most unlikely storytellers." Mr. Sharma (who is very far from being a conservative of any kind) spent six years filming his subjects on four continents: They include a gay imam in South Africa, a lesbian couple in Istanbul, an Egyptian who spent a year in prison for being gay before fleeing to Paris, and four young men who fled Iran for their lives and now live as political refugees in Canada.
The documentary is notable for its depiction of the tenacity with which its subjects hold on to their faith despite the wall of bigotry, often homicidal, that confronts them. Nowhere is that seen more vividly than in the plight of the Iranians. Take Arsham Parsi, 27, a subject of Mr. Sharma's who now runs the Iranian Queer Organization (irqo.net) from Toronto. In 2001, he says in a phone interview, "two of my close friends committed suicide because of the bad situation for queer people." Their deaths galvanized him to begin a gay and lesbian support group, conducted furtively and electronically, consisting largely of articles on gay-related subjects from English language sources. The enterprise grew to include six separate electronic magazines. "We used to think we were alone in the world," Mr. Parsi says. "With these magazines, we knew we were not."
In fact, homosexuality has a particularly rich history in Iran--the Qajar dynasty's Nasseruddin Shah, a contemporary of Queen Victoria and ruler of Iran for nearly 50 years, took a Kurdish boy named Malijak as his lifelong lover. It is hardly less present in contemporary Iran, not just in the parks of Tehran but the seminaries of Qom. But Mr. Parsi's activism put him at particular risk. "The police use the Internet to make undercover arrests," he says. "They'll write to say 'I am looking for a partner,' entrap someone, and use their correspondence as evidence." That was the fate of friends of Mr. Parsi, who in 2003 were sentenced to 100 lashes in the space of an hour, and it would have been his, too, had he not fled Iran on word he was about to be arrested.
From Toronto, Mr. Parsi works on asylum cases and continues to publish a newsletter called Cheraq ("Light"), which reaches about 3,000 readers in Iran. Yesterday, it published a selection of letters to Mr. Ahmadinejad by gay Iranians.
"I pray that some false note in the divine composition has you fathering a gay offspring so that the hammer that you've raised over our heads comes down on your very own," writes one. "I recommend you partake in the first Iranian gay Pride parade so you can see for yourself that it will be more glorious and more populated than your Quds day or annual revolution commemoration day parades," writes another, adding that a gay parade would be attended voluntarily, in contrast to "a bunch of schoolchildren and innocent peasants who have been forced to show up to punch the 'world oppressors' in the mouth."
All of this ought to be evidence that, when it comes to the Iranian regime, the gap between bad neocons and pure-of-heart progressives ought to be no more than tactical: This is, ultimately, a regime that needs to go. Not so. Mr. Sharma, for instance, rails in the Huffington Post against the "the Good-vs.-Evil caricature" that he says prevails in Western attitudes toward Iran.
Mr. Sharma is a gifted filmmaker, but his politics remind me of the Socratic observation that poets are poor judges of their own work. Or how else is one supposed to view the scene he captures of Mr. Parsi at last arriving in Toronto and weeping both for the freedom he has gained and his friends still trapped in Islamist captivity? Is it a testament that there is no meaningful difference between free and unfree, Bushworld and Ahmadinejadland? Take that view seriously, and you wind up taking the notion of gay rights, and human rights, too lightly for anyone's good.
Mr. Stephens is a member of The Wall Street Journal's editorial board. His column appears in the Journal Tuesdays.
Ahmadinejad says there are no gays in Iran.
BY BRET STEPHENS
Tuesday, October 2, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDT
The Islamic Republic of Iran has been doing a brisk business in harassing, entrapping, lashing, imprisoning and executing homosexuals since nearly the moment it came to power in 1979, with little notice in the West beyond the occasional human-rights report. So when Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made the startling claim at Columbia University last week that "we do not have homosexuals in Iran like you do in your country," it offered what could have been a learning opportunity to those who think Iran is just another misunderstood regime with an equally misunderstood president.
Such wishful thinking. The Democratic Party's presidential hopefuls spent a fair bit of time Wednesday night debating what to do about Iran, without once mentioning Ahmadinejad's peculiar world view. These are the same debaters who in August went before a gay audience to denounce Bush administration policies as "demeaning" and "degrading" toward gays. In the Nation--a magazine that excoriated Ronald Reagan upon his passing for his "inaction and bigotry against gays"--editor Katrina vanden Heuvel has nothing to say about the subject either. Instead, she devotes her latest column to denouncing last week's symbolic Senate vote to designate Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps as a terrorist organization.
In the Guardian, another crusading voice from the left on gay rights, foreign-affairs columnist Martin Woollacott lambastes Columbia's president Lee Bollinger for his "mean-spirited" remarks to the Iranian president, which he takes as an indication that "it is still difficult to suggest that Iran has arguments and interests worth considering on their merits." But again, no mention of Mr. Ahmadinejad's attitude toward gays, much less its "merits." And on "progressive" Web sites like Democratic Underground, there are earnest debates about exactly what Mr. Ahmadinejad meant by the word "like," as if he were merely making an academic cultural comparison rather than denying the existence of an entire category of his own citizens.
Long gone are the days when people spoke of the love that dare not speak its name. We are now living in the era of the hate-that-dare-not-be-spoken-about--lest disingenuous neocons use Mr. Ahmadinejad's unfortunate pronouncements to cut off dialogue and beat the drums for war. But if one side of the political spectrum is not to be trusted to discuss the subject, and the other side simply won't, who will?
For that, turn to a revealing and moving documentary by Indian-born journalist Parvez Sharma called "A Jihad for Love," which he describes as a "discussion about Islam through its most unlikely storytellers." Mr. Sharma (who is very far from being a conservative of any kind) spent six years filming his subjects on four continents: They include a gay imam in South Africa, a lesbian couple in Istanbul, an Egyptian who spent a year in prison for being gay before fleeing to Paris, and four young men who fled Iran for their lives and now live as political refugees in Canada.
The documentary is notable for its depiction of the tenacity with which its subjects hold on to their faith despite the wall of bigotry, often homicidal, that confronts them. Nowhere is that seen more vividly than in the plight of the Iranians. Take Arsham Parsi, 27, a subject of Mr. Sharma's who now runs the Iranian Queer Organization (irqo.net) from Toronto. In 2001, he says in a phone interview, "two of my close friends committed suicide because of the bad situation for queer people." Their deaths galvanized him to begin a gay and lesbian support group, conducted furtively and electronically, consisting largely of articles on gay-related subjects from English language sources. The enterprise grew to include six separate electronic magazines. "We used to think we were alone in the world," Mr. Parsi says. "With these magazines, we knew we were not."
In fact, homosexuality has a particularly rich history in Iran--the Qajar dynasty's Nasseruddin Shah, a contemporary of Queen Victoria and ruler of Iran for nearly 50 years, took a Kurdish boy named Malijak as his lifelong lover. It is hardly less present in contemporary Iran, not just in the parks of Tehran but the seminaries of Qom. But Mr. Parsi's activism put him at particular risk. "The police use the Internet to make undercover arrests," he says. "They'll write to say 'I am looking for a partner,' entrap someone, and use their correspondence as evidence." That was the fate of friends of Mr. Parsi, who in 2003 were sentenced to 100 lashes in the space of an hour, and it would have been his, too, had he not fled Iran on word he was about to be arrested.
From Toronto, Mr. Parsi works on asylum cases and continues to publish a newsletter called Cheraq ("Light"), which reaches about 3,000 readers in Iran. Yesterday, it published a selection of letters to Mr. Ahmadinejad by gay Iranians.
"I pray that some false note in the divine composition has you fathering a gay offspring so that the hammer that you've raised over our heads comes down on your very own," writes one. "I recommend you partake in the first Iranian gay Pride parade so you can see for yourself that it will be more glorious and more populated than your Quds day or annual revolution commemoration day parades," writes another, adding that a gay parade would be attended voluntarily, in contrast to "a bunch of schoolchildren and innocent peasants who have been forced to show up to punch the 'world oppressors' in the mouth."
All of this ought to be evidence that, when it comes to the Iranian regime, the gap between bad neocons and pure-of-heart progressives ought to be no more than tactical: This is, ultimately, a regime that needs to go. Not so. Mr. Sharma, for instance, rails in the Huffington Post against the "the Good-vs.-Evil caricature" that he says prevails in Western attitudes toward Iran.
Mr. Sharma is a gifted filmmaker, but his politics remind me of the Socratic observation that poets are poor judges of their own work. Or how else is one supposed to view the scene he captures of Mr. Parsi at last arriving in Toronto and weeping both for the freedom he has gained and his friends still trapped in Islamist captivity? Is it a testament that there is no meaningful difference between free and unfree, Bushworld and Ahmadinejadland? Take that view seriously, and you wind up taking the notion of gay rights, and human rights, too lightly for anyone's good.
Mr. Stephens is a member of The Wall Street Journal's editorial board. His column appears in the Journal Tuesdays.
NPR Story: Homosexuality in Muslim World Shrouded in Secrecy
Talk of the Nation, October 2, 2007 · In an address to an audience at Columbia University last week, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stated that homosexuality does not exist in Iran. The comment prompted derisive laughter from his audience and put a spotlight on the hostile treatment of gays and lesbians in the Muslim world.
Parvez Sharma, the filmmaker behind the documentary A Jihad for Love, discusses the underground world of homosexuality in Muslim countries. Filmed in 12 countries and nine languages, the documentary profiles men and women who struggle daily against persecution, danger and social isolation.
CBC in Canada Interviews Parvez Sharma
From Parvez Sharma's blog:
"The charismatic and hugely popular George Stroumboulopoulos of the CBC in Canada has me on tonight at 10 pm Eastern and also playing right now on the show's website. I wish CBC was available to viewers in the US (but then neither is al-Arabiya-not easily anyway)-but George is an extremely engaging man with a profound intellect."
Please watch at:
Parvez Sharma: A Gay Indian Muslim exploring Islam and Homosexuality
"The charismatic and hugely popular George Stroumboulopoulos of the CBC in Canada has me on tonight at 10 pm Eastern and also playing right now on the show's website. I wish CBC was available to viewers in the US (but then neither is al-Arabiya-not easily anyway)-but George is an extremely engaging man with a profound intellect."
Please watch at:
Parvez Sharma: A Gay Indian Muslim exploring Islam and Homosexuality
Parvez Sharma Blogs About the Ahmadenijad Controversey
Not particularly blessed with the dashing good looks I associate with so many Iranian men, the president's refusal to wear the illegal tie (that great symbol of Western imperialism) with his suits gives him at least that "air of debonair," as an Iranian homosexual friend of mine pointed out (Being particularly randy, my friend admits to having a secret crush on the president. I look at him speechlessly, and blame it on the Iranian national condition of taarof).
Continued...
Monday, October 01, 2007
My Jihad, in America and Beyond (by Parvez Sharma)
My Jihad, in America and Beyond - by Parvez Sharma
Talking about a life left behind in Iran, my friend had tears in his eyes. But also a steely resolve that one day he would be back. He also reminded me that a Basij -- a member of the volunteer force of religious vigilantes or guardians of morality, thoughtfully supplied by the powers that are -- had openly expressed a desire to be with him and they had gone home together, not too far from Vali Asr Avenue, and spent a night of passion, the likes of which he has never had since, in each other's arms.
Given the national obsession with Hafez and his poetry, whose homoeroticism many have claimed and studied, I have always felt that the young gentleman who found passion in the park speaks to me in beautiful Farsi, almost in haiku. His language gives him the facility to always sound like he is speaking in poetry. I also assume that President Ahmadi Nejad has probably not wandered into those dark corners of Daneshju Park, a park not that different from the Rambles in the heart of New York, or Nehru Park in Delhi, where I grew up. All of these hidden spaces have been the dark and often depressing settings for so many of us seeking to meet others like us: "homosexuals," in any of the contexts we have existed in.
Many that speak about Ahmadi Nejad and his histrionics have unfortunately not studied Iran's complex, post-1979 history. Vali Asr, a religiously appropriate name chosen for the longest avenue in all of Iran, used to be called Pahlavi Avenue. It was renamed as quickly as the despotic Pahlavi family, Iran's ill-fated ruling dynasty of the time, was consigned to the dustbin of history. This expeditious renaming continued for a generation as the Islamic Republic we know today came to be. On that fateful day of February 1st, 1979, the Ayatollah with the penetrating eyes, the marja al-taqlid (source of imitation) arrived on a plane. He, like the British, the Russians and indeed many before them, laid claim to the soul of an ancient civilization that had been coveted by so many, for so long. This latest invader, however, came from within.
Continued...
A Tale of Two Theocracies
From the Advocate.com
September 27, 2007 In the wake of the absurd remarks by Iran president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, political writer David Rhea explores how yesterday’s Axis of Evil became today’s soul mate in morality.
By David Rhea
An Advocate.com exclusive posted September 27, 2007
Very little that happens in this perplexing world truly rates as surprising anymore. Yet Monday’s remarks by Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at Columbia University stunned just about everyone who heard them.
According to Ahmadinejad, gay people simply do not exist in Iran. Gays are a mere “phenomenon” that occurs, he suggests, only in Western culture. It reminds me of former first mother Lillian Carter's assertion a couple of decades ago that gays also don’t exist in Georgia, which one could excuse somewhat as age and the faultless ignorance of the times and culture in which she was raised.
While Ahmadinejad may have a cultural void in common with dear Miss Lillian, he certainly cannot attribute any portion of his ignorance to the times or to age.
Article continued...
Despite Denials, Gays Insist They Exist, if Quietly, in Iran
From the New York Times
September 30, 2007
Despite Denials, Gays Insist They Exist, if Quietly, in Iran
By NAZILA FATHI
TEHRAN, Sept. 29 — When Reza, a 29-year-old Iranian, heard that his president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, had denied in New York that homosexuals were in Iran, he was shocked but not surprised. Reza knows the truth. He is gay.
Leaning back in his black leather desk chair at home in Tehran, he said there were, in fact, plenty of gay men and women in Iran. The difference between their lives and those of gays in Europe and North America is one of recognition and legitimacy.
“You can have a secret gay life as long you don’t become an activist and start demanding rights,” he said, speaking on the condition that his family name not be used because he feared retribution.
Reza, who shaves his head and often wears an earring in his left ear, has lived in Europe extensively. Gay life in Iran, he said, “is just complicated in the same way that it is for other groups, like workers and feminists, who don’t have many rights.”
Since Mr. Ahmadinejad uttered his words at Columbia University last Monday, discussion of homosexuality has been stifled here. Sociologists and other analysts normally willing to discuss such issues on the record with a reporter suddenly were not.
But, speaking anonymously, several said that the president had clearly been caught off guard by the question because no one at an Iranian university would have dared to ask him such a thing. They also argued that it was probably better for Iranian gays that Mr. Ahmadinejad denied their existence since that made it likelier that they would be ignored and let alone.
For a country that is said to have no homosexuality, Iran goes to great lengths to ban it. Gays are punished by lashing or death if it is proved that they have had homosexual relations. Two gay teenagers were executed in 2005 in Mashad, a northeastern city.
Fear of persecution is so strong that some gay men and lesbians have sought and received asylum in Western countries.
The Iranian Student News Agency reported in 2005 that a lesbian had been killed in prison by other inmates whom, it was alleged, she had forced to have sex with her. Tehran’s chief prosecutor, Saeed Mortazavi, said in May in an interview on state-run television that the police were looking for men who dressed and looked like homosexuals.
But Iran has also taken the unusual step of encouraging sex change operations for those with homosexual tendencies. While religious authorities here view homosexuality a clear sin, transsexuals are considered ill and in need of the help that such an operation can provide.
Muhammad Mehdi Kariminia, a midranking cleric and university professor at Mam Khomeini University in Qum, who wrote his doctoral thesis on transsexuals in Iran, said Muslim clerics could not show leniency or forgiveness for homosexuals because the Koran explicitly labels sodomy sinful.
“There is a thick wall between homosexuals and transsexuals,” Mr. Kariminia said. “Transsexuals are sick because they are not happy with their sexuality, and so they should be treated. But homosexuality is considered a deviant act.”
But the gays interviewed said that they did not believe the wall was that thick.
Reza said he knew of gay men who had changed their sex so that they could be recognized by the government as transsexual and mingle with men more easily.
The Internet has made socializing easier for gays in the past several years, according to those interviewed, who said they had found many gay friends online.
There are dozens of gay and lesbian Web sites and chat rooms, which the authorities monitor and block. But ways around the bans are found, and new Web sites are opened. Hamjens.com invites gays to find their “Iranian dream date.”
Gays say the key to living in Iran without government interference, even as couples, is keeping a low profile. Some have been arrested for looking “too feminine” but are generally fined and released.
Tehran has several famous areas, like Karim-Khan Street, or Mellat, Laleh and Daneshjoo parks, where gays meet and where gay prostitutes seek customers. “It does not take them even 10 minutes to get picked up,” said Amir, 24, a graphic designer who is gay. “There are men from every class,” he said. “Some of them are bisexual and call it being naughty.”
But most gays are driven underground also for fear of being shunned or rejected by relatives.
Shahin, 27, a chemist, has kept his gay life secret from his parents. “I don’t want to upset them,” he said. “Maybe they will consider me sick and feel sorry for me.”
Shahin said a gay friend was disowned when his family learned of his sexual orientation. He said he had many friends who married as a cover for their gay lives.
September 30, 2007
Despite Denials, Gays Insist They Exist, if Quietly, in Iran
By NAZILA FATHI
TEHRAN, Sept. 29 — When Reza, a 29-year-old Iranian, heard that his president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, had denied in New York that homosexuals were in Iran, he was shocked but not surprised. Reza knows the truth. He is gay.
Leaning back in his black leather desk chair at home in Tehran, he said there were, in fact, plenty of gay men and women in Iran. The difference between their lives and those of gays in Europe and North America is one of recognition and legitimacy.
“You can have a secret gay life as long you don’t become an activist and start demanding rights,” he said, speaking on the condition that his family name not be used because he feared retribution.
Reza, who shaves his head and often wears an earring in his left ear, has lived in Europe extensively. Gay life in Iran, he said, “is just complicated in the same way that it is for other groups, like workers and feminists, who don’t have many rights.”
Since Mr. Ahmadinejad uttered his words at Columbia University last Monday, discussion of homosexuality has been stifled here. Sociologists and other analysts normally willing to discuss such issues on the record with a reporter suddenly were not.
But, speaking anonymously, several said that the president had clearly been caught off guard by the question because no one at an Iranian university would have dared to ask him such a thing. They also argued that it was probably better for Iranian gays that Mr. Ahmadinejad denied their existence since that made it likelier that they would be ignored and let alone.
For a country that is said to have no homosexuality, Iran goes to great lengths to ban it. Gays are punished by lashing or death if it is proved that they have had homosexual relations. Two gay teenagers were executed in 2005 in Mashad, a northeastern city.
Fear of persecution is so strong that some gay men and lesbians have sought and received asylum in Western countries.
The Iranian Student News Agency reported in 2005 that a lesbian had been killed in prison by other inmates whom, it was alleged, she had forced to have sex with her. Tehran’s chief prosecutor, Saeed Mortazavi, said in May in an interview on state-run television that the police were looking for men who dressed and looked like homosexuals.
But Iran has also taken the unusual step of encouraging sex change operations for those with homosexual tendencies. While religious authorities here view homosexuality a clear sin, transsexuals are considered ill and in need of the help that such an operation can provide.
Muhammad Mehdi Kariminia, a midranking cleric and university professor at Mam Khomeini University in Qum, who wrote his doctoral thesis on transsexuals in Iran, said Muslim clerics could not show leniency or forgiveness for homosexuals because the Koran explicitly labels sodomy sinful.
“There is a thick wall between homosexuals and transsexuals,” Mr. Kariminia said. “Transsexuals are sick because they are not happy with their sexuality, and so they should be treated. But homosexuality is considered a deviant act.”
But the gays interviewed said that they did not believe the wall was that thick.
Reza said he knew of gay men who had changed their sex so that they could be recognized by the government as transsexual and mingle with men more easily.
The Internet has made socializing easier for gays in the past several years, according to those interviewed, who said they had found many gay friends online.
There are dozens of gay and lesbian Web sites and chat rooms, which the authorities monitor and block. But ways around the bans are found, and new Web sites are opened. Hamjens.com invites gays to find their “Iranian dream date.”
Gays say the key to living in Iran without government interference, even as couples, is keeping a low profile. Some have been arrested for looking “too feminine” but are generally fined and released.
Tehran has several famous areas, like Karim-Khan Street, or Mellat, Laleh and Daneshjoo parks, where gays meet and where gay prostitutes seek customers. “It does not take them even 10 minutes to get picked up,” said Amir, 24, a graphic designer who is gay. “There are men from every class,” he said. “Some of them are bisexual and call it being naughty.”
But most gays are driven underground also for fear of being shunned or rejected by relatives.
Shahin, 27, a chemist, has kept his gay life secret from his parents. “I don’t want to upset them,” he said. “Maybe they will consider me sick and feel sorry for me.”
Shahin said a gay friend was disowned when his family learned of his sexual orientation. He said he had many friends who married as a cover for their gay lives.
Op-Ed: I'm Here, President Ahmadinejad; Gay Iranian in Tehran Speaks Out
From the Washington Post
I'm Here, President Ahmadinejad
By Amir
Sunday, September 30, 2007; B02
TEHRAN
I'm one of those people Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says don't exist. I'm a 25-year-old Iranian, and I'm gay.
I live in Tehran with my parents and younger brother and am studying to be a computer software engineer. I've known that I was different from my brother and other boys for as long as I can remember.
I was born in 1982, two years after the start of the Iran-Iraq War, and when I was growing up, most boys loved to play with toy guns, pretending to be soldiers in the war. I liked painting, and playing with dolls. My brother preferred to play with the other boys, so most of the time I was lonely.
I was 16 when I first realized that I was sexually attracted to some of the boys in my high school classes. I had no idea what I could do with that feeling. All I knew about homosexuals were the jokes and negative stories that people told about them. I thought a homosexual was someone who sexually abused children -- until I saw the word "homosexual" for the first time in an English encyclopedia, and found a definition of myself.
After that, I started searching the Internet for information about homosexuality. Eventually I came across two Iranian Web sites where I could communicate with other gays. I was 17. At first, I didn't want to give anyone my e-mail address because I was afraid that I could be abused or that my parents might find out, or that people on the site could be government spies. But I finally decided to exchange e-mails with one person, and after some correspondence, we spoke on the phone. I'll never forget the first time I heard the voice of another gay man. We arranged to meet at the home of a friend of his, and the three of us talked for hours. I felt so comfortable with them. The next day I learned that the friend was interested in me. His name was Omid, and we became boyfriends.
I also became interested in the gay social movement that started in 2000. Around that time, Iranian society became more open under President Mohammad Khatami's reformist government. The Internet became common, and everybody started talking about issues they couldn't even have thought about before.
Until then, the gay world had been underground and secret. Under the Islamic Republic, gays could face the death penalty; they could also lose their jobs and family support. Meetings and parties took place only in the most trusted private homes. Heterosexuals were almost never seen at these gatherings. Even fellow gays were only slowly accepted. It could take years for a homosexual to become known and trusted. Most older gays were married and even had children, and their family and friends had no idea of their sexuality.
There was a handful of gathering places for outcast homosexuals in Tehran, people who couldn't hide their sexuality and had lost their jobs, or people whose families had disowned them, and who had turned to selling sex for money. Those places were always being attacked by the paramilitaries.
My generation was the first to start the coming-out process. I decided to come out when I was 20. I thought that if I just talked to my parents about it, they would accept my reasoning. I was totally wrong. Their reaction was horrible. They started to restrict me -- I couldn't use the phone or invite any of my friends over, and they cut back on financial support. Part of their reaction was religious; part was their concern that I couldn't survive as a homosexual in Iran. They were also ashamed to tell the rest of our family and wanted to see me married to a woman.
We argued constantly; they insisted that I wasn't gay, that I only thought I was. It took me years to calm them down, but over time, they lost any hope of changing me, and they started to change themselves. Now they accept that I'm gay, but they're not happy about it.
Meanwhile, the gay community has worked to educate people via Web sites and dialogue with our friends and families. But we've found that the most effective way of changing people's minds is coming out. When people see us as reasonable humans, their negative views of homosexuality are shattered. I can honestly say there's been a change in the way Iranians view us now. Gay life in Iran isn't as underground as it used to be. We have gay parties with heterosexual guests -- and even our parents! We have places where we can congregate -- in coffee shops, special park areas and even certain offices. Many more homosexuals are willing to come out these days. Activists estimate that .5 percent of the Iranian population is homosexual, bisexual or transsexual.
But we weren't surprised by Ahmadinejad's comments about gays at Columbia University. What else could he say? We stone homosexuals in Iran because that's what God wants? It was a joke, but he gave the only answer he could.
I wish our president could learn to respect gays instead of denying us. But I'm not holding my breath. In the meantime, my only response to his remarks is this: Whatever he says, Ahmadinejad can't change the fact that we exist.
Amir is an activist in Tehran whose name is being withheld for his safety.
I'm Here, President Ahmadinejad
By Amir
Sunday, September 30, 2007; B02
TEHRAN
I'm one of those people Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says don't exist. I'm a 25-year-old Iranian, and I'm gay.
I live in Tehran with my parents and younger brother and am studying to be a computer software engineer. I've known that I was different from my brother and other boys for as long as I can remember.
I was born in 1982, two years after the start of the Iran-Iraq War, and when I was growing up, most boys loved to play with toy guns, pretending to be soldiers in the war. I liked painting, and playing with dolls. My brother preferred to play with the other boys, so most of the time I was lonely.
I was 16 when I first realized that I was sexually attracted to some of the boys in my high school classes. I had no idea what I could do with that feeling. All I knew about homosexuals were the jokes and negative stories that people told about them. I thought a homosexual was someone who sexually abused children -- until I saw the word "homosexual" for the first time in an English encyclopedia, and found a definition of myself.
After that, I started searching the Internet for information about homosexuality. Eventually I came across two Iranian Web sites where I could communicate with other gays. I was 17. At first, I didn't want to give anyone my e-mail address because I was afraid that I could be abused or that my parents might find out, or that people on the site could be government spies. But I finally decided to exchange e-mails with one person, and after some correspondence, we spoke on the phone. I'll never forget the first time I heard the voice of another gay man. We arranged to meet at the home of a friend of his, and the three of us talked for hours. I felt so comfortable with them. The next day I learned that the friend was interested in me. His name was Omid, and we became boyfriends.
I also became interested in the gay social movement that started in 2000. Around that time, Iranian society became more open under President Mohammad Khatami's reformist government. The Internet became common, and everybody started talking about issues they couldn't even have thought about before.
Until then, the gay world had been underground and secret. Under the Islamic Republic, gays could face the death penalty; they could also lose their jobs and family support. Meetings and parties took place only in the most trusted private homes. Heterosexuals were almost never seen at these gatherings. Even fellow gays were only slowly accepted. It could take years for a homosexual to become known and trusted. Most older gays were married and even had children, and their family and friends had no idea of their sexuality.
There was a handful of gathering places for outcast homosexuals in Tehran, people who couldn't hide their sexuality and had lost their jobs, or people whose families had disowned them, and who had turned to selling sex for money. Those places were always being attacked by the paramilitaries.
My generation was the first to start the coming-out process. I decided to come out when I was 20. I thought that if I just talked to my parents about it, they would accept my reasoning. I was totally wrong. Their reaction was horrible. They started to restrict me -- I couldn't use the phone or invite any of my friends over, and they cut back on financial support. Part of their reaction was religious; part was their concern that I couldn't survive as a homosexual in Iran. They were also ashamed to tell the rest of our family and wanted to see me married to a woman.
We argued constantly; they insisted that I wasn't gay, that I only thought I was. It took me years to calm them down, but over time, they lost any hope of changing me, and they started to change themselves. Now they accept that I'm gay, but they're not happy about it.
Meanwhile, the gay community has worked to educate people via Web sites and dialogue with our friends and families. But we've found that the most effective way of changing people's minds is coming out. When people see us as reasonable humans, their negative views of homosexuality are shattered. I can honestly say there's been a change in the way Iranians view us now. Gay life in Iran isn't as underground as it used to be. We have gay parties with heterosexual guests -- and even our parents! We have places where we can congregate -- in coffee shops, special park areas and even certain offices. Many more homosexuals are willing to come out these days. Activists estimate that .5 percent of the Iranian population is homosexual, bisexual or transsexual.
But we weren't surprised by Ahmadinejad's comments about gays at Columbia University. What else could he say? We stone homosexuals in Iran because that's what God wants? It was a joke, but he gave the only answer he could.
I wish our president could learn to respect gays instead of denying us. But I'm not holding my breath. In the meantime, my only response to his remarks is this: Whatever he says, Ahmadinejad can't change the fact that we exist.
Amir is an activist in Tehran whose name is being withheld for his safety.
Gay Iranians have hidden lives
From United Press International
Published: Sept. 29, 2007 at 10:02 PM
TEHRAN, Sept. 29 (UPI) -- Gay Iranians simply hope to be left alone in a country where homosexuality can be punished by death, The New York Times reported Saturday.
“You can have a secret gay life as long you don’t become an activist and start demanding rights,” a Tehran resident named Reza, who did not want his full name used, told the newspaper.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, speaking at Columbia University in New York this week, provoked laughter in the audience when he asserted there are no homosexuals in Iran. Gays willing to talk to the Times said they were relieved by his denial since it might mean they will be left alone.
The law making homosexuality punishable by death or a lashing is no dead letter. Two teenagers were executed in 2005 in Mashad.
While Iran may be tough on homosexuality, the country is comparatively gentle toward transgender people, regarding them as sick. The government encourages sex-change operations.
© Copyright United Press International. All Rights Reserved.
This material may not be reproduced, redistributed, or manipulated in any form.
Published: Sept. 29, 2007 at 10:02 PM
TEHRAN, Sept. 29 (UPI) -- Gay Iranians simply hope to be left alone in a country where homosexuality can be punished by death, The New York Times reported Saturday.
“You can have a secret gay life as long you don’t become an activist and start demanding rights,” a Tehran resident named Reza, who did not want his full name used, told the newspaper.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, speaking at Columbia University in New York this week, provoked laughter in the audience when he asserted there are no homosexuals in Iran. Gays willing to talk to the Times said they were relieved by his denial since it might mean they will be left alone.
The law making homosexuality punishable by death or a lashing is no dead letter. Two teenagers were executed in 2005 in Mashad.
While Iran may be tough on homosexuality, the country is comparatively gentle toward transgender people, regarding them as sick. The government encourages sex-change operations.
© Copyright United Press International. All Rights Reserved.
This material may not be reproduced, redistributed, or manipulated in any form.
Syria: Publicizing "honour" crimes in Syria
24/09/2007: The murder of 16-year-old Zahra al-Azzo prompts rights activists, lawyers and the media to speak out against so-called crimes of honour. (NY Times)
Fawaz later recalled that his wife, Zahra, was sleeping soundly on her side and curled slightly against the pillow when he rose at dawn and readied himself for work at his construction job on the outskirts of Damascus. It was a rainy Sunday morning in January and very cold; as he left, Fawaz turned back one last time to tuck the blanket more snugly around his 16-year-old wife. Zahra slept on without stirring, and her husband locked the door of their tiny apartment carefully behind him.
Zahra was most likely still sleeping when her older brother, Fayyez, entered the apartment a short time later, using a stolen key and carrying a dagger. His sister lay on the carpeted floor, on the thin, foam mattress she shared with her husband, so Fayyez must have had to kneel next to Zahra as he raised the dagger and stabbed her five times in the head and back: brutal, tearing thrusts that shattered the base of her skull and nearly severed her spinal column. Leaving the door open, Fayyez walked downstairs and out to the local police station. There, he reportedly turned himself in, telling the officers on duty that he had killed his sister in order to remove the dishonor she had brought on the family by losing her virginity out of wedlock nearly 10 months earlier.
“Fayyez told the police, ‘It is my right to correct this error,’ ” Maha Ali, a Syrian lawyer who knew Zahra and now works pro bono for her husband, told me not long ago. “He said, ‘It’s true that my sister is married now, but we never washed away the shame.’ ”
Article continued...
Fawaz later recalled that his wife, Zahra, was sleeping soundly on her side and curled slightly against the pillow when he rose at dawn and readied himself for work at his construction job on the outskirts of Damascus. It was a rainy Sunday morning in January and very cold; as he left, Fawaz turned back one last time to tuck the blanket more snugly around his 16-year-old wife. Zahra slept on without stirring, and her husband locked the door of their tiny apartment carefully behind him.
Zahra was most likely still sleeping when her older brother, Fayyez, entered the apartment a short time later, using a stolen key and carrying a dagger. His sister lay on the carpeted floor, on the thin, foam mattress she shared with her husband, so Fayyez must have had to kneel next to Zahra as he raised the dagger and stabbed her five times in the head and back: brutal, tearing thrusts that shattered the base of her skull and nearly severed her spinal column. Leaving the door open, Fayyez walked downstairs and out to the local police station. There, he reportedly turned himself in, telling the officers on duty that he had killed his sister in order to remove the dishonor she had brought on the family by losing her virginity out of wedlock nearly 10 months earlier.
“Fayyez told the police, ‘It is my right to correct this error,’ ” Maha Ali, a Syrian lawyer who knew Zahra and now works pro bono for her husband, told me not long ago. “He said, ‘It’s true that my sister is married now, but we never washed away the shame.’ ”
Article continued...
Face of homosexuality is veiled but real in Iran
From the St. Petersburg Time
Face of homosexuality is veiled but real in Iran
By SUSAN TAYLOR MARTIN, Times Senior Correspondent
Published September 30, 2007
Several years ago in Jordan, I met a young man who had briefly left his poor home country to work in oil-rich Qatar. He got a good job selling Mercedes - only to quit after male customers began propositioning him for sex.
Yes, there is homosexuality in the Middle East despite the now-famous claim by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that his country is free of what was once known - how ironic! - as "the Persian vice."
"In Iran, we don't have homosexuals like in your country," he told an audience at New York's Columbia University last week. "In Iran, we do not have this phenomenon. I don't know who's told you that we have it."
Ahmadinejad's remarks drew jeers and laughter, but they might not have been as ridiculous as commonly suggested. Knowing that nuance is sometimes lost in translation, one could give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he meant that Iran doesn't have the kind of overt gay culture found in the West with its gay bars, gay celebrities, gay parades and so on.
In fact, "there has been a recent phenomenon of Western-style gay culture in Iran, but it is very new, largely limited to the upper classes and likely not known to President Ahmadinejad, whose social milieu is the middle and lower middle class," writes William O. Beeman, a University of Minnesota anthropologist.
Beeman, who has spent 30 years conducting research in Iran, also notes that the Western idea of homosexuality is quite different from that in Arab and Mediterranean cultures.
"In Iran, same-sex behavior is classified rigidly into active and passive roles," Beeman says on the New American Media Web site. "Active partners do not consider themselves to be homosexual" while passive partners "can carry a life-long stigma if their sexual role is known."
Of course Ahmadinejad might really think there are no gays in Iran because he has never met one, or at least never one who publicly acknowledged sexual orientation. There's a good reason for that: As in Saudi Arabia and some other conservative Muslim countries, homosexuality in Iran is a crime punishable by death.
In 2005, two teenage boys - one 16, the other 18 - were publicly executed for raping a younger boy, according to the U.S. State Department's annual report on human rights. Though the lack of transparency in Iran's court system makes it hard to know for certain, outside groups claimed the real reason the youths were executed was because of homosexual activity.
Since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, the Iranian government reportedly has executed more than 4,000 people charged with homosexual acts. But reliable figures are almost impossible to come by, and it is not known if other crimes were involved.
Muslims generally consider homosexuality a sin, based on the handful of passages in the Koran that seem to address the subject. Among them: "For ye practice your lust on men in preference to women; ye are indeed a people transgressing beyond bounds."
But at various times in its history, Islam has shown a more open attitude toward same-sex relations. A 12th century Muslim poet waxed suggestively over the sight of a "slim young man, beautiful as the rising moon" - a sight beheld in a mosque during Friday prayers, no less.
In one of those coincidences that invite comparisons, Ahmadinejad made his "no homosexuals" comment the very week that U.S. Sen. Larry Craig began legal efforts to show he is not gay even though he appeared to be trolling for sex in an airport men's room. Homosexuality remains enough of a taboo even for many Americans that Craig's fellow Republicans turned on him faster than you can say "homophobic."
It's also interesting to note that while Iran bans homosexuality, it takes a surprisingly enlightened view toward transsexuals. None other than the Ayatollah Khomeini, the revolutionary leader, ruled that sex-change operations are permissible for those whose self-image is at odds with their gender at birth.
Hundreds of Iranians have since undergone such surgery. And you have to wonder what the late ayatollah would have thought about the flap in this country over Steve Stanton's decision to become Susan.
Susan Taylor Martin can be contacted at susan@sptimes.com.
Face of homosexuality is veiled but real in Iran
By SUSAN TAYLOR MARTIN, Times Senior Correspondent
Published September 30, 2007
Several years ago in Jordan, I met a young man who had briefly left his poor home country to work in oil-rich Qatar. He got a good job selling Mercedes - only to quit after male customers began propositioning him for sex.
Yes, there is homosexuality in the Middle East despite the now-famous claim by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that his country is free of what was once known - how ironic! - as "the Persian vice."
"In Iran, we don't have homosexuals like in your country," he told an audience at New York's Columbia University last week. "In Iran, we do not have this phenomenon. I don't know who's told you that we have it."
Ahmadinejad's remarks drew jeers and laughter, but they might not have been as ridiculous as commonly suggested. Knowing that nuance is sometimes lost in translation, one could give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he meant that Iran doesn't have the kind of overt gay culture found in the West with its gay bars, gay celebrities, gay parades and so on.
In fact, "there has been a recent phenomenon of Western-style gay culture in Iran, but it is very new, largely limited to the upper classes and likely not known to President Ahmadinejad, whose social milieu is the middle and lower middle class," writes William O. Beeman, a University of Minnesota anthropologist.
Beeman, who has spent 30 years conducting research in Iran, also notes that the Western idea of homosexuality is quite different from that in Arab and Mediterranean cultures.
"In Iran, same-sex behavior is classified rigidly into active and passive roles," Beeman says on the New American Media Web site. "Active partners do not consider themselves to be homosexual" while passive partners "can carry a life-long stigma if their sexual role is known."
Of course Ahmadinejad might really think there are no gays in Iran because he has never met one, or at least never one who publicly acknowledged sexual orientation. There's a good reason for that: As in Saudi Arabia and some other conservative Muslim countries, homosexuality in Iran is a crime punishable by death.
In 2005, two teenage boys - one 16, the other 18 - were publicly executed for raping a younger boy, according to the U.S. State Department's annual report on human rights. Though the lack of transparency in Iran's court system makes it hard to know for certain, outside groups claimed the real reason the youths were executed was because of homosexual activity.
Since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, the Iranian government reportedly has executed more than 4,000 people charged with homosexual acts. But reliable figures are almost impossible to come by, and it is not known if other crimes were involved.
Muslims generally consider homosexuality a sin, based on the handful of passages in the Koran that seem to address the subject. Among them: "For ye practice your lust on men in preference to women; ye are indeed a people transgressing beyond bounds."
But at various times in its history, Islam has shown a more open attitude toward same-sex relations. A 12th century Muslim poet waxed suggestively over the sight of a "slim young man, beautiful as the rising moon" - a sight beheld in a mosque during Friday prayers, no less.
In one of those coincidences that invite comparisons, Ahmadinejad made his "no homosexuals" comment the very week that U.S. Sen. Larry Craig began legal efforts to show he is not gay even though he appeared to be trolling for sex in an airport men's room. Homosexuality remains enough of a taboo even for many Americans that Craig's fellow Republicans turned on him faster than you can say "homophobic."
It's also interesting to note that while Iran bans homosexuality, it takes a surprisingly enlightened view toward transsexuals. None other than the Ayatollah Khomeini, the revolutionary leader, ruled that sex-change operations are permissible for those whose self-image is at odds with their gender at birth.
Hundreds of Iranians have since undergone such surgery. And you have to wonder what the late ayatollah would have thought about the flap in this country over Steve Stanton's decision to become Susan.
Susan Taylor Martin can be contacted at susan@sptimes.com.
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Ahmadinejad and the Homosexuality He Seeks to Deny
Posted September 27, 2007