Iran has come under fire for executing a gay teenager in violation of international law, and carrying out a mass execution of 25 Kurdish Sunni prisoners.
Amnesty International said in a statement this week that Hassan Afshar, aged 19, was hanged in Arak Prison in Iran’s Markazi Province on 18th July, after he was convicted of “forced male-to-male anal intercourse”.
Amnesty said the Iranian authorities received a complaint accusing Afshar and two other adolescents of forcing a teenage boy to have sex. Afshar, who was arrested in December 2014, said that the same-sex relations were consensual and the accuser had freely engaged in prior homosexual relations.
Magdalena Mughrabi, Deputy Middle East and North Africa Programme Director at Amnesty International, said: “Iran has proved that its sickening enthusiasm for putting juveniles to death, in contravention of international law, knows no bounds”.
She added that Hassan Afshar was a 17-year-old high school student when he was arrested, and stated: “he had no access to a lawyer and the judiciary rushed through the investigation and prosecution, convicting and sentencing him to death within two months of his arrest as though they could not execute him quickly enough”.
Consensual homosexual conduct remains illegal under Iran’s Sharia law and is punished with public flogging or execution.
This week, Iran executed 25 Kurdish Sunni prisoners held on terror charges in spite of claims they were subjected to forced confessions and did not have a fair trial.
Iran executed nearly 1,000 people in 2015 – more than any other country apart from China.
