
Thirty men have been arrested in a so-called morals raid on a private home in the Iranian city of Esfahan an international human rights groups said Friday.
Citing sources within Iran the New York-based Human Rights Watch said that the men were arrested in late February and have been held for almost four weeks without access to lawyers and without formal charges. The men allegedly are accused of consensual homosexual conduct, drinking alcohol, and other related "morals" offenses.
Iranian law provides punishments up to death for penetrative same-sex sexual activity between men on the first conviction, and punishes non-penetrative activity with up to 100 lashes.
Homosexual conduct between women is punishable with death on the fourth conviction. Iran’s Penal Code requires four reiterated confessions, or the testimony of four “righteous men” as eyewitnesses, to prove lavat, or sodomy. However, judges are permitted to accept circumstantial evidence or inference.
Last September President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad during a speech at Columbia University, declared there were no homosexuals in Iran.
"In Iran we don't have homosexuals like you do in your country. We do not have this phenomenon. I don't know who's told you that we have it," Ahmadinejad said.
Oh really?!
