Iran: Ill-Treated Iranian Lgbti Defender At Risk
Zahra Sedighi-Hamadani, aged 30, decided to leave the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KR-I) for Turkey and seek asylum there after being arbitrarily arrested by Asayish (the Kurdistan Regional Government primary security and intelligence agency) in Erbil in early October 2021 and detained for 21 days in connection with her appearance in a BBC documentary aired in May 2021 about the abuses that LGBTI people suffer in the KR-I. During this period, she said intelligence and security agents subjected her to torture and other ill-treatment, including with beatings, electric shocks, and prolonged solitary confinement. Following her release from detention, she was in constant fear of being rearrested.
Prior to embarking on the hazardous segment of her journey across the Iran-Turkey border, she recorded a video message and asked a trusted contact to release it if she does not make it to Turkey safely. In the video circulated by the Iranian Lesbian and Transgender Network (6Rang) on 7 December 2021, she says, “I want you to know how much pressure we LGBT people endure. We risk our lives for our emotions, but we will find our true selves… I hope the day will come when we can all live in freedom in our country… I am journeying toward freedom now. I hope I’ll arrive safely. If I make it, I will continue to look after LGBT people. I will be standing behind them and raising my voice. If I don’t make it, I will have given my life for this cause.”
On 6 November 2021, the Intelligence Organization of the Revolutionary Guards in West Azerbaijan province announced in a statement widely reported by state media outlets that they have caught “through a complex, multi-layered and extraterritorial intelligence operation, the leader of a network involved in smuggling Iranian girls and women to neighbouring countries for the purpose of corruption and directing and supporting homosexual groups that work under the protection of [foreign] intelligence agencies.” Based on the accusations brought against Zahra Sedighi-Hamadani during her interrogations, Amnesty International understands that this official statement is in reference to her case. The organization believes that the allegations of smuggling are spurious and baseless and stem from Zahra Sedighi-Hamadani’s association with other Iranian LGBTI asylum seekers.
On 30 December 2021, the Intelligence Organization of the Revolutionary Guards has taken over the Telegram channel of Zahra Sedighi-Hamadani, which had about 1,200 followers, changing its profile picture to the logo of the intelligence organization and posting a message, which stated, “Protecting family values is the red line of the unknown soldiers of Imam Zaman [the title used for Mahdi, the 12th Shia Imam] for the Intelligence Organization of the Revolutionary Guards.”
Gender non-conforming individuals in Iran risk criminalization unless they seek a legal gender change, which require gender reassignment surgery and sterilization. Gender non-conforming individuals who cannot or do not wish to change their sex assigned at birth or choose between the binary gender categories of man and woman experience discrimination in access to education, employment, health care and public services because the Islamic Republic system heavily enforces gender segregation across public spaces and imposes strict dress codes.
Iran’s 2013 Islamic Penal Code contains numerous provisions that criminalize consensual same-sex sexual conduct between adults, as well as between children, prescribing corporal punishments, such as flogging, which constitute torture, and the death penalty, the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment. Sexual acts between two women are criminalized under mosahegheh, which is defined, under Article 238 of the Code, as when a woman “places her sexual organ on another woman’s sexual organ”. The punishments of mosahegheh is 100 lashes, but conviction for a fourth time is punishable by death, as per Articles 136 and 236 of the Code. The Code criminalizes lavat (“male-male anal penetration”) with penalties ranging from flogging to the death penalty. If no penetration occurs between the partners, individuals may be convicted of the “crime” of tafkhiz defined as the “placing of a man’s sexual organ between another man’s thighs or buttocks” (Article 235). The punishments for tafkhiz are similar to those prescribed for mosahegheh. Article 237 of the Code also prescribes the punishment of between 31 to 74 lashes for “homosexuality of the male human [shown through] sexual conduct that falls short of lavat and tafkhiz such as kissing or lustful touching”. Note 1 to Article 237 provides that the article equally applies to “the female human”.