No candle burned for LGBT Iranians in the 80s.

Despite assuring the world that they would honour the UN Charter of Human Rights, Ayatollah Khomeini’s fanatical regime wasted no time in abusing it from the second they came to power.

Anyone perceived as a political opponent was imprisoned on a trumped up charge and, invariably, executed. But the fanaticism didn’t stop there: men, women and children were executed for the most minor transgressions against a hardline Islamic code.

The exiled Iranian LGBT group Homan reported that, in the early 80’s, an attempt to set up a LGBT organisation resulted in 70 executions. The Abdorrahman Boroumand Foundation (ABF) has documented the cases of many people murdered by the brutal regime for committing a “homosexual act”, including the cases of 15 men executed on 12th September 1982 in Sanandaj for being gay.

And most organisations acknowledge that this is likely to be a serious under-estimate: the secrecy under which executions occur means that the details are rarely made public and the stigma associated with homosexuality means that victim’s families rarely acknowledge the issue.

Iran has never made a secret of its treatment of homosexuals: its Penal Code explicitly states that gays can be executed by lashing, hanging, stoning, dropping from a tall building or cliff, or beheading.

The evidence has been around since 1979, yet from 1979 until 1991, Amnesty International studiously avoided the issue.

For example, in its report Human Rights Violations in Iran of 7th September 1982 it railed against abuses carried out against “persons imprisoned because of their political or religious beliefs or by reason of their ethnic origin, sex, colour or language, who have not used or advocated violence.” Despite the evidence already available, they chose not to include sexual orientation.

In July 1985, Amnesty issued a report expressing concern over the execution of drug offenders; it’s Iran Briefing of 1987 makes reference to “offences against the sexual and moral code” then refers only to adultery and prostitution. In June 1989, a media release on “Over 900 Executions Announced in 5 Months” refers to those charged with drug offences, rape, murder and armed robbery. Even a retrospective report issued in December 1990 “Report of Human Rights Violations 1987-1990: The Massacre of 1988” refers solely to political prisoners.

I can’t find a single Amnesty document from the 1980’s that even mentions LGBT Iranians, let alone any report or media release that specifically addresses their plight. I don’t think I’m missing anything: Amnesty only agreed to include homosexuality in its definition of ‘prisoners of conscience’ in 1991. However, as late as 1997 its International Council Meeting refused to carry through a motion to add “sexual orientation” to its mission statement.