The Islamic Republic mask slips yet again

Tiger hawk:

It is a great tragedy that this is not in the least bit surprising:

Homosexuals deserve to be executed or tortured and possibly both, an Iranian leader told British MPs during a private meeting at a peace conference, The Times has learnt. Mohsen Yahyavi is the highest-ranked politician to admit that Iran believes in the death penalty for homosexuality after a spate of reports that gay youths were being hanged....Minutes taken by an official describe a meeting between British and Iranian MPs at the Inter-Parliamentary Union, a peace body, in May. When the Britons raised the hangings of Asqari and Marhouni, the leader of the Iranian delegation, Mr Yahyavi, a member of his parliament’s energy committee, was unflinching. He “explained that according to Islam gays and lesbianism were not permitted”, the record states. “He said that if homosexual activity is in private there is no problem, but those in overt activity should be executed [he initially said tortured but changed it to executed]. He argued that homosexuality is against human nature and that humans are here to reproduce. Homosexuals do not reproduce.”

Then there is this bit of comedy gold:

Ann Clwyd, the Labour MP and head of Britain’s delegation, said yesterday: “It is of great concern that these attitudes persist and we made it clear what we felt.”

Does Ann Clwyd seriously believe that Iran's mullahs are going to stop persisting in "these attitudes" because some Western politician gives them a lecture? No doubt she also thinks that "negotiation" without the implicit threat of violence will persuade them to give up their nuclear weapons program.

Related stories: Links via sheema

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IRAN: Human Rights ViolationsThe two women activists, Hana Abdi arrested in Kurdistan, and Ronak Safarzadeh are still in prison, and the Kurdish-Iranian journalist Adnan Hassanpour is to be executed.

Judge rules Iranian Christian woman's beating justified due to her evangelism efforts

onenewsnow: Despite what Iranian leaders may want people to believe, the truth is that the Iranian government does not allow citizens to worship freely. "They will point to churches that exist in Iran, and say, look, we have churches, we have freedom. The reality is those are Armenian churches, [and] the Armenian community there is considered to be Christian," Nettleton points out. "But churches that preach in the Farsi language, which is the language of most Iranians, are forbidden. The people there don't have the freedom to change their religion." In Iran, Christians are not allowed to print literature or Sunday school bulletins. Converts from Islam to Christianity are also subject to the death penalty.