Backing laws that punish same-sex relations with death and branding homosexuality Western depravity
Iranian law under the system Khamenei leads allows the death penalty for same-sex relations. In March 2022 he called homosexuality part of Western moral depravity. That year rights groups reported executions for sodomy and death sentences for two LGBT activists, later overturned. Human Rights Watch says the criminalization continues.
Editorial timeline of public reporting, not a legal finding.
- Reported executions on sodomy convictions - Human Dignity Trust and BBC coverage reported that in 2022 at least several people were executed after convictions tied to same-sex activity or sodomy, under laws that still allow the death penalty for such relations. I want to see the rainbow flag raised in Iran
- Khamenei brands homosexuality part of Western moral depravity - Iran International and BBC News reported that in a televised Eid al-Mabath speech Khamenei called Western civilisation modern ignorance and denounced organised 'sexual chaos and homosexuality' backed by what he called artificial intellectual justifications. اظهارات همجنسگراستیزانه خامنهای در سخنرانی تلویزیونی
- Death sentences for two LGBT activists in Urmia - BBC News reported that a court in Urmia sentenced Zahra Seddiqi Hamedani and Elham Choubdar to death for corruption on earth. Amnesty said Seddiqi was detained over her orientation and LGBT advocacy; the judiciary said the case was trafficking, not activism. Iran sentences two LGBT activists to death
- Death sentences overturned; both activists freed on bail - USIP's Iran Primer, citing the U.S. State Department, reported that Iran's Supreme Court overturned the convictions and death sentences of Seddiqi Hamedani and Choubdar and that both were released on bail in March 2024, while same-sex relations remained criminalised. U.S. Report: LGBTQI+ Persecution in Iran