The extremist groups of people apply physical violence toward LGBTQ in Iran. The duration of physical violence against LGBTQ community in Iran can be connected to the attitude to sexual minorities, which has been changing over time. Thus, sodomy was criminalized by the Penal Code in 1926. The execution of people accused of homosexuality has been a common practice. Other kinds of punishment such as lashing have been also widely applied. Nowadays, the Penal Code, the criminalization of homosexuality, and the death penalty on fourth conviction still exist. It means that physical violence toward the LGBTQ occurs frequently. According to the statistics, each LGBTQ representative suffers from the physical violence in Iran at least once a year. In general, annually, the country’s authorities record more than two thousand cases of assaults on gays and lesbians. The lack of data is not a preventive factor in identifying the tendency of physical violence towards LGBTQ community members. A number of various organizations have contributed to the support of this community. However, a religious reformation should be undertaken to improve the situation.
The issue of the physical violence against LGBTQ has been common for a long time. Nevertheless, due to the religious outlook in the country, this topic has been closed and kept in secret. Thus, the violation against LGBTQ occurred more often on the religious basis. Over time, this process has deteriorated regardless of the fact that people live in the 21st century. Despite all, the people who belong to LGBTQ are under ban and are not tolerated.
The situation became even worse. Moreover, public security forces and even police tend to harass and abuse members of LGBTQ community, which is officially sanctioned by the state. Consequently, physical violence is the issue supported by the government, thus, still prevalent today.
The issues related to intersectionality/intersecting identities are relevant in the way that they are determined by the gender aspect and the factor of race and ethnicity. Physical violence and legal punishment of LGBTQ community members overlap with the gender identity. Thus, the restrictions were always more lenient for Iranian female homosexuals than for male ones. This fact is the manifestation of both gender and ethnicity issues. Moreover, men have always tended to be the prevalent target for abuse, since homosexuality is illegal.
In reality, there is another crucial aspect, which has an impact on the issue. Despite the general negative attitude to LGBTQ community, it is suggested that thousands of Iranians identify themselves as homosexuals. Since there are no statistics concerning the accurate Iran’s LGBTQ population, it is difficult to identify the spread of community members throughout the country. However, there are areas, where LGBTQ members tend to spend more time and these predominantly include large cities. Some urban territories known to be the popular places for LGBTQ community members, including cafes, parks, and others, are associated with middle and lower classes. For this reason, such areas may supposedly attract attention and become the place of raids and, consequently, violence. Thus, the Islamic Republic of Iran retains the law that criminalizes and abuses members of LGBTQ community. There is even such an option as the death penalty to punish people on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. As a result, homophobia is sponsored by the state and homosexuality is considered to be an “illness”. Regardless of the global attempts to introduce the rights and a lawful support to LGBTQ community, the attitude towards sexual minorities varies across the world. While some countries have a tendency to be more open to reducing the discrimination, the other states worsen the situation.
One of the factors contributing to the acceptance of physical violence against LGBTQ community is culture. Hence, the tendency of this acceptance is considered by the Iranian government to be the Western culture influence, which does not concord with Islamic laws and values. In Iran, the cultural dominance is valued more than human rights. While homosexuality may be regarded as a human right, this issue is out of the question in Islamic countries. It can be stated that Iran, for instance, does not accept the universality of some aspects of human rights and is not willing to promote the human rights, which do not fit into cultural norms. As a consequence, it is evident that creating laws, which are aimed at protecting LGBTQ community, is not a prevailing problem for the Iranian government.
Homophobia is one of the aspects associated with cultural biases. Its ground is in Islamic values, law, and even government that are more eager to punish LGBTQ community members than accept global human rights. Therefore, nowadays, homosexual relationships in Iran can exist only secretly. Female homosexuals appear to be even more restricted than male ones, as far as they can become victims of forced marriage. In case if such relationship is revealed or discovered, the members of LGBTQ community undergo torture, abuse, arrest, and a death penalty. Hence, it is possible to state that Iran is known to be one of those states, which demonstrates extremely negative attitude to LGBTQ community. Despite the spread of universal acceptance of human rights, Iran is resistant to supporting violence against sexual minorities on the governmental level.
The issue of physical violence towards LGBTQ community in Iran has received a wide coverage from different organizations. The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission discussed the social and legal problems that the members of LGBTQ community living in Iran have to tackle. This non-profit organization discovered that sexual minorities do not even have a proper access to medical treatment in cases of injury. However, they predict some positive changes in the mentality and the shift in religious views. Moreover, LGBTQ community will soon probably receive greater support in the medical sphere and will be better accepted publically. Ultimately, the organization suggests that religious reformation should occur, as far as religion is the basis for the negative attitude towards these special people.
The United Nations take an active part in reducing physical violence towards LGBTQ community. This indicates that they have an idea of creating universal human rights and have started the documentation of various cases of violence based on gender and sexual identity. Nevertheless, the organization faces challenges with collecting information, since the cases are underreported and there are no existing means of protection that these rights can offer.
LGBTQ rights movement occurs around the globe and Iran is not an exception as well. For instance, in 2001, an online organization supporting LGBTQ rights was established. The founder of the organization is Arsham Parsi, who is widely known as Iranian activist, who supports homosexual community and its rights. Despite the fact that he had to move from Iran, he still works on introducing rights and support to LGBTQ community.
Notwithstanding measures steps taken to reduce the negative impact on LGBTQ community in Iran, there are still many actions to consider. The Islamic Penal Code and its laws should be abolished, because they criminalize LGBTQ community and aggravate the already existing negative attitude to sexual minorities. Besides this, public harassment, violence, and abuse against sexual minorities should be controlled due to the fact that it is initiated by Iranian security forces. Prosecution of security forces involved in acts of physical violence, torture, abuse, and harassment should be introduced as well. In addition, it is obvious that such actions as home raids and the Internet targeting do not contribute to violence reduction.
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