Tag: Iran

WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Looking to steady his presidential campaign after a debate performance against other Democratic contenders that hurt him in public opinion polls, Joe Biden on Thursday blasted U.S. President Donald Trump’s foreign policy as erratic and extreme. In his most extensive remarks to date on foreign affairs, the former vice president said Trump had damaged America’s “reputation and our place in the world and I quite frankly believe our ability to lead the world.” The Republican...

A gay teen from Iran was told he has three weeks to leave Sweden after his asylum claim was rejected. Mehdi Shokr Khoda, 19, is Christian and said that he fears for his life if he is forced to go back to Iran. “I cannot live open as a gay in Iran,” Khoda told Gay Star News. “They won’t understand something about you. They will just kill you first.” Last year, the Migration Board in Sweden rejected Khoda’s asylum claim, saying that...

Human rights activists have questioned the speed in which the man was executed Iran has publicly hanged a man on charges of homosexuality. The unidentified man, 31, was executed after he was found guilty of raping two males, as well as kidnapping charges. He was hanged in the southwestern city of Kazeroon on 10 January. The state-controlled ISNA has claimed the 31-year-old kidnapped two 15-year-old males. The man then raped the two boys. Iran charged the man with laws covering homosexuality, not pedophilia. Iran’s homosexuality laws Under...

He's now carving himself a career as a performer and fashion model: 'I am extremely saddened by Trump’s new policy on immigration' After President Trump’s Executive Order last Friday suspending the US Refugees Admission Program (USRAP) and imposing a 90-day visa suspension on people from seven Muslim-majority countries, one Iranian gay man’s story couldn’t be more timely. Arad (who prefers not to reveal his real name), fled Iran in 2010 He has since made a life for himself in the US. He...

Hoda Afshar in an Iranian photographer current living in Melbourne, Australia. Her latest series is titled “Behold” and it’s absolutely stunning. “Behold” was shot in a small town in Iran that mostly leaves its gay residents alone… on one condition: that they keep their sexuality a secret. A group of men invited Afshar inside the town’s male bathhouse to document their lives. The series first opened at Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne, and is now showing at Horsham Regional Gallery through...

"If I get detained and sent back to Iran, at least I lived life to the fullest as a gay man in the U.S." It sounded like a dream vacation: A seven-day gay cruise with cute guys, onboard entertainment and stops in exotic ports of call. But it turned into a nightmare after President Trump’s executive order banned refugees, green-card recipients and visa holders from seven Muslim countries from entering the United States. Maysam Sodagari, a chemical engineer living in San...

Iran is violating international law by regularly putting juveniles to death. Iran recently executed a gay teen, reminding the world that it still regularly kills minors no matter what international law says. Amnesty International this week decried the hanging of gay Iranian teenager, Hassan Afshar, as proof of the country’s “sickening enthusiasm for putting juveniles to death” and as a “contravention of international law” that “knows no bounds.” Putting to death any juvenile violates United Nations covenants. Still, Iran hasn’t shied...

Known as Taha, this Muslim cleric confessed that he felt his life was in danger after he married gay couples in Iran. ‘Yes, I was conducting gay weddings,’ Taha said. ‘The last few months were very difficult. The authorities questioned me several times about my choice of friends.’ Other gay clerics and Muslims didn't see Taha with good eyes and started to threaten him. ‘They were saying I am a cleric and I shouldn’t be meeting gay men,’ he said. ‘The other mullahs were...

I never thought I will ever end up doing what I did, but then again I guess love is a hell of a complicated thing. I am Rolly, 21 years of age, and I fell in love with an Iranian guy. He came visiting the states about 2 years ago and I knew him through a friend of mine. One thing led to another and he began growing fund of each other. From that it was just a small...

This story has been sent to us by a gay Iranian and his story is nothing short of unmeasurable love and painful sacrifice. I am a gay man living in Iran and this statement should tell you everything you need to know about my life. Our lives. None of the ones living here actually know what free love means. Free love is a fairytale and gay people are not allowed to have it. I have stayed hidden from the world...

A young, unschooled Iranian man has fled Iran in search of refuge on Turkish soil.  Currently,   LGBT passport-holding Iranians flee to Turkey since they require no visa to cross the border.  Danial knew his challenges as a gay man from Iran were just beginning as he fled his family when his sexuality was revealed, without a passport. Danial‘s father fled Afghanistan during war and turmoil in the 1980’s.  Over 3 million Afghans transplanted to unwelcoming Iran.  Children born there were...