Iran executions

Writing in The Nation, Richard Kim traces the media reponse to the execution of two teenagers in Iran. It's an excellent, cautious piece, one that raises more questions than it answers.

The execution of minors on any charge is a barbarous practice, and Iran has an abysmal record in that regard—it has the second-worst record in the world in that dubious ranking, behind only the United States.

But were the youths hanged by the "islamofascists" because they were gay? One of the major points Kim makes is that this sad tale "reveals much about the challenge of pursuing gay and human rights in a political climate infused by the US-led global 'war on terror', anxiety over the recent election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president of Iran and growing fears about Islamic fundamentalism, particularly in Europe, in the wake of the London bombings last month."

As regards the question of whether the young Iranians' crime was simply being gay rather than rape, Kim quotes Scott Long, director of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Rights Project at Human Rights Watch, who says, "There is no evidence that this was a consensual act. The only reason to think this is what appears to be a mistranslation of the ISNA article. A whole tissue of speculation has been woven around mistranslations and omissions and this has been solidified into a narrative that this is a gay rights case."

Kim gets deep into what he calls " thorny evidentiary issues" and connects some of the original sourcing and mistranslation to certain "cultlike" and "discredited" exiled dissident groups with ties to the—you guessed it— neocons. Beyond that he advises skepticism about any charges leveled at "oppressive" Islamic societies these days.

There's no question that the executions of Marhoni and Asgari deserve fierce condemnation. And it remains a possibility that this was, indeed, a violation not just of human rights but of gay rights--though it is highly unlikely that the two self-identified as gay. What's worth exploring is how our perception of the case has been refracted though the prism of ideological debates over the nature and danger of radical Islam, and how assumptions about the "clash of civilizations" that supposedly pits enlightened, secular, humane Western society against backward, theocratic, oppressive Islamic society seem to have impaired our ability to get the facts straight. The story also reveals much about the challenge of pursuing gay and human rights in a political climate infused by the US-led global "war on terror", anxiety over the recent election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president of Iran and growing fears about Islamic fundamentalism, particularly in Europe, in the wake of the London bombings last month.

Read the whole story...

For me, this story calls to mind the days immediately following the 911 attacks. I was living in Brooklyn at the time. After sitting stunned through hours of wildly speculative, frankly racist CNN coverage, I had briefly become convinced that all the Muslims in my neighborhood should be suspected of supporting terrorist groups. I remember visiting my local Halal grocery, giving the owners a noncommittal glance in lieu of my customary smile while I gave their donation boxes for Palestinian refugees a long hard look. The proprietors of that store were/are wonderful people. The memory of my suspicion shames me to this day.

Robert Fisk had a comparable memory:

I remember, crossing the Atlantic on 11 September 2001 - my plane turned round off Ireland when the US closed its airspace - how the aircraft purser and I toured the cabins to see if we could identify any suspicious passengers. I found about a dozen, of course, totally innocent men who had brown eyes or long beards or who looked at me with "hostility". And sure enough, in just a few seconds, Osama bin Laden turned nice, liberal, friendly Robert into an anti-Arab racist.

And one further, only tangentially related point: never trust anyone who uses the word "islamofascist."