Two more men have been executed in Maragheh Prison, East Azerbaijan province on the charge of “sodomy by force”: the Iranian legal term for homosexual rape.
HRANA News Agency identified the men as Mehrdad (Akbar) Karimpour, born in 1989, and Farid Mohammadi. Both were arrested about six years ago on the same charges.
Some human rights networks have alleged the pair were wrongfully convicted. The Islamic Republic has used the “sodomy” charge in the past to impose the death penalty on gay men. There was no mention of the case in Iranian state media and the convicts' families have not commented.
This is the second time in a year that detainees at Maragheh are known to have been executed on this charge. In July, Iran Human Rights reported that both Farhad Najafi, 25, and Ali Ahmadi, 23, had been hanged in prison for alleged “sodomy by force”.
The same organization reports that at least 12 people were executed on rape charges in Iranian prisons in 2020, at least 16 in 2019, and at least 23 in 2018.
Related coverage:
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Why Breaking The Silence on Rape is so Risky in Iran
Retributive Justice in 2021: Why Does Iran Ask its Citizens to Carry Out Executions?
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