Hassan Afshar, A Teenager Executed on Rape Charges

On July 18 2016, 19-year-old Hassan Afshar was hanged in Iran’s Arak Prison on charges of “forcible sodomy.” Prior to his execution, while he was still in a juvenile detention center, authorities did not inform him that he was to face execution — allegedly to save him from pychological distress. 

News of the execution was broken two weeks later in an August statement published by Amnesty International. 

According to Amnesty, the incident demonstrates that the obscurity or notoriety of such cases makes no difference in the lives and deaths of young or juvenile offenders sentenced to death. Days after Ashgar's execution, authorities postponed the execution of another prisoner, Alireza Tajiki, following public pressure. He had also been a juvenile when found guilty of his alleged crime. The statement reports that 160 juvenile offenders remain on death row in the Islamic Republic. 

At the time his hanging, judiciary officials had promised Afshar’s family that a renewed investigation of the case would take place on September 15. 

The death sentence was issued on the basis of an individual complaint. In 2014, accusations of rape were lodged against Afshar and two other boys; Afshar was subsequently arrested and sentenced to death as a minor. Unable to execute a convicted 17-year-old, judicial officials decided to enforce the verdict after Afshar turned 19.

The young man put to death had claimed that no rape had taken place, and that the incident in question was in fact a consensual sexual act in which the plaintiff had willingly participated. During his detention and interrogation Afshar was denied access to a lawyer, and was quickly condemned to death after a two-month investigation. 

Iran’s Supreme Court had initially overturned the verdict owing to insufficient investigation and casework; the ruling was eventually confirmed in March 2016. 

Iran’s new Islamic penal code (adopted in 2012) makes a considerable distinction between the “active” and “passive” participants in homosexual relations: an active partner receives 100 lashes, while a passive partner is subject to execution. Should the relations not be consensual, however, the active partner is considered a rapist who can be condemned to death, while the passive victim goes free. At the same time, proving that penetration occurred is a perpetual challenge for prosecutors.

Mehri Jafari, a lawyer who has taken up the cases of many lesbian, gay, bisexual, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) defendants in Iran, says judges in these cases must invite the defendant to testify four separate times in order to prove penetration: “The judge must ask the defendant to exit the courtroom and return to confirm his claims with a clear and certain mind four times. In consensual sexual relations it is the passive partner who is liable to execution; in non-consensual relations considered to be rape, it is the active partner who is put to death.”

One complication of such punishment arises from the fact that, according to Jafari, it increases the likelihood of confession: “It was said that in the wake of the new Islamic penal code executions would decrease, since only one person would be executed instead of two. This issue, however, has increased the likelihood of confessions and made them more convenient. In the past both parties would deny that any relations had taken place in order to save themselves. Per the new penal code now, however, if someone accuses another person of rape and claims the acts were not consensual, he himself escapes death while his partner is hanged. Conversely, an individual accused of rape can claim the sex was consensual, in which case the passive partner is subject to the death penalty and he himself receives 100 lashes.”

Jafari describes such conditions as “unjust” and “uncivilized:” “In fact they consider rape to be equivalent to consensual intercourse, and determining who is put to death becomes a crapshoot. All over the world, rape is met with very harsh punishment (rape is no different than murder here) – of course not the death penalty, but rather with lengthy prison sentences. Meanwhile in Iran, if there are actual instances of consensual sex, extreme punishment – the death penalty – is pronounced for the passive partner.”

It seems that Hassan Afshar’s case turned on just this complication. Afshar claimed that the acts were consensual: had this been proven, the issue of who had been active and passive would have been taken into consideration, which might have resulted in the plaintiff himself being hanged. Because the complaint was drawn up on rape charges, however, Afshar was judged a rapist and put to death.

Fear of being executed may put a defendant in a position where accusing an active partner of rape will spare him from punishment; likewise, an accused rapist may claim that consensual sex took place rather than rape. When the sodomy is said to be “forcible,” Jafari says the case then requires that four witnesses testify that the act was forced and occurred without the consent of the other party. 

It remains unclear what really happened in the case of Afshar and many others. Why was the complaint lodged in the first place? Were the relations in fact consensual? If it was truly rape, did four witnesses testify to this fact?

Islamic Republic officials have repeatedly and publicly insisted that homosexual relationships do not exist in Iran. A prominent example of this were the comments made by then-President Mahmoud Ahmadinejhad in a 2007 address to an audience of students at Columbia University, in which he denied that such kind of sexual activity took place in Iran.

Homosexuality has always been a subject of contention in Iran. One aspect is that the Islamic Republic has labeled such relations as “sin” and criminalizes them on the basis of religious law. Another is that many people in Iranian society regard homosexuality to be taboo. Such realities serve to increase pressure on the LGBT community in Iran, members of which may even face the death penalty. 

For such reasons, many queer Iranians live secretly, hiding their identities and orientations even from their families. Many abandon their country for good to be rid of feelings of sin and criminality. Many end up relocating to Turkey and experiencing the harsh conditions of refugee life. Some are unable to bear such circumstances whether inside or outside the country and finally resort to suicide.

Hassan Afshar is an example of a young person whose relations with a member of the same sex brought life to an end. His death and the death of others cast a long shadow over the Iranian LGBT community.