Ebrahim Hamidi is 18 years old and is going to be hanged

Normally Culturissima steers clear of overtly political issues; however, as Iran is a country that we have frequently written about in the past, we feel compelled to publish the following letter from Le Monde, penned by the notable French writers Philippe Besson and Gilles Leroy.


Condemned for being gay in Iran

Ebrahim Hamidi is 18 years old and is going to be hanged

After Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, sentenced to death by stoning for adultery, Iran continues to plough its furrow by sentencing to hang a young man suspected of homosexuality.  Ebrahim Hamidi is eighteen and is going to die. In his country, Iran, he has been found guilty of an abominable crime, a crime punishable by hanging. Ebrahim Hamidi is alleged to be homosexual. And so he must die. Because, if Tehran's judges are not slow in dedicating to death by stoning a woman accused of adultery, so too they hand over to the executioner a man suspected of sleeping in the same bed as his fellow man. 

This way of thinking in itself, so in conflict with the idea of humanity, would be enough to horrify us and leaves us imagining the terror in which Iranian homosexuals live, obliged to be silent, to lie, to deny their identity.  

The charges are said to have been fabricated following a mundane quarrel; the accusations made up by three fellow detainees in return for their freedom; Ebrahim's confession extracted under torture. During his trial, the accused did not have the right to any form of legal representation.  As for the verdict, it was pronounced by a magistrate who relied on "judge's knowledge", a procedure that allows for subjective judicial rulings when no formal proof exists.    

In a spectacular new development during the month of July, the alleged "victim" admitted that he fasley accused Ebrahim Hamidi following pressure from his paretns. One might have thought that this retraction would have led to the quashing of the sentence. Not at all. Ebrahim Hamidi is still guilty, of a "crime" that he has not committed. And is he homosxual or not? It makes no difference. He has to die.  

He has to die so that all the "real homosexuals" continue to hide themselves and suffer terror in silence. He has to die so that we understand that Iranian justice is incapable of making a mistake. And he is going to die, if we do not rally on his behalf. If we do not waken people's consciences.  If we do not cry high and loud and everywhere that this conviction is intolerable and that it must be overturned.

This article first appeared in Le Monde, August 31 2010; it was translated from the French by Culturissima's managing director, Dr David Winter.