Three executions in Iran for sodomy in 2011

Three people were executed in Iran last year for sodomy, according to Amnesty International’s newly released 2011 report on capital punishment.

Amnesty International report on capital punishment in 2011.

A total of at least 676 people were executed for all types of crimes last year, not counting executions in China, where they are estimated to run in the thousands, the group said.

In Iran, the scope of the death penalty is very broad, with at least three executions carried out for “sodomy,” the report said. It did not provide further information about those deaths.

It noted that “The Human Rights Committee, in its concluding observations of 2 November 2011 on Iran’s country report, expressed its concerns in relation to the fact that members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community faced harassment, persecution, cruel punishment and even the death penalty; the wide range and often vague definition of offences for which the death penalty is applied; and the continued use of public executions as well as stoning as a method of execution.”

The report also mentioned two other countries where the death penalty for gay sex is on the books or under consideration.

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In Nigeria: “Under the Shari’a penal codes applicable in twelve northern states, rape, sodomy and adultery are also punishable with death.”

In Uganda: “legislative attempts to allow the death penalty for so-called ‘aggravated homosexuality’ continued to be discussed. In May 2011 a draft bill, originally proposed in 2009, was adjourned after the country’s parliament was officially dissolved. But its supporters remained intent on reintroducing the bill in the new parliament. This law would entrench discrimination against and would sanction hatred and violence towards lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.”