over the last six months, a number of international incidents have raised public consciousness of international GLBT issues.Two youth were hanged in Iran, sparking a massive global response to juvenile execution. Three sex workers in El Salvador were murdered. Saudi Arabian officials sentenced over 100 men to flogging for “behaving like women.” The European Parliament criticized Jamaica’s use of sodomy laws to justify the harassment of HIV/AIDS educators.

But what no one seems to be noticing, say leading GLBT rights watchdogs, is that all of these events have one thing in common: a systematic violation of human rights for GLBT individuals.

The public hanging of two teenagers, Ayaz Marhoni and Mahmoud Asgari, in Mashad, Iran, has brought together some unlikely allies.

The day started like any other day in Mashad, on July 19. The sun was high overhead. People crowded the streets for their shopping. However, there was one significant difference. Fourteen months of detention and 228 lashes (apiece) later, two lifeless bodies were left dangling in full public view in the small northeastern city.

Within hours the day’s events drew ire from all corners of the globe. Leading European and U.S. human rights leaders launched massive letter-writing campaigns, claiming, among other things, that the executions violated international law. The government of the Netherlands stopped deporting homosexuals seeking political protection and refugee status, stating that they would face “cruel and inhumane treatment” if they were forced to return.

But not everyone was addressing the issue of gay rights with regard to the execution. Iran’s own Nobel Peace laureate, Shirin Ebadi, condemned the executions, focusing on the issue of age, reaffirming her determination to ban the execution of minors.

“My calls for a law banning execution of under-18s have fallen on deaf ears so far, but I will not give up the fight,” Ebadi told The Associated Press, calling the executions a violation of Iran’s obligations under the International Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Even the United States’ gay conservative lobbying group, the Log Cabin Republicans, weighed in, calling for a redoubling of efforts against the war on terrorism. “In the wake of news stories and photographs documenting the hanging of two Iranian teenagers, Log Cabin Republicans reaffirm their commitment to the global war on terror,” they said in a statement.

Details began to blur. Varying stories of the events emerged. The government of Iran went on the offensive, claiming the two had coerced a 13-year-old into homosexual relations. The Iran Judiciary released a statement indicating the execution was for “drunken and disorderly behavior, stealing a bicycle, threatening behaviors to others and having sex with a 13-year-old boy.”

According to the Farsi daily, Quds, the case dates back two years, and the boy in question was seized outside a shopping area by the two young men ultimately convicted and taken to a deserted area where five other boys were waiting. A lengthy interview with the father of the alleged victim indicates that the boy was gang raped at knifepoint. This was confirmed by three passersby.

Amir Ershad, a Middle Eastern studies Ph.D. candidate and author of a number of influential journal articles on GLBT issues in Iran, explained to the Gay & Lesbian Times Iranian law regarding homosexual acts.

“Consensual gay sex in any form – I repeat, any form at all,” says Ershad, “is punishable by death in Iran. Essentially, those charged with engaging in homosexual acts are given a choice of four death styles: being hanged, being stoned to death, being severed in half by a sword or dropped from the highest perch until pronounced dead.”

Specifically, explains Ershad, Article 152 of Iranian law states that if two men not related by blood are discovered naked under one cover without good reason, both will be punished at a judge’s discretion.

This is precisely what happened in Mashad, says Ershad, whose parents immigrated to the U.S. when he was a child. However, one of the issues many are questioning is the age of the offenders. Different accounts have placed the two young men at varying ages, but the most reliable reports seem to put one at 18 and the other at 19 at the time of execution.

Even if both were, in fact, 18 or 19 at the time of execution, the fact that the two were detained for over a year suggests that both were minors at the time of the offense.

The U.S. executed approximately 365 juveniles before the Supreme Court’s March, 2005 Roper v. Simmons decision banned all executions of persons under the age of 18 at the time of the offense, affecting 72 death row juveniles in 12 states. Sean Sellers was 16 when he was sentenced to death, and finally executed in 1999 in Oklahoma at the age of 29.

Sellers, who was convicted of the 1986 murder of his mother and stepfather, was one of 10 juvenile executions in the U.S. in the 1990s. Only four other countries are known to have executed juvenile offenders during this decade. They are Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Yemen. The U.S. executed more juvenile offenders than the other four countries combined during this decade.

Over 95 percent of all known, government-sanctioned executions were in Iran, Vietnam, China and the U.S.

“Death is an inhumane punishment, particularly for someone under 18 at the time of his crimes,” said Hadi Ghaemi, Iran researcher for Human Rights Watch (HRW). “All but a handful of countries forbid such executions. Iran should as well.”

As the heat intensified on Iran, many wonder why the focus is solely on Iran.

After all, there are other hot spots for GLBT issues around the globe.

On Friday, Aug. 5, a group of unidentified men approached the Gay and Lesbians of Zimbabwe (GALZ) stand at the Zimbabwe International Book Fair and said they were not allowed to be at the fair. According to Keith Goddard, executive director of GALZ, the men then entered the offices of the fair and issued threats against the fair staff.

Repeated attempts to attract the attention of police officers and security guards patrolling the gardens failed. According to Goddard, “Everyone simply refused to intervene.” This, on the heals of being awarded the IGLHRC’s [International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission] Felipa de Souza Award for advocating for the human rights and sexual rights of all persons whose gender and sexual identities or expression do not conform to social or cultural norms, added insult to injury.

In 1995, despite a theme of “Human Rights and Justice,” GALZ was illegally barred from participating. Zimbabwe’s Supreme Court ordered GALZ be allowed access to the fair. Ten years later, however, this has done little to curb the harassment, says Goddard.

In May of this year, 15 men and two women were arrested in Cameroon and charged with sodomy. All 17 are being held in detention at the Kongdengui Central Prison, despite the fact that Cameroon is a signatory on the International Convenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Human Rights Committee’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights, both of which state that anti-sodomy laws violate protections against discrimination as well as the right to privacy.

More shocking is the July 12 Queenstown, South Africa, incident where local police assaulted unarmed, peaceful protestors with rubber bullets and tear gas. The protestors were asking for HIV treatment. Many of those injured were people who live openly with HIV/AIDS.

Taiwan’s only gay and lesbian bookstore was charged with obscenity and is under trial behind closed doors. Despite being in compliance with the country’s ordinances, the owner of the bookstore was detained for an unusually long period of time, as yet undisclosed.

Three MTF (male to female) transgender sex workers have been murdered in San Salvador, El Salvador, since April, including Maribel, who was repeatedly stabbed in the face and neck and then suffocated in her room. Major human rights organizations are claiming none of the three cases appear to have been investigated by local authorities.

Police in Kathmandu attacked a group of transgender people on April 13, the Nepalese New Year’s Eve, underscoring “the vulnerability of all Nepalese to police abuse since King Gyanendra seized direct power in February and suspended most civil liberties,” according to Human Rights Watch.

In Saudi Arabia, over 100 men were sentenced to imprisonment and flogging after trials for reputed homosexual conduct on March 10 of this year, according to the International Commission of Jurists. The government-affiliated newspaper, Al-Wifaq, reported that the men at the party were dancing and “behaving like women.”

And finally, a young Indian man was beheaded by a male coworker who apparently told police he “was ashamed” after the two had sex. GLBT leaders around the globe are blaming the tragic incident on a culture of shame and fear promoted by homophobia, such as the widely enforced sodomy laws.

“By definition, sodomy laws give the state power to track, torment, jail and otherwise punish people because of their sexual desire or expression,” explains Paula Ettelbrick, executive director of IGLHRC. “It’s the same phenomenon around the world, which is why a fundamental premise of human rights for sexual minorities demands the repeal of these abusive laws.”

Ershad explains, however, why it is easier to target Iran than South Africa, Taiwan or Jamaica.

“No doubt people are wondering, ‘Why Iran? Why now?’” says Ershad. “After all, there are places where equally horrific events are occurring, and they didn’t just start this summer in Iran. But the fact of the matter is that most of the people involved in the outcry are missing the ‘out.’ They are outraged by the execution of young people, not the execution of gay people.”

That is, it’s easier to express outrage based on the war on terror, religion, the right to privacy or juvenile execution. But for Ershad and Ettelbrick, it is far more than that.

In Iran, according to Ershad, gay teens are also punished at a judge’s discretion, pursuant to Article 144. This can include execution. Likewise, frottage, rubbing one’s penis between the thighs without penetration, is punishable by 100 lashes for each offender. It is punishable by death if the “offender” is a non-Muslim. If frottage is repeated three times and penalty-lashes have failed to stop such repetitions, upon the fourth “offense,” both men will be put to death.

However, according to Article 156, a person who repents and confesses his gay behavior prior to his identification by four witnesses may be pardoned.

“It is unlikely, though, that this option was given,” says Ershad. In fact, most reports suggest that admissions of guilt were obtained through coercion and torture. Photographs of the two young men as they were interviewed en route to the hanging, as well as one depicting them blindfolded on the gallows with two hooded men securing nooses around their necks, were blogged around the globe via the Internet.

For many, one question remains unanswered, though: Did the two young men engage in sex with a 13-year-old, as the Iranian government asserts? While the first reports of the execution deny such a possibility (the Iranian Students’ News Agency broke the story), the possibility has given many gay rights organizations pause.

HRW, IGLHRC and the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), three of the largest international gay rights watchdog groups, have all cautioned against adopting this as a gay rights cause while the investigation of the rape (it is almost universally agreed that regardless of the act, a 13-year-old is not capable of making informed and consensual decisions regarding sex) is carried out.

Early reactions from British gay and human rights campaigner Outrage! and Andrew Sullivan, gay conservative essayist for Time magazine and former editor-in-chief for The New Republic, among others, were dissuaded by the Iranian government’s claims of rape.

According to Outrage! and Sullivan, it is not clear what happened to the other five members of what is described as a gang or the passersby who say they were attacked with knives and had their cars vandalized.

Peter Tatchell, of Outrage!, was quoted as saying the rape charges were “just the latest barbarity by the Islamo-fascists in Iran,” while Sullivan blogged his belief that the two teenage boys were hanged “by the Islamo-fascist regime in Iran…for being gay.”

The Associated Press and other major global news agencies were reporting the executions as punishment for the crime of raping a minor, and the U.S. State Department has taken no official position on the executions.

Jibril (who asked to have his last name withheld) has lived in Southern California for 12 years now, having recently come to San Diego. Originally from Rasht, Iran, a northern city on the Caspian Sea, Jibril knows firsthand what it is like to live in fear of his home government. Jibril, 42, moved to the U.S. after several close calls with the Iranian police; one that included watching his then-boyfriend dragged away and brutally beaten.

“It was during Ramadan in 1992 and we had been observing the fast,” recalls Jibril. “Because everything is pretty closed up during the holy season, we were walking out near the water. We decided to take a break. My boyfriend went to the public toilet and was ambushed as he came out.”

Jibril is very deliberate in his speech. There is little outward emotion, though there is a great sense of passion just below the surface. On that particular day, though, Jibril was speechless.

“When I heard Ghadir scream, I knew what was happening,” says Jibril. “I knew at that instant that I would never see Ghadir again. His name means ‘sword’ [in Farsi]. I often have nightmares with visions of him being executed by his own namesake.”

When Jibril read of the Dutch asylum-seeker’s struggle, he instantly darkened. He knows the story too well.

There is no question in Jibril’s mind that the Iranian government executed Ghadir – if not by a sword, then in the same way they did the two teenagers this past July.

“Things don’t change so quickly back home,” Jibril says. “It isn’t like here, where you can have no rights one day, and the next day see gay marriage. I don’t think anyone really understands how amazing this is. I just remember when I wanted nothing more than to live another day, and here [in the United States] people want to send wedding invitations.”

One area that Jibril says he finds most frustrating when talking to his American friends is the subject of religion.

“Most of the world’s politics come from the areas’ religious beliefs,” argues Jibril. “My [American] friends can’t understand this, even though the laws here come from religion. Being gay is considered a sin in most religions. It’s a sickness, a betrayal of one’s family and culture. That’s why people get very emotional about this. Is there any issue besides sex that signals such a strong betrayal of your family? This is what allows fathers to kill sons and mothers to turn their heads.”

The executions of the two teenagers in Mashad brought back a flood of memories for both Jibril and Ershad.

“I just find it shocking that people can be talking about the Baptists’ boycott of Disney ending, and not realize that this same hate can manifest in other ways,” explains Ershad. “Doesn’t anyone understand what the religious groups in certain countries do to lesbians? They sure don’t let them host television shows.”

Oftentimes, the best way to change someone’s perceptions of the GLBT community is to introduce them to an individual who is a member of the community. Proximity, at least say many leading sociologists, brings understanding.

Not so for the small oil-producing country of Qatar.

This summer, Qatar’s 25-year-old Crown Prince Tameem Bin Hamad Al-Thani was outed in a Dubai-based publication after being involved in an altercation with locals at London’s popular G.A.Y. bar. According to the report, Prince Tameem “and his partner were not charged,” but were banned from the nightclub for 30 days.

Aljazeera magazine immediately condemned the crown prince, the heir to the Qatar throne, suggesting he be “stoned to death.” This exceeds the current punishment in Qatar for homosexuality, which is five to 10 years in prison.

Such extremism is not so difficult to understand if you have lived it, says Jibril.

“Unless you have seen the eyes of the persecuted or heard their screams – both the silent ones and the piercing ones – you have no idea how ‘inhumane’ law is,” avers Jibril, with a passion that no longer remains below the surface.

“I hope with all my heart that those two boys were offered the chance to repent before four witnesses,” says Jibril. “And I hope for all our children’s sake, and our children’s children, that they said, ‘No.’ I hope they said ‘no’ after 50 lashes and 100 lashes and 200 lashes and 288 lashes. I hope they said ‘no’ on the platform in Mashad. Then they are my heroes. Who do we have [in America] as heroes?”

Heroes, of course, are not defined by time and space, but their legacy, or at least the images of their legacy, live on.

Such is the case with Iranian transgender activist Maryam Khatoon Molkara, a post-operative transgender MTF who lives in Iran. Molkara, who began her transition in Iran (where funding for transgender procedures are supported by the state), came to be in good company 22 years ago when she joined the list of those against whom the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini had issued a fatwa.

Unlike Salman Rushdie, author of Satanic Verses, Molkara used not words but her body to provoke the late Iranian leader.

While it may seem an unlikely situation and unlike most other Muslim countries, sex changes are legal in Iran. Molkara, who over two decades ago charged through the Ayatollah’s bodyguards dressed in a suit and sporting hormone-enhanced breasts and flung herself at the leader, is no less radical today.

The seemingly incongruent images of Molkara being escorted by the Ayatollah’s son to see him and two teenagers being hanged for homosexual acts is, says Ershad, a function of the Muslim approach to homosexuality and gender issues.

“In Iran homosexuals are punishable by death,” explains Ershad. “But transgender people are not gay, they are simply in the wrong body.”

Last week, President Bush addressed the United Nations in honor of their 60th anniversary. The presence of Bush gave GLBT leaders an opportunity to press the issue of protection. Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, says Jibril, he didn’t hear any news of such.

“It is why I continue to live in constant disappointment and fear – that the [American] government will force me to return to Iran where I would likely be executed,” says Jibril, “and why I live in constant disappointment – that no one will stand up and demand we be protected.”

Professor Douglas Sanders, who in 1982 became the first openly gay individual to speak to the United Nations, sees the plight of human rights and gay and lesbian rights as inexplicably linked.

“International human rights law and the lesbian and gay rights movement have grown up together in the years since World War II,” says Sanders. “Both are still developing. Both are evolving from western initiatives to a worldwide presence.”

For Sanders and many others, the fact that the Brazilian resolution to the United Nation’s Human Rights Commission was deferred by consensus last year (and had been postponed in 2003 to 2004) to the 2005 session, gives the UNHRC an historic opportunity: acknowledging sexual orientation and gender identity as protected under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Many argue that GLBT persons win victories based on general human rights, since sexual minorities are already covered by existing law and, therefore, no further delineation is required. For example, the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms was used as the tool to strike down laws against homosexual acts between consenting adults in Ireland and Cyprus.

However, the fact remains that most sexual minorities – including the GLBT community – often fail to report violence against them. They fear their sexual orientations or gender identity issues will be made public, making them and their families targets for further violence. They lack trust in the governments, police and judiciaries to protect them. And, in many cases, the police themselves are the worst transgressors of human rights when it comes to sexual minorities, including the GLBT community.

It is not too hard to think back to 1969 and the raid on Stonewall, or to 1994 to the Tasty Bust in Melbourne, Australia.

The question remains, though, just how many Stonewall or Tasty raids – or Mashhad executions – will the world tolerate? And who is going to stand up and ask that GLBT citizens around the world be not only counted but safeguarded?

Ershad is careful, though, to make sure that the Iran case does not become the cause de celebrity.

“I think it’s safe to say that we shouldn’t single Iran out, just because it is a politically expedient thing to do, because it is a Muslim country in the Middle East, and there is a war on terror, and so on,” says Ershad. “That being said, I have no intention of giving my homeland a free pass. They need to be held accountable for these barbaric actions. And someone has to step up and say, ‘No more.’”