The Turkey-based Persian Gay & Lesbian Organization has posted graphic photos on its Web site of an Iranian gay man who escaped Iran after being beaten by the police because of his sexuality.

The photos can be seen at http://pglo.org/pglo-web/english/index.htm.

“Amir” said an undercover police officer made a date with him over the Internet then arrested him when they met. A week later he was sentenced to 100 lashes, which were administered in jail.

Amir says the police told him that if he were apprehended again, he would be hanged like the two male teens recently executed in the city of Mashad. The government claims those teens were hanged for raping a boy, but some human-rights groups say they have information that the boys were executed solely for being gay.

“Iranian homosexuals are … subjected to oppression, injustice and death and it is likely that only a small fraction of it comes to light,” the Persian gay group said. “The largest part of such disaster gets left [in] silence behind the curtain of fear – or many of [those cases] get mixed with … accusations so that the main story gets disguised.”

The deputy governor of Ankara, Turkey, has launched a court action to shut down the 11-year-old group Kaos GL Gay and Lesbian Cultural Research and Solidarity Organization.

The group incurred Selahattin Ekremoglu’s wrath when it applied for and received official registration as a nongovernmental organization from the Ministry of the Interior. He said the group’s existence violates Turkish Civil Code articles that prohibit organizations that threaten morality.

Banning the group likely would violate European law.

“We would like to remind the Turkish authorities about their obligation to provide freedom of association under their own constitution as well as under the European Convention on Human Rights and accession-negotiation process with the European Union,” said Patricia Prendiville, executive director of the European branch of the International Lesbian and Gay Association.

Canada has increased the penalty for producing, trafficking or selling crystal methamphetamine to a maximum of life in prison, Xtra! West reported.

Use of the especially harmful drug is believed to have reached epidemic levels in some North American gay enclaves, where it has been blamed for rising rates of HIV transmission.

“We have taken action to bring the penalties for methamphetamine offenses in line with those substances that pose a comparable level of risk to health and safety,” said Health Minister Ujjal Dosanjh.

About 200 neo-Nazis marched against “the gay lobby and pedophiles” Sept. 17 in Lisbon, Portugal. The protest was organized by the National Renovation Party with support from the far-right National Front.

Renovation President José Pinto Coelho told reporters the marchers were “not against gay people.”

“We oppose ideologic homosexualism … the imposition of deviant behavior upon society as if it were normal,” he said.

In other Portuguese news, a citizens petition calling for same-sex marriage will be presented to the government Nov. 7, reports PortugalGay.PT. There’s a Web site about the project at CasamentoCivil.org.

Family values organizations in Italy are upset over new billboards for the Ra-Re clothing line that show a man clutching another man’s crotch and a man pulling his boyfriend on top of him for a kiss, London’s The Observer reported.

A spokesperson for the Italian Parents Movement called the ads “vulgar” and “crass.”

Photographer Oliviero Toscani, 63, defended his work.

“It’s just two men having fun together,” he told the newspaper. “These parents who are complaining – their kids already know about this stuff. The Vatican is not too happy with me either but the church is an anachronism in the world today.”

Panama’s New Men and Women’s Association has presented a bill to the National Assembly that would criminalize discrimination, stigmatization and physical and verbal abuse based on sexual orientation or gender identity.

“We want them to prohibit and penalize discrimination in the workplace, schools and public services, along with the commission, instigation or promotion of hate crimes based on these two categories,” said Ricardo Beteta, president of the organization.

The proposed punishment is six months to one year in prison and a fine of 50 to 100 days’ salary.

Former Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim says he is suing former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad for nearly $27 million for calling him gay.

Mahathir has outed Anwar repeatedly over a period of several years – and did so again this month, saying he fired Anwar in 1998 to prevent Malaysia from ending up with a homosexual leader.

“I cannot have a person who is like that in my cabinet who may succeed and become the prime minister,” Mahathir said in late September. “Imagine having a gay prime minister. Nobody would be safe.”

Anwar was jailed for nine years in 2000 for allegedly engaging in same-sex sodomy, but he was released in 2004 after the Federal Court ruled the evidence against him had been unreliable.