Sep. 5 (EUROPA PRESS) –
An Iranian court has sentenced two women accused of human trafficking to death, in a process that, according to an NGO, is actually related to their activism in favor of the rights of the LGTBI community.
The sentence was handed down by a court in the city of Urmia, in northwestern Iran, and also includes “corruption on earth” among the crimes, according to the IRNA agency. It is an ambiguous charge used against people suspected of violating the integrity of the State or of acting against public morality, among other presumably criminal activities.
The NGO Hengaw Organization for Human Rights has assured that the two women, identified as Zahra Sedighi, 31, and Elham Chubdar, 24, were actually arrested for demanding more rights for the LGTBI population in a country where homosexuality continues to be illegal –even liable to the death penalty–.
Amnesty International also alerted Sedighi’s situation in January, warning that she had been arbitrarily detained and solely for her alleged sexual orientation. According to this organization, she was arrested after appearing in a BBC documentary about the LGTBI population in Iranian Kurdistan.
The official agency has not alluded to her sexual orientation when reporting the conviction, although state television has described Sedighi as a mother of two who wanted to “break the taboo of homosexuality” and who helped transfer women to Iraq to be “sold in nightclubs,” reports the Bloomberg agency.
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