A gay man was put to death by hanging at the Rajai Shahr Prison in Iran for the charge of sodomy.

Above: photo by sina drakhshani on Unsplash

Iman Safari-rad  was the gay man put to death according to Human Rights Organization HRANA.

RELATED: ‘My Country Kills Men Like Me, It’s So Fucking Unfair’ Says Iranian 19 Year-Old

Sodomy or gay sex is a capitol crime punishable by death in the Islamic Republic.

RELATED: Iran Hung Two Gay Men Charged with Sodomy Today

Radio Free Europe:

The Norway-based watchdog Iran Human Rights says it has found evidence that 10 people convicted of various charges had their punishments meted out in a mass execution on June 29 at the Rajai-Shahr prison in the city of Karaj.

In a statement dated June 30, the group said eight of those executed had been convicted of murder, while the ninth had been convicted of sodomy and the tenth of rape.

Rape is a charge often used as a pretext by officials to freely execute queer folk, a US Department of State report found.

2#MehdiKhalghaldi, die laut der Mullah-Justiz aufgrund des Vorwurfs von “#Sodomie” & “Vergewaltigung der Ehre” hingerichtet wurden, 29.6.22.

Diese #Serienhinrichtungen fanden unmittelbar nach der Reise des Hohen Vertreters der EU für Außen- & Sicherheitspolitik, #JosepBorrell,

— Kazem Moussavi (@KazemDr) June 30, 2022

LGBTQ+ people in Iran face unrelenting violence for simply existing. Same-sex sexual activity is strictly prohibited under the republic’s penal code, carrying a maximum penalty of death.

Peter Tatchell, a British LGBTQ+ campaigner, told The Jerusalem Post: “Yet again another man has been executed on a charge of sodomy, which he may or may not have committed, with or without consent.

“What is certain is that this man almost certainly did not receive a fair trial under the notoriously biased Iranian judicial system. Defendants are routinely denied access to lawyers and defence witnesses.”

Tatchell described how Iran’s judicial system can see gay people tried in rushed hearings, often only having a lawyer minutes before the trial starts. No substantial evidence is often even needed by the court to hand down a sentence.

“The world must make relations with Iran contingent on Tehran’s observance of international human rights law, including a prohibition on the use of the death penalty in all circumstances and respect for the human rights of LGBTs, women, non-believers and religious and ethnic minorities,” Tatchell added.

Safari-rad’s alleged execution is just the latest in a horrifying legacy of violence toward LGBTQ+ Iranians.

For decades, those accused and convicted of same-sex activities have been beheaded, stoned to death, thrown off cliffs and amputated. A 17-year-old – charged with “rape” – was hung for having sex with a teenage boy in 2016.

Farhad Meisamy, a civil activist who has been in the same prison for more than four years, wrote in a note earlier this month that “about 200 executions are carried out in this prison every year.”

As of June 28, 239 executions had been recorded in Iran this year, including more than three a day over the past month, according to Iran Human Rights, a pace that puts Iran within reach of the 517 executions it carried out in 2017.

“There is no evidence of any dramatic changes [in crime rates] that would explain this,” Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, the director of the rights watchdog told RFE/RL by telephone.

Furthermore, he added, Iranian authorities are aware that capital punishment is not an effective deterrent to violent crimes or drug offenses, “so the aim is not to fight crime or deter crime.”

Amiry-Moghaddam noted that the wave of executions recorded in May, when 50 prisoners were put to death, coincided with the start of mass protests over rising food prices in southwestern Iran.

Some human rights sources, including the Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), have previously stated that more than 85 percent of executions in Iran are carried out “in secret and without official and public information.”

June 29 and 30 in a sad coincidence were the last two days of gay pride month celebrated in many parts of the world.