Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

Battle won, war still ongoing.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

It’s time for the GOP to dust off that post-2012 autopsy, completely ignore it, and light the party on fire again.

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

Consistently wrong since 2002

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

Following reporting rules is only for the little people, apparently.

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

Come on, man.

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

You are here: Home / Another Gay Execution?

Reader Interactions

13Comments

  1. 1.

    Peter T.

    Can anyone find a link to a bona fide news organization that has run either the initial execution story or this latest one? By bona fide I mean an organization that can be shown to make substantial effort in verifying the events it’s reporting occured.
    Googling ‘iran gay execute’ produces 70k hits, but in glancing through several pages they all seem only to reference each other. This article references a report in the Observer, however there is no link. Assuming the London Observer is meant (published by the Manchester Guardian) a check of their online archive for ‘iran gay execute’ or just ‘iran gay’ produces no hits.
    As I said when the first execution story was run – I can’t imagine the NY Times and many other news organization not being all over this story.

  2. 2.

    Bob

    Gee, after their new constitution is passed, maybe they’ll have gay executions in Iraq.

    By the way, what is Hugo Chavez’s sexual orientation?

  3. 3.

    Demdude

    As I said when the first execution story was run – I can’t imagine the NY Times and many other news organization not being all over this story.

    This is a hard story to cover. However, according to Country Reports on Human Rights Practices – 2001 from the US State Department:

    Citizens continued to be tried and sentenced to death in the absence of sufficient procedural safeguards. In 1992 the domestic press stopped reporting most executions; however, executions continue in substantial numbers, according to U.N. and other reporting. The UNSR, based on media reports, cited an estimated 60 executions from January through July, down from 130 during the same period last year. The Government has not cooperated in providing the UNSR with a precise number of executions carried out. The UNSR reported that approximately two thirds of the executions took place in public, contrary to regulations, and that state television broadcasted scenes from hangings on at least two occasions during the year. He also noted that a woman was hanged publicly on March 19, a very rare event in the Islamic republic. Exiles and human rights monitors allege that many of those executed for criminal offenses, such as narcotics trafficking, actually are political dissidents. Supporters of outlawed political organizations, such as the Mujahedin-e Khalq organization, are believed to make up a large number of those executed each year.

    As mentioned, the actual charges for the executions are not always made public. I believe the first ones reported executed were charged with gang rape.

    The MSM would have to field some deep undercover reports risking their lives to verify these reports. The odds are against that.

    As you can read, even though you can’t 100% guarantees that this report is accurate, it isn’t out of the realm of possibilities.

  4. 4.

    Peter T.

    Actually I did find a Reuters report, with photos, of five men publicly executed in Iran for heterosexual rape. So, it’s quite possible for reports of executions to originate from Iran reported by traditional media. Reuters and AFP seemingly have nothing re the cases mentioned here.
    My poking around is by no means exhaustive. I did find references to the two young men in the original story having been executed for rape, but the sources for this information all seem to point to student/activist organizations. I also can find no mention of the event by any agency of any government.

  6. 6.

    docG

    Iran has had recent elections and it has a Constitution. Their military and police seem to have terrorists under control fairly well without American troops on their soil. There is always some unfortunate collateral damage in establishing democracies, such as the identified execution. Freedom is on the march!!!

  7. 7.

    A Dahl

    There are a lot of people in the US who are pro capital punishment, and of them way too many also believes in killing people who committed their crime when they were younger than 18 (the supreme court has stopped that for now).

    So I’m guessing a lot of Americans would have been perfectly okey with Iran executing people who were younger than 18 when they committed the crime as long as they thought the crime was one that they should have recieved the death sentence for, for instance murder. Obviously this relates more to when Iran executed two teens.

    Personally I don’t believe in capital punishment. There are circumstances where people are forced to kill another human like during war, when you are threatend with leathal force or someone threatens another human with lethal force. If you have caught and imprisoned a criminal then he’s no longer a threat to society, if the crime is severe then society shouldn’t kill the person but he/she should also never be let back into society.

  8. 8.

    Mike

    “Bob Says:

    Gee, after their new constitution is passed, maybe they’ll have gay executions in Iraq.

    By the way, what is Hugo Chavez’s sexual orientation?”

    As opposed to just executing everybody like they used to…

  9. 9.

    Mike

    “Anderson Says:

    I would love to get Dobson on tape being asked what he thinks of this.”

    Why?
    When has Dobson advocated killing gays?

  12. 12.

    Conservabastard

    Another sodomite is dead? Who cares???

    At least Iran has a thriving gerbil population…

Comments are closed.

Trackbacks