A Ray Of Hope?

On a follow up about the two gay Iranian teens who were hung (story):



A ray of hope? An excerpt from an article on 365gay.com covering this story:

Is gay life in Iran as dire as some reports on this case suggest?

According to a new interview with the publishers of the Iranian gay magazine MAHA conducted by the Web site GayRussia.ru, it is not.

The magazine is distributed from inside Iran via e-mail in PDF format. (If it were published on the Web or in traditional magazine format, it likely would be blocked or banned by the government.) The magazine has 600 subscribers.

"After eight months of hard work, eight issues and four supplements have appeared, covering issues such as gays and family, depression among GLBT, a report about lesbians in Iran, etc.," the publishers wrote in the e-mail interview. "MAHA also publishes a separate supplement for gay aid and to help GLBT to find a friend. Today MAHA has two editors, one gay and one lesbian, and MAHA's readers are all over the country and even some Iranian GLBT in exile."
The publishers said gays are no longer routinely persecuted in Iran.

"The regime does not systematically persecute gays anymore, there are still some gay Web sites, there are some parks and cinemas where everyone knows that these places are meeting places for gays," they wrote. "Furthermore it is legal in Iran that a transsexual applies for sex change and it is fully accepted by the government.

"There are some media which sometimes -- not often -- write about such issues. Having said that, the Islamic law, according to which gay punishment is death, is still in force, but it is thought [to be] not much followed by the regime nowadays.

"Thanks to the Internet and contact with the international community, people get the info, and Iran society has changed a lot, and support for GLBT rights is growing in Iran, though we still have a long way to go," the publishers said. "On the whole, we are optimistic about the future as Iran's situation cannot continue [as is] and people are pushing for reforms and changes."