ExecutedToday.com

On this date in 2005, two teenagers were hanged in Mashhad, Iran.

Affecting photos of these two youths, their faces etched in fright and grief, their 16- and 18-year-old bodies pitifully boyish next to their executioners, became an immediate worldwide sensation.

These shocking images were quickly followed by a storm of controversy. The crime for which Asgari and Marhoni swung was the rape of a 13-year-old while both the offenders were themselves minors; gay organizations and human rights groups subsequently became mired in contentious dispute over whether (as a factual, legal, or tactical matter) they could be said to have succumbed to a “lethal reign of terror targeting Iranian gays”. For instance, was the conviction reliable, or a pretext? Would these boys actually have self-identified as “gay”?

To that were added charges and countercharges among western campaigners of racism, imperial lickspittle-ism, objective-pro-Islamic-fascism, and the like. Like, awfully convenient that Iran’s longtime dim view of homosexuality has everyone exercised at just the moment bombing Tehran was being openly mooted.

But whatever the text: those pictures. Still, those pictures.

It is certain that both Mahmoud Asgari and Ayaz Marhoni were juvenile offenders, whose execution is anathema almost everywhere in the world but Iran — just one of that country’s unique characteristics.

Also On This Date

• 1824: Alexander Pearce, cannibal convict