Tag Archives: mashhad

2013: Vahid Zare pardoned while hanging

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Last year on this date, an astonishing scene unfolded at a public hanging in Mashhad, near the Iran-Afghanistan border.

Vahid Zare, a robber who murdered a young military conscript pursuing him, was the man due for execution.

Moments after he was dropped and began strangling, the family of his victim pardoned him — their right under Iranian law. Zare was immediately rescued mid-hanging, and his executioner helped him off the gallows for transportation to a local hospital.

The graphic pictures that follow tell an astonishing story.

On this day..

2005: Mahmoud Asgari and Ayaz Marhoni, gay teens

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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.

On this day..