The teenagers had been kept in prison for 14 months and severely beaten, their ‘confessions’ probably the result of torture. The official reason for the executions was that one of them raped a 13-year-old but human rights campaigners believe this was trumped up to try and undermine public sympathy for their case.

The lawyers’ plea that the court should take into account their young ages fell on deaf ears: under Iran’s penal code, girls as young as nine and boys as young as 15 can be hanged.

These vicious executions are an attack on basic civil and democratic rights. Iranian human rights campaigners report that over 4,000 lesbians and gay men have been executed since the ayatollahs seized power in 1979.

According to some commentators, over 100,000 Iranians have been killed during the years of clerical rule, a third of them women. The victims include women who have been accused of sex outside of marriage, as well as political opponents of the right-wing Islamist regime.

Socialists support mass struggle to unite working-class people in Iran in the defence of all democratic rights, irrespective of gender or sexual orientation. We support the right for all people to practice religion free from discrimination and persecution, along with equal rights for those who have no religious beliefs.

The Socialist Party and the Committee for a Workers’ International promote a socialist programme throughout the world to end all forms of discrimination, which are used to undermine workers’ unity, enabling rich elites to divide and rule – whether that be in Iran, China or the capitalist west. We stand for a democratic socialist society in which people have the right to personal expression, where prejudice and repression are ended for all.

To find out more about the SOCIALIST PARTY LGBT GROUP: 020 8988 8772

Socialist Party is linked to the Committee for a Workers' International (CWI) a campaigning international socialist organisation based in over 35 countries: Visit the website: