ABOVE: Iranian Lesbian and Transgender Network activists. Photo via their Twitter.
Iranian authorities have reportedly arrested a lesbian woman as she tried to leave the country.
The Iranian Lesbian and Transgender Network in a series of tweets said members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps on Oct. 27 arrested the woman, who the group identified as Sarah, in West Azerbaijan province “while crossing the border and going to Turkey.”
Reports indicate police in Iraqi Kurdistan detained Sarah for three weeks after she spoke with BBC Persian about the treatment of LGBTQ people in the region. The reports further note Sarah entered Iran in order to enter Turkey and ask for asylum.
The Tasnim News Agency in Iran on Nov. 6 reported the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps had arrested several people for allegedly “forming a female trafficking gang and supporting homosexuals” in the area where Sarah had been arrested.
“Sarah had to cross the Iranian border to escape to Turkey and save herself,” said the Iranian Lesbian and Transgender Network in a tweet.
در دست نیست.
ساره برای فرار به ترکیه و نجات خود مجبور شده بود در بخشی از مسیر از مرزهای ایران عبور کند، او با توجه به شرایط موجود و احتمال دستگیری هنگام عبور از مرز، ساعاتی قبل از رفتن به سمت ترکیه، با شفافیت و شجاعت بسیارویدئوهایی تهیه کرده و برای یک pic.twitter.com/n7vOXCzQMI— 6Rang (@6rangiran) December 8, 2021
The Iranian Lesbian and Transgender Network on Monday said in another tweet that Sarah “still lacks a lawyer and her detention is renewed every two weeks.”
“Sarah’s children are denied access to their mother, and Sarah is denied access to her family in person,” reads the tweet.
ساره هنوز از داشتن وکیل محروم است و هر دو هفته یکبار بازداشت وی تمدید می شود. فرزندان ساره از ملاقات با مادرشان محروم هستند و ساره نیز از ملاقات حضوری با خانواده محروم است.
📍https://t.co/fsnCxoX06f— 6Rang (@6rangiran) December 13, 2021
Iran is among the handful of countries in which consensual same-sex sexual relations remain punishable by death.
Ali Fazeli Monfared’s relatives in May reportedly kidnapped and beheaded him in Ahvaz, a city in Iran’s Khuzestan province after they discovered he was gay. The State Department described the murder as “appalling.”
