Gays Protest Ahmadinejad in Brazil

Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was met by a crowd of activists, including LGBT advocates, in Brazil on Monday, protesting his country's oppression of gays and lesbians.

According to TheChristian Science Monitor, a mass of gays, Jews, Christians, and Holocaust survivors protested his arrival. However, supporters of Iran -- including women in headscarves -- staged a counterdemonstration, waving Brazilian and Iranian flags.

Brazil is the first stop in Latin America for Ahmadinejad, who famously declared that Iran had no gay people in 2007 at a Columbia University forum. Authorities are known to issue the death penalty to those caught engaging or abetting in homosexuality, which is illegal in Iran and some other countries in the Middle East and Africa.