Rights Group Reports 3 Hanged in Iran for Gay Sex

Three men were executed in Iran on Sunday for having gay sex, according to Iran Human Rights, an organization that monitors state news there.

The group noted in a blog post today that the state-run Iranian news agency, ISNA, reports that three people who were hanged had been convicted of sodomy and other crimes such as robbery. A Sharia judge is allowed to decide how to kill any man who violates the anti-sodomy article of the law.

IHR says the men were identified in the report only by initials: "M.T.", "T.T." and M. Ch."

IHR spokesman Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam said these were "rare cases" in which the Iranian government had put someone to death explicitly for homosexual acts. "Iranian authorities normally present such cases as rape," Amiry-Moghaddam said in a statement.

So far, IHR is the only group reporting these deaths.

Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad once famously told a reporter during a news conference that, ''In Iran, we don't have homosexuals like in your country. We don't have that in our country. In Iran, we do not have this phenomenon. I don't know who's told you that we have it.''