Amnesty International has urged Iran to free an Iranian LGBTIQ+ activist held for the last three months on charges linked to an appearance in a documentary on gay rights in Iraqi Kurdistan.
Zahra Sedighi-Hamadan had been based in Iraqi Kurdistan but was arrested by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards on 27 October while seeking to flee to neighbouring Turkey, Amnesty said.
After a 53-day period of "forced disappearance" in solitary confinement in the northwestern Iranian city of Orumiyeh, she was brought before Iranian prosecutors in January and charged with "spreading corruption on earth" and "promoting homosexuality". Amnesty said that the charges stemmed from her public defence of LGBTIQ+ rights on her social media platforms and an appearance in a BBC documentary aired in May 2021 about the abuses that LGBTIQ+ people suffer in the Kurdistan Region of northern Iraq.
She had decided to leave Iraqi Kurdistan after being detained by the regional authorities there. It appears she crossed into Iran again before seeking to head for Turkey. Iran's authorities must immediately release gender nonconforming human rights defender Zahra Sedighi-Hamadani, unjustly detained since Oct 2021 due to her real or perceived sexual orientation and gender identity & her public defence of
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