How the Islamic Republic Turned LGBTQ+ Solidarity Into a Capital Case

When Solidarity Becomes Evidence

On 1 September 2022, Zahra Sedighi-Hamadani, known as Sareh, and Elham Choubdar learned that they had been sentenced to death in Urmia. The charge was "corruption on earth," one of the Islamic Republic's broadest and most serious capital offenses. The case immediately drew international attention because UN experts linked the proceedings to peaceful LGBTQ+ advocacy and assistance to people seeking to leave Iran, while Iranian authorities publicly presented an entirely different narrative, characterizing the case as one involving trafficking and the smuggling of women and girls. The judgment itself was not made public, leaving a significant part of the state's case inaccessible to independent scrutiny.

That gap matters because an allegation made by authorities is not, by itself, proof of the conduct alleged. A trafficking accusation does not establish that exploitation occurred, just as evidence of LGBTQ+ advocacy does not automatically resolve every allegation that may have been examined by investigators. A serious human-rights assessment has to preserve those distinctions. At the same time, the absence of a publicly available judgment makes another question particularly important: how did relationships, advocacy and assistance involving members of an already criminalized community become incorporated into a prosecution carrying the possibility of execution?

Amnesty International concluded that Sedighi-Hamadani and Choubdar had been targeted because of their real or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity and their support for LGBTQ+ communities. The organization described the trafficking allegations as spurious and documented serious fair-trial concerns. Iranian authorities presented a sharply different account of the case. The significance of the prosecution therefore lies not simply in the competing descriptions of what happened, but in the power of the state to transform one description into a security narrative and then place that narrative inside a criminal proceeding carrying the possibility of death.

The sequence is important. An intelligence institution can establish a security narrative around a group of people and their relationships. Prosecutors can then translate elements of that narrative into criminal allegations. A court can ultimately determine whether those allegations meet the legal threshold for one of the most severe punishments available. For the community watching the process, however, another message can emerge long before a final judgment: helping another LGBTQ+ person may itself become dangerous.

That message reaches beyond the defendants. An LGBTQ+ person who needs somewhere to stay may hesitate before asking a friend for housing. A partner may fear that private messages could later be interpreted as evidence of criminal activity. Someone helping another person travel out of Iran may wonder whether humanitarian assistance could be described as participation in a criminal network. The consequences of repression therefore do not begin with imprisonment or execution. They can begin with the fear that ordinary acts of solidarity may expose both the person seeking help and the person providing it.

This is one of the most effective ways repression can operate. The state does not need to arrest everyone within a community to weaken that community. Fear can encourage isolation, silence and self-censorship. When people begin to avoid one another because they believe association itself may attract attention, the social infrastructure that allows a persecuted community to survive is gradually weakened.

From LGBTQ+ Advocacy to Intelligence Detention

Before her arrest in Iran, Sareh had lived in Erbil in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. A 2022 factsheet by the Iranian LGBTQ+ organization 6Rang described her as a restaurant owner and mother of two who operated a Telegram group and spoke publicly on Instagram about LGBTQ+ life. She also appeared in a BBC Persian documentary concerning abuses against LGBTQ+ people in Iraqi Kurdistan. Her activism and public visibility placed her in a position where her advocacy was no longer confined to private conversations. She had become a recognizable voice discussing the experiences of LGBTQ+ people.

According to 6Rang, Kurdish security forces later detained her for 21 days and subjected her to ill-treatment. After her release, she sought a route through Iran toward Turkey. Her presence inside Iran should not automatically be interpreted as evidence that she considered the country safe or that she voluntarily returned to a place where she faced no danger. People escaping persecution do not always have the ability to travel through safe territory. Routes are shaped by borders, money, documents and available assistance, and a person fleeing one form of danger may be forced to pass through another.

UN experts reported that the Revolutionary Guards arrested Sareh near the Turkish border on 27 October 2021. They said she was subsequently subjected to a 53-day enforced disappearance and alleged abuse and discriminatory insults during detention in Urmia. These allegations are significant not only because of the treatment described, but because the early stages of detention can determine how an entire criminal case develops.

A detention can become an information-gathering process. A person's phone can be seized, contacts can be identified, relationships can be reconstructed and statements can be obtained under conditions where meaningful access to relatives or independent legal assistance may be limited. Once investigators establish an initial official account of what a person supposedly represents or whom they are connected to, that narrative can shape subsequent decisions about interrogation, charging and prosecution.

The IRGC Intelligence Organization also established a public narrative early in the case. Amnesty recorded that in November 2021 the organization announced the disruption of a network allegedly moving women abroad for "corruption" while supporting homosexual groups under foreign protection. That announcement came months before the publicly reported death sentences.

The chronology does not prove that intelligence officials dictated every subsequent judicial decision. It does, however, show that the defendants had already been placed within a security narrative before the public had an opportunity to examine the evidence underlying the accusations. That distinction is important. Institutional chronology can establish who held authority and what was publicly announced, but it cannot by itself establish personal responsibility for every later decision.

The Legal Machinery Behind the Threat

Iranian criminal law already directly punishes certain forms of same-sex sexual conduct. Article 234 of the Islamic Penal Code provides the death penalty in specified circumstances involving male same-sex intercourse, while other provisions impose flogging for additional same-sex acts, including female same-sex conduct defined by the code.

The Urmia prosecution followed a different legal route. Article 286 addresses "corruption on earth," a broadly framed capital offense that includes conduct alleged to cause extensive damage to public order or to spread corruption or prostitution on a large scale. The distinction is important because the legal theory of the prosecution can determine how much of a person's social world becomes relevant to a criminal case.

A prosecution focused on a particular alleged act asks what an individual did. A prosecution built around an alleged corrupting network can potentially draw in communications, contacts, travel, advocacy and assistance. A social circle can be characterized as an organization. A relationship can be presented as evidence of participation in a broader network. A person helping someone cross a border can be incorporated into a larger security theory.

For LGBTQ+ communities, that possibility carries a particular danger. When association with LGBTQ+ people already exists within a legal and social environment of criminalization, the boundary between identity, community support and alleged criminal organization can become dangerously blurred.

The Penal Code also contains safeguards. Article 169 excludes confessions obtained through coercion, torture or psychological or physical abuse. Article 241 places limits on investigation into concealed intimate conduct in certain circumstances. The existence of such protections, however, makes their implementation more important, not less. A legal safeguard is meaningful only when there are mechanisms capable of independently determining whether it was respected.

If evidence was obtained through coercion, the existence of a statutory prohibition does not by itself repair the harm. Independent access to the underlying records, interrogation conditions, legal representation and medical evidence becomes essential. Without that transparency, the public is left with competing narratives in which the state controls much of the evidentiary record.

Criminal Law Beyond the Courtroom

The effects of criminalization do not begin and end with convictions. They shape decisions people make before any prosecutor files a charge.

For an LGBTQ+ person deciding whether to ask for help, disclosure can carry risks that have little to do with the original request. A friend offering a place to sleep may fear that the relationship could later be interpreted as participation in prohibited activity. A private message sent for emotional support could become part of an investigative file. A person helping another individual travel could find their assistance reinterpreted as evidence of a wider network.

This is how criminal law extends beyond the courtroom. It changes behavior before a case exists. It turns ordinary association into risk management and forces people to consider whether solidarity itself is safe.

Human Rights Trust has documented the criminalization of same-sex conduct in Iran while also emphasizing uncertainty surrounding individual prosecutions. Additional allegations, including allegations of sexual violence, can appear alongside accusations involving same-sex activity. Those distinctions must remain intact.

A capital prosecution cannot automatically be described as punishment for consensual intimacy if the available record contains separate allegations. At the same time, an official allegation should not be treated as established fact merely because authorities included it in a criminal case. The central question must remain evidence: who was harmed, what coercion occurred, what testimony supports the allegation, how was that evidence obtained, and whether the evidence can be independently examined.

Without those answers, the language of criminality can conceal more than it reveals. It can transform complicated human relationships into a simplified security narrative in which the identities and solidarity of LGBTQ+ people become evidence of wrongdoing rather than part of the context in which the case developed.

The Officials Around the Case

Institutional responsibility is easier to establish than personal responsibility for every decision made within an institution. Hossein Taeb headed the IRGC Intelligence Organization when Sareh was arrested in October 2021. On 23 June 2022, IRGC spokesperson Ramezan Sharif announced that Hossein Salami had appointed Mohammad Kazemi to replace Taeb. Kazemi had previously headed the IRGC Intelligence Protection Organization.

This chronology identifies which senior officials occupied particular positions during the arrest, detention and later proceedings. It does not establish that Taeb, Kazemi or Salami personally ordered Sareh's arrest, wrote the charges or instructed interrogators to mistreat her. Those conclusions would require more specific evidence.

The distinction matters because the IRGC Intelligence Organization and the Intelligence Protection Organization are separate structures. Treating every security institution as interchangeable may produce a politically convenient narrative, but it makes genuine accountability more difficult. If responsibility is to be established, investigators need to determine which institution had authority over which operation, which officials exercised that authority and what records connect individual decisions to particular outcomes.

The judiciary formed another part of the process. Amnesty addressed its 2022 appeal to judiciary chief Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei, reflecting his position at the head of the institution responsible for judicial remedies. Again, institutional authority is not the same as authorship of a particular verdict.

A serious investigation would therefore need to move beneath titles and institutional names. Arrest orders, interrogation assignments, detention registers, access-to-counsel records, charging decisions and judicial treatment of allegations of coercion would provide a more meaningful basis for accountability. Names matter. Chains of command matter. But neither should substitute for evidence.

The Death Sentences Were Overturned. The System Remained.

The death sentences were not the end of the case. Amnesty reported that Iran's Supreme Court overturned the convictions and death sentences in late December 2022 and ordered retrials. Sareh was released on bail on 18 March 2023, several days after Choubdar's release.

That correction is essential. Any account that leaves the two women permanently facing execution would be inaccurate. But the reversal of a death sentence does not necessarily mean that the machinery surrounding the prosecution disappeared.

In February 2024, Hengaw reported that Choubdar had again been arrested to serve a three-year prison sentence imposed after retrial. The organization placed that sentence in autumn 2023. The sequence illustrates why the later history of the case matters. A death sentence being overturned is not the same as an acquittal. Release on bail is not the same as the end of a prosecution. A retrial is not the same as institutional accountability.

The UN experts who intervened in September 2022 called for the executions to be halted, the sentences annulled and allegations of abuse investigated. The public record does not establish precisely what effect international pressure had on the later reversal. It does establish, however, that a case connected to LGBTQ+ advocacy reached the point at which two women faced execution.

That fact cannot be erased by the later retreat from the death penalty.

The deeper question remains whether LGBTQ+ people in Iran can organize, communicate, help one another and seek safety without those relationships being transformed into evidence of corruption or a security threat. Until that question has a reliable answer, the danger exposed by the Urmia case extends far beyond one courtroom.

A state does not need to execute every defendant to make solidarity dangerous. Sometimes the possibility is enough.