Demonstrators took to the streets in cities throughout Europe and the United States on Aug. 11 to protest the fundamentalist Islamic government of Iran's hanging of two Iranian teenagers for a crime involving homosexual acts.

On July 19, 18-year-old Ayaz Marhoni and 17-year-old Mahmoud Asgari were hanged in Mashhad, a city in northeastern Iran. The Iranian Students' News Agency (ISNA), a state-controlled wire service, posted photographs on its Web site of the blindfolded youths being strung up by two hooded hangmen. But questions remain about what the actual charges against the two boys were. Some English language translations of the accusations state that the two were executed simply for consensual homosexual activity, while other versions claim that the boys were charged with raping a 13-year-old boy at knifepoint. It has also been reported that the boys were held for 14 months in prison and tortured before the hanging.

In an extensive article by Richard Kim posted on The Nation's Web site, Scott Long of Human Rights Watch warns that the conclusion that the rape charge is trumped up is taken primarily from a translation from the Web site of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, an opposition group in Iran that is considered a terrorist organization by the United States, Canada and the European Union.

"A Web site which has a tendentious record of distorting Iranian news in the name of its political agenda omitted the reference to rape. That's not enough, in my view, to support all the sweeping and speculative claims that have been made," Kim wrote.

Among those accepting the consensual sex scenario is the British gay rights organization, OutRage!, which organized a protest outside the Iranian Embassy in London on Aug. 11. "This is just the latest barbarity by the Islamo-fascists in Iran. The entire country is a gigantic prison, with Islamic rule sustained by detention without trial, torture and state-sanctioned murder," OutRage!'s Peter Tatchell said in a press release.

A crowd of approximately 50 protested in San Francisco's Harvey Milk Plaza, in the heart of the Castro district. Mayor Gavin Newsom, who defied California law in 2004 by issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples, spoke at the event. "I am both outraged and appalled by what can only be described as a most horrific atrocity affecting human lives in Iran," Newsom said. "The hanging of two teenage boys for their alleged sexual orientation is an affront not only to justice but to all of our sense of humanity."

A crowd of about 100 in Dublin, Ireland, protested outside the Iranian Embassy, and in Paris, more than 150 people gathered outside the Pompidou Centre. Two weeks earlier, on July 27, protesters marched outside the Iranian Consulate in Milan, Italy, and the next day, a group protested outside the Iranian Embassy in Rome.

According to Iran's Islamic sharia law, homosexual acts are punishable by death. The punishment can include hanging, stoning, being cut in half by a sword, or dropped from a tall building. The law also allows for the execution of convicted boys as young as 15 and girls as young as 9. Since 1990, Iran ranks second in the world in the number of juvenile executions, with 14 on record. The United States, where the Supreme Court banned the execution of minors in March 2005, is number one with 19.

Even if the rape charges against the Iranian boys prove legitimate, the hangings violate the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Iran is a signatory.

Many have called for the United States to condemn the hangings. Representatives Barney Frank (D-Mass.), Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), and Tom Lantos (D-Calif.) have sent a letter to Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice urging the U.S. government to find out the facts.

"The exact details of the case remain unclear, and because the conflicting reports about the nature of the charges against the two boys make it difficult to react appropriately, we urge the State Department to do everything it can to clarify the circumstances of this case," their letter reads. San Francisco Supervisor Bevan Dufty has written to Rice separately. To date, the state department has not taken a stand on the issue and the United States does not maintain diplomatic relations with Iran.

Anglican Clergy Won't Stay Celibate in Partnerships

As of Dec. 5, 2005, same-sex domestic partners will have the opportunity to register in the United Kingdom and enjoy many of the same benefits afforded married couples, as provided by the new Civil Partnership law. Gay activists in England claim that as many as 700 clergy members will take advantage of this new law. However, reports the British newspaper The Telegraph, a number of gay clergy are planning to register their domestic partnerships but not adhere to the Anglican Church's insistence that they remain celibate.

In late July the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams approved a report from the House of Bishops stating that Anglican clergy may register their same-sex partnerships, but must give their diocesan bishop assurances that they will not be sexually active. It is unclear how such priests would be disciplined if they refuse to abide by the celibacy restriction.

In May, the Times of London quoted one anonymous bishop as saying, "We all have clergy in gay partnerships in our dioceses and there is a genuine reluctance on the part of a number of us to make their lives more difficult."

Transgender Recruits to Serve in Thai Military

On Aug. 10, Thailand's military lifted a longstanding ban on transgender recruits serving in the armed forces. The country operates a draft, with all men obligated to register at age 20. Each year recruits are selected from a random lottery, but transgender recruits have historically been turned away under a "mental disorder" exemption. Records indicate that between 1-2 percent of the military's approximately 80,000 new recruits each year are transgender.

Lt. Gen. Arthorn Lohitkul, director general of the Army Reserve Command, told the Associated Press, "The existing conscription law has been promulgated since 1954, when there were few homosexuals and transvestites. But society is changing very fast, so the army is in the process of amending the law and omitting those words from the certificate."

"No employer wants to hire anyone with a record of mental disorder to work in his company," noted Natee Theerarojnaphongm, a gay activist who led the campaign to remove the "mental disorder" label from transgender citizens. Among the celebrities involved in the campaign was former kick boxer Parinya Charoenphol, who underwent gender reassignment surgery in 1999 to become a woman. PlanetOut quoted her telling a Thai television station, "The words 'mental disorder' marked on the certificate seriously affects our lives."

FDA to Share Generic Drug Approvals with WHO

In a move that is expected to help accelerate the distribution of lower-cost AIDS drugs in many African nations, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has quietly agreed to share confidential drug approval information with the World Health Organization, The Boston Globe reported on Aug. 14. The agreement will enable the WHO to streamline its own drug approval processes, making more drugs available to African nations that insist on WHO approval before accepting new drugs.

Despite strong criticism from AIDS activists, the $15 billion U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief has distributed only name brand drugs in developing countries, with officials insisting that any generic medications must first pass FDA approval. Over the last year, nine new generic AIDS drugs have met with FDA approval, but many African nations, including Nigeria, Uganda, Ethiopia, and Tanzania, would not accept the drugs without a "prequalification" rating from the WHO. The new agreement to share information will allow that distribution to go forward.

"The WHO promised us it is a matter of a week, two weeks, less than a month" before the new drugs will receive the necessary approval, a senior U.S. Health and Human Services official told The Globe.

"The fact that effective treatment for HIV/AIDS is available [in developing countries] is encouraging people at risk to show up in unprecedented numbers for testing and counseling." Jim Yong Kim, WHO's director of the department of HIV/AIDS, wrote in a July op-ed in Canada's Globe and Mail. This increase in testing will inevitably lead to an increase in the number of people requiring treatment, making the availability of lower-cost generic drugs a major factor in stretching resources to serve more people.

"The absence of WHO approval has been the main hitch," Dr. James Makumbi, chairman of Uganda's National Drug Authority, told The Globe.

Japanese Politician Comes Out at Pride

Kanako Otsuji, a 30-year-old member of the Osaka prefecture Assembly in Japan, publicly came out as a lesbian during Tokyo's Pride festivities on Aug. 13. The independent politician, first elected in 2003, has an autobiography due out this fall titled Coming Out: A Journey to Find Yourself, in which she discusses falling in love with a woman and feeling unable to share her happiness with friends and family because she was closeted.