Gay Iranians to President: “We Are Everywhere”

Gay Iranians are sending a message via a new Facebook group — “We are everywhere.”

London’s Guardian first noted that a string of anonymous Iranians were proclaiming their homosexuality in videos posted on the “We are everywhere” Facebook group as a protest. They live in a country that not only recently executed three men for gay sex but has a president who denies their existence.

Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, once famously told a reporter during a news conference, “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.”

The country has also banned “glamorous haircuts,” necklaces for men, and even proposed banishing little dogs. The rules are enforced by an army of 70,000 moral fashion police.

Iran recognizes that Internet organizing can be effective. The country once tried shutting down Internet connections because of the danger it posed to the regime in 2009 during an uprising of the “Green Movement,” which reacted with unrest to a fishy presidential election there.

via Lucas Grindley, The Advocate