Iran uses 'electric shocks' on LGBT children, UN report finds

During the forty-sixth session of the Human Rights Council, special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran Javaid Rehman expressed worry over the way lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) children are treated.

"The Special Rapporteur is also concerned at reports that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender children were subjected to electric shocks and the administration of hormones and strong psychoactive medications," the report said.

"These practices amount to torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, and violate the State's obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child."

The report highlights how LGBT persons experience discrimination as well as "reparative" therapies in Iran, and can face death penalty for same sex activities.

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They are also tortured, beaten and raped by law enforcement and vigilantes, the report adds.

Senior officials describe the community in hateful terms, including by labelling individuals as "subhuman" and "diseased".

The report says that those acts are "largely under-reported due to the victims' fear of persecution".

Transsexuality was legalised in Iran in 1987, which is second in the world in its number of trans surgeries.

But prominent LGTB activists have told the Sun Online that these procedures are part of a disturbing programme fuelled by homophobia, since homosexuality is illegal.

Iranian-born activist Shadi Amin told the newspaper that the Iranian regime views being gay as an "illness" and that the only cure is to change the person's gender.

"The government believes that if you are a gay man your soul is that of a woman and you should change your body," Amin said.

"We think this is a way to fight the existence of homosexual people because you change their body and you solve the problem."

Under Sharia law in Iran, homosexual intercourse between men can be punished by death.

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