MAHMOUD AHMADINEJAD
Islam forbids homosexuality and Sharia (Islamic religious law) prescribes death as the penalty for homosexuality. At that time Iran was a Muslim theocracy and if there were overt homosexuality that was officially discovered, the heretics would be killed. The logic of the government was that since they had killed the homosexuals, there were none left. At the same time all the research showed that while Muslim homosexuality was slightly less than Christian, it was still quite significant in all Muslim cultures that had been studied. If the President was to be believed, Iran was the only exception.
In contemporary Iran, no one has any freedom in the International and Western sense of freedom. There is no freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, freedom to travel, freedom of the press, freedom of dress, or other fundamental freedoms of not only the West but the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights. However, within those restrictions, women tend to be treated more equally than in other Islamic Middle Eastern nations. Not completely equal as they have many additional restrictions that males do not have, but they can work, freely, teach and hold some positions of responsibility and power which women may not do in much of the Islamic world.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (Persian: محمود احمدینژاد, romanized: Mahmūd Ahmadīnežād [mæhmuːd(-e) æhmædiːneʒɒːd] (listen)), born Mahmoud Sabbaghian, is an Iranian conservative politician who served as the sixth President of Iran from 2005 to 2013. He was also the main political leader of the Alliance of Builders of Islamic Iran, a coalition of conservative political groups in the country, and served as mayor of Tehran from 2003 to 2005.
