Amnesty International has put pressure on Iran to free an Iranian LGBTIQ+ activist, currently being held three months after an appearance in a documentary on gay rights in Iraqi Kurdistan.
Zahra Sedighi-Hamadan was arrested last October by Iranian Revolutionary Guards, while seeking to flee a neighbouring Turkey.
Iran’s penal code currently explicitly criminalises same-sex sexual behaviour for both men and women, and Amnesty said the charges stemmed from her public defence of LBTIQ+ rights on her social media platforms about abuses that LGBTIQ+ people suffer in Kurdistan Region of northern Iraq.