#irqr

[middleeasternsarecool]

Arsham Parsi

Arsham is an LGBT activist from Iran, founder and head of the “IRQR” (Iranian Railroad for Queer Refugees) in Canada. In 2001 Arsham formed an LGBT Group called “Tangin Kaman”, wich was later renamed “PGLO” (Persian Gay and Lesbian Organization) wich later became the foundation for “IRQO” (Iranian Queer Organization). Wich he left to found “IRQR” wich was to provide service for LGBT Iranians worldwide. He secretly worked in advancing civil rights for Irans gay and lesbian people and helped organize a Yahoo chat with about 50 participants that exchanged views and discussed how to achieve civil rights in Iran. He was the executive director of the “Iranian Queer Organization” and director of the online magazine “Cheraq”.

[bostonreview]

Outing Iran

Zangeneh has spent years exploring his Persian heritage. He studied figures such as Cyrus the Great, who was known for his tolerance of different religions, cultures, and ideas. He fell in love with the Shahnameh, or Book of Kings, an epic poem that chronicles Persian history from the earliest days until the rise of Islam.

“I chose my name from one of the characters in [the Shahnameh],” he says. “But in Iran I was not allowed to legally change my Islamic name.”

He started using “Kiarash” anyway six years ago, when he was twenty years old and entering the gay community. He was living in Isfahan, Iran’s third-largest city, and working as a graphic designer.

“No one called me by my birth name,” he says of that time. “It was always Kia or Kiarash. And I started to think it was better to use this name. Maybe the police were going to catch me.” Homosexuality is illegal in Iran, and persecution is common.

The alias provided only so much security. By the summer of 2010, he heard for the second time that police were looking for a Kiarash Zangeneh. This was not a complete surprise. He had been volunteering for a Canada-based gay-rights organization called the Iranian Railroad for Queer Refugees (IRQR). Through IRQR Zangeneh met with gay and transgendered Iranians in public places, and at times helped them explain their orientation to their families. He also helped publish news of discrimination against homosexuals in Iran.

Not only gay, but also a queer activist, he knew the police would target him. After learning that authorities were questioning his friends and family, Zangeneh made the difficult decision to leave his country. “My last day in Iran I was thinking, ‘Okay, I will go away for at most three months,’” he recalls. “Some people I didn’t even say goodbye to. My parents, I didn’t hug them, like really strongly.”

Zangeneh fled in August of 2010. He hitchhiked alone, 2,000 miles across the Turkish border and on to Istanbul. It didn’t take long to realize that this was no brief escape.

From "Outing Iran" by David William Turner (Boston Review, Jan/Feb 2012)

[projectqueer]

From http://digatisdi.tumblr.com/:

About the Organisation:

The IRQR exists to support Iranian Queers around the world. Due to Iran’s tyrannical laws in regards to the Iranian LBGT community many Iranian Queers choose to flee Iran in order to secure their physically safety (as homosexuality is a crime punishable by corporal punishment and even death in Iran). Although we recognize that Queers in many countries face a range of similar challenges we are only able to assist self-identified Queers from Iran.

IRQR is an international, non for profit, queer human rights organization based in Toronto, Canada. We help Iranian gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered refugees all over the world. We help when Iranian queers are threatened with deportation back to Iran. We also assist Iranian queers in obtaining asylum in friendly countries.

When Iranian queer people flee persecution in Iran, they generally go to Turkey. The United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) interviews these refugees and decides whether their case for asylum is valid. If they are granted asylum status, the UNHCR finds a new country for each person on base of their profile.

IRQR helps these refugees through the process and, whenever possible, provides funds for safe houses from donations, since Turkey is also a homophobic and transphobic society and queer people are not physically safe there either.

IRQR’s PROJECTS

Our aim is to enlighten those who are queer and to educate those who oppose homosexuality due to a lack of correct information and sexual education.

Due to intolerance in Iran, there is no way to freely research sexuality and other issues of orientation. The lack of complete and important information prevents many Iranian queers from having a clear insight into their current lives or from making plans to achieve a brighter future.

Through our Persian magazine for queer people and through a weekly radio program called RAHA (“Liberated”) we can reach more people. We would like to broadcast this radio program by satellite, so that those without access to the Internet will be able to listen to us.

We would like to provide at least one TV program to more effectively enrich our social culture in all its aspects, including sexuality. However, reaching this point will require us to have sufficient human and financial resources.

Providing and broadcasting these media programs costs money, but we are happy to work for and pay for projects and programs that can enlighten our LGBT brothers and sisters.

We must do our best to end the current lack of self-recognition and self-confidence among queer people and to prevent frequent tragedies, such as suicide.

Special thanks to http://digatisdi.tumblr.com/ for bringing this to my attention.

[fesenjoon]

“Our most important challenge is not by white Canadians, because most of them are welcoming. They know Canada receives many immigrants… and they can contribute to this country,” says Parsi. “Our problem is by Iranian communities. Not all of them, but most Iranian people who live in Canada, they don’t know about queer rights and they don’t support it.”

- Arsham Parsi, executive director of the Iranian Railroad for Queer Refugees (IRQR) based in Toronto, on his opinion of Iranian-Canadians and queer rights. Read more at http://www.xtra.ca/public/National/Iranian_people_stive_to_be_heard-10382.aspx