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Human Rights Watch, one of the world’s leading independent organisations dedicated to defending and protecting human rights, emphasised, “[we have] not been able to confirm the
methods and capabilities of the government when it comes to monitoring LGBT sites, nor [have we] secured evidence suggesting that Iran’s security forces or judiciary have engaged in a 27
This quote appears on page
systematic campaign to target and entrap gay men and other members of Iran’s LGBT community”.27 However, in six pages
54 of the Human Rights Watch
of first hand testimony, they narrate the stories of those who
“We Are a Buried Generation”,
shows the practice to be an extremely dangerous reality for
report
which is available for free
download from http://www. hrw.org/reports/2010/12/15/
we-are-buried-generation
have suffered various forms of online entrapment, which homosexual Iranians.
In an interview with Ynet News, activist and blogger Faruh said, “Intelligence agents fix meetings with homosexuals over the net
and set a trap” (Cohen 2010). Faruh worked with Human Rights Watch to send a message to all of the Iranian users of Manjam to warn them of the perceived danger, but the message does not seem to have deterred Iranians from using the service.
While the internet opens up very real possibilities for members of Iran’s minority communities, it also poses some very real
risks. One of the most common ways the LGBT rights move-
ment is suppressed is through the targeted filtering of LGBTspecific content and, in the next section, we use the story of
Ketabkhaneh88 to illustrate the detrimental effect censorship, in its various forms, is having on Iran’s LGBT community.