Iran Hires Btselem To Out Homosexuals

“Our values dovetail in several major respects.”

Tehran, January 21 – To enhance its ability to identify and apprehend homosexuals, the Islamic Republic of Iran has contracted with the human rights organization Btselem, following revelations two weeks ago that the group engaged activists who reported Palestinians to the Palestinian Authority for selling land to Jews, a capital offense under Palestinian law. Homosexuality is similarly banned under pain of death in Iran.

A spokesman for Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s Supreme Leader, announced the arrangement this morning after the latter conducted a series of conversations as to the terms of the contract and the methodology to be employed. Hangdeh Fagzai convened a press conference to inform the public of the deal, which will begin as a pilot program for six months. If both parties to the agreement find it satisfactory, said Fagzai, the contract calls for the arrangement to continue until 2020.

“Btselem is a leader in discovering and publicizing activities that are an affront to people of conscience,” proclaimed Fagzai. “Since homosexuality is an affront to God and to any moral human, it was only natural that we would seek to engage them in our own pursuit of a more moral, clean society.”

A representative of Btselem sounded a similar tone. “Our organization has long envisioned cooperative ventures with like-minded bodies across the region,” said Malshin Sokel, Btselem’s Director of International Projects. “Iran has emerged as the region’s most important power, and we relish the opportunity to work with them, since our values dovetail in several major respects.”

A person with knowledge of the talks but who spoke on condition of anonymity told PreOccupied Territory that Btselem had initially insisted on using only its own people for the project, but reluctantly agreed to accept observers provided by Tehran. In the end, however, the observers Iran intended to provide were none other than Btselem’s colleagues from the organization Breaking the Silence, and all the tension over personnel evaporated.

Experts in NGO-government relations expressed cautious optimism at the arrangement. “This is an incredible opportunity for Btselem to place itself on the map beyond its critiques of Israeli policies and behavior, and further burnish its credibility,” explained Rachel Liel, head of the New Israel Fund’s operations in Israel. “But they will have to work hard to translate their expertise in anti-government activity into government-serving activities. They already showed a willingness and some ability to do that in defending activists’ ratting on Palestinian land sellers, with the explanation that they were simply apprising the Palestinian Authority of violations of the law. The same principles can be in play in Iran.”